Academic in tone, The #DualState sketches a template of emerging #tyranny distilled from bloody & horrifying experience.

As Fraenkel explained it, a #lawless #dictatorship does not arise simply by snuffing out the ordinary #legal system of rules, procedures, & precedents. To the contrary, that system—which he called the “normative state”—remains in place while dictatorial power spreads across society. What happens, Fraenkel explained, is insidious.

In this prerogative state, #judges & other legal actors deferred to the #racist hierarchies & ruthless expediencies of the #Nazi regime.

The key here is that this prerogative state does not immediately & completely overrun the normative state. Rather, Fraenkel argued, #dictatorships create a #lawless zone that runs alongside the normative state. The 2 states cohabit uneasily & unstably. On any given day, people or cases could be jerked out of the normative state & into the prerogative one.