The thesis researches the intimate relation between bare human life, which is politically unrecognized and unsanctioned, and the legal order, which is established and maintained by sovereign power. In the case of Hungary’s anti-migration politics between 2015 and 2017, the government is systematically dehumanizing and degrading migrants, from the so-called third countries, to the level of bare life, and therefore they are exposed to brutal violence and oppression from the authorities, without any mediation of rights and laws. According to G. Agamben, the establishment of the political field in the metaphysical tradition of the West is possible only through the exclusion of bare life, which is included only through its capacity to be killed with impunity. However, in the time of mass migratory movements through the Balkans in 2015 and 2016, it was the power of migrants which forced the creation of a non-legal, state-organized transit from the Greek islands to the north of Europe. I am arguing that the temporary and “progressive” suspension of border regimes and laws was used by European authorities to reestablish order and control. Nevertheless, for a short period of time, the potential to resolve the tension between bare life and the legal order appeared, in which the needs of people would prevail.
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