A reading of the 2010 declaration of a state of alarm in Spain: A threshold of indistinction between the inside and the outside of the law

A Schmittian idea underpins democratic constitutions: when chaos threatens order, the democratic constitutions allow the suspension of the law for its preservation. That is, constitutions envisage the possibility of suspending the rights of some individuals in order to safeguard the normal life ?whatever may be understood by «normality»? of the State. The aim of this paper is to examine what, in our opinion, constitutes a recent example of such a phenomenon in contemporary Spain: the illegal strike carried out by the Spanish air traffic controllers in December 2010 and the state of alarm that the Spanish government declared as a response to it. In our opinion, this case illustrates the complex ways in which the law is at work even when it seems it is not. By exploring this phenomenon we will also show three of the collateral effects of democracy.