Addressed to the audience. Parabasis and political theology in HOUSE OF CARDS

The present paper examines the Netflix series HOUSE OF CARDS (2013 ff.) for a political critique of situations of exception. In opposition to Christian Kirchmeier's article in the same issue, this text argues that the series can only deal with the legitimation of authority in parliamentary democracy in the logic of exception. With the use of certain theoretical conceptions, for example the conception of legitimation by procedure [Legitimation als Verfahren] within the early systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, the definition of souvereignty by Carl Schmitt which was radicalised by a logic of exception by Giorgio Agamben, a version of a (even apocalyptical) political theology by Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin or Ernst H. Kantorowicz. The paper focuses on the gesture of a parabasis and its function to address and to create a political audience.