Beyond Conventions: Alternative Logics of Campaign-Style Governance from the Perspective of Sovereign Decision-Making

Abstract

Campaign-style governance, as a distinctive national governance mechanism in China, constitutes a pivotal research topic in the field of public administration. Current research, whose theoretical framework is rooted in the practices of the country’s transitional period, confronts challenges including ambiguous triggering factors and the tension between "transcendence" (breaking bureaucratic norms) and "normalization" (long-term effectiveness and institutionalization) amid deepening legal development. This paper introduces the theory of sovereign decision-making proposed by Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, arguing that campaign-style governance is essentially a national movement initiated by the sovereign to suspend laws and integrate the bureaucratic system under a state of exception(SOE). Its "normalization" essentially denotes a process wherein the state addresses institutional gaps via extraordinary measures, thereby converting the state of exception into a new norm—rather than a process of self-normalization or ritualization. This framework not only accounts for the survival logic of campaign-style governance in the era of advanced legalization but also offers a cross-institutional comparative theoretical perspective for understanding the "normalization of states of exception" in contemporary nations.