This chapter examines the transformative potential of emergency as manifested in the context of the interwar period. By means of a legal historical examination of the uses of the state of siege and emergency legislation, it challenges the essentially conservative nature of emergency measures and reflects on the conceptual and material contiguity between emergency regimes and authoritarian legality. It argues, based on historical evidence, that rather than being a temporary measure meant to protect and secure the constitutional order, an emergency has the potential to change constitutional arrangements by developing a level of autonomy that materializes in a parallel legality. By scrutinizing the historical context of Romania between 1919 and 1938, it aims to capture how contexts of crisis have determined a new rewriting of the constitution, culminating in King Carol II’s dictatorship. First, this chapter will produce a periodization of emergency measures enacted during this time. It will thus identify and reflect on emergency as a response to the October revolution and its use in the process of state-building, a period of stabilization, and a return of emergency as a consequence of the financial crisis, and the rise of the far-right. Second, it will uncover the necessary relation between economic, political and social context and its impact on constitutional thought and praxis. By reflecting on the ways in which emergency operates as a link between these contexts, this chapter will reflect on how the context exerts pressure over foundational constitutional concepts. Last, turning towards the internal perspective of law officials towards the uses of emergency, it considers emergency as “authoritarianism in the making.”