Initially the subject of widespread consensus, legislative and policy responses to COVID‐19 are increasingly provoking predictable reactions. Right and left are united by concern that essential freedoms are being eroded by a state utilizing the opportunity of the pandemic to make a power grab. Focused on the Coronavirus Act 2020, this article takes a more cautious approach, suggesting that the law should be understood not as the product of a hierarchical state but as a demonstration of the ‘statelessness’ of the contemporary state. It examines the Act with particular focus on open justice, adult social care, and Business Improvement Districts. Reading this unique piece of legislation through the lens of the stateless state reveals the complexities, ambiguities, and contestations within contemporary policy making. Dismissing the Act as unnecessarily authoritarian is an insufficiently nuanced response; furthermore, this exploration of the law allows us to develop and complicate scholarship on the stateless state.

中文翻译：

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为大流行立法：揭露无国籍国家

最初，关于COVID-19的广泛共识，立法和政策对策越来越引起可预见的反应。左右是统一的，担心一个国家利用大流行的机会夺取了权力，从而侵蚀了基本自由。本文着重于《 2020年冠状病毒法案》，采取了更为谨慎的态度，表明该法律不应被理解为等级制国家的产物，而应被理解为当代国家“无状态”的例证。它审查了该法，特别侧重于公开司法，成人社会关怀和商业改善区。通过无国籍国家的视角来阅读这一独特的立法，可以揭示当代政策制定过程中的复杂性，歧义和争论。视该法为不必要的专制，是一种不够细微的反应；此外，对法律的这种探索使我们能够发展无国籍状态的学术并使之复杂化。