This article examines the concept of the state of exception in the works of Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben, with particular attention to its role in understanding the relation between law and life. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s analysis of biopolitics, it addresses the problem of how different modalities of power intersect in modern political theory.\r\nWhile Schmitt defines sovereignty through the decision on the exception, thereby grounding the legal order in a moment of political decision, Agamben reinterprets the exception as a structural relation in which law and its suspension coexist. The article argues that Agamben radicalizes Schmitt’s theory by transforming the exception from a decision into a structure that mediates the relation between sovereign power and individual life. Through an analysis of the Roman institution of iustitium, it shows how the exception produces a zone of indistinction in which life is included in the juridical order through its exclusion.\r\nIn doing so, the article demonstrates how Agamben’s theory provides a framework for understanding how modern power captures life.

Keywords: sovereignty, state of exception, Agamben, Schmitt, biopolitics