A pandemia da Covid-19 e o “estado de exceção” na visão de Giorgio Agamben

The article analyzes the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy based on the concepts of emergency and exception, taken as categories (with their identifiable forms and characteristics) through which it is possible to observe reality, with a critical attitude towards events and concrete events. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy are used as a motto to reflect on the role that powers play in the attempt to manage the pandemic chaos. The study is focused on crisis management in Italy. Firstly, because Agamben bases his reflections on the actions and decisions of the Italian government regarding the pandemic; secondly, because it is a concrete example of the exercise of extreme measures, apparently more suitable for a state of emergency than for emergency, which, in most cases, were not even approved by Parliament. In the first section, the text investigates the concepts of emergence and exception and their relationship to sovereignty; next, the study turns to the actions of the Italian government since the beginning of the sanitary alarm related to Covid-19, with specific attention to the compression of freedoms and rights; finally, Agamben’s criticisms will be analyzed and, above all, how they could stimulate a sociological reflection (with specific attention to the legal-political aspects) on the difficult balance between the protection of individual interests, the safeguard of collective health and the conditions that enable both social participation and the action and personal development of individuals as a whole - not only as consumers, social actors or patients, but as “flesh and blood” beings, fragile, sensitive, with an intrinsic specificity that is reflected in your thoughts and feelings.