Carl Schmitt S International Thought

Analyses the twentieth century international order through the ideas of German political theorist and Nazi sympathiser Carl Schmitt.

Presenting the first critical analysis of Carl Schmitt's The Nomos of the Earth and how it relates to the epochal changes in the international system that have risen from the collapse of the ‘Westphalian’ international order. There is an emerging recognition in political theory circles that core issues, such as order, social justice, rights, need to be studied in their global context. Schmitt’s international political thought provides a stepping stone in these related paths, offering an alternative history of international relations, of the genesis, achievements and demise of the ‘Westphalian system.’ Writing at a time when he believed that the spatial, political and legal order—the nomos of the earth—had collapsed, he highlighted the advent of the modern state as the vehicle of secularization, tracing how this interstate order was able to limit and ‘rationalize and humanize’ war. Providing a large number of case studies including: global terrorism, humanitarian intervention and US hegemony, this book will give further impetus to, and expand, the nascent debate on the significance of Schmitt’s legal and political thought for international politics. The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, law and history.

An unrepentant Nazi, Carl Schmitt remains one of the most divisive figures in twentieth century political thought. In recent years, his ideas have attracted a new and growing audience. This book seeks to cut through the controversy surrounding Schmitt to analyse his ideas on world order. In so doing, it takes on board Schmitt's critique of the condition of order in late modernity, and considers Schmitt's continued relevance. Consideration is given to the two devices Schmitt deploys, the Grossraum and the Partisan, and argues that neither concept lives up to its claim to transcend or reform Schmitt's pessimistic history of the state. The author concludes that Schmitt's continuing value lies in his provocative historical critique, rather than his conceptual innovation.

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was one of the 20th century's most brilliant and disturbing critics of liberalism. He was also one of the most important intellectuals to offer his services to the Nazis, for which he was dubbed the crown jurist of the Third Reich. Despite this fateful alliance Schmitt has exercised a profound influence on post-war European political and legal thought - on both the right and the left. In this study, Jan-Werner Muller traces the permutations of Schmitt's ideas after World War II and relates them to broader political developments in Europe. his key concepts, Muller explains why interest in the political theorist continues. He assesses the uses of Schmitt's thought in debates on globalization and the quest for a liberal world order. He also offers insights into the liberalization of political thinking in post-authoritarian societies and the persistent vulnerabilities and blind spots of certain strands of Western liberalism.

Carl Schmitt is a key figure in modern political thought, but discussion of his work often focuses upon specific elements or themes within his texts. This book provides a wide-ranging discussion of Carl Schmitt’s discourse and provides a new perspective on his contribution, presenting the idea of Nomos of the Earth as the key idea that organizes his political and legal discourse This book creates a ‘reverse genealogy’ of Schmitt’s theoretical system, starting from his legal and political concept of nomos so as to reconstruct his understanding of order. It connects the different topics the Carl Schmitt developed along his intellectual trajectory, which have generally been approached in separate ways by scholars: the legal theory, the concept of the political, the theory of international relations and political theology. The text considers the whole of Carl Schmitt’s work including writings that have been previously unknown to the English speaking academy; old journals with just three or four pages, newspaper articles, manuscripts of conferences, and Festschrifts.Itprovides a balanced examination of the whole complex of Carl Schmitt’s political discourse.

There continues to be a remarkable revival in academic interest in Carl Schmitt's thought within politics and social theory but this is the first book to address his thought from an explicitly legal theoretical perspective. Transcending the prevailing one-sided and purely historical focus on Schmitt’s significance for debates that took place in the Weimar Republic 1919-1933, this book addresses the actual and potential significance of Schmitt's thought for controversies within contemporary Anglo-American legal theory that have emerged during the past three decades. These include: the critique of liberal forms of legal positivism; the relative ‘indeterminacy’ of legal doctrine and the need for an explicitly interpretative approach to its range of meanings, their scope and policy rationale; the centrality of discretion and judicial law-making within the legal process; the important role played by ideological prejudices and assumptions in legal reasoning; the reinterpretation of law as a form of strategically disguised politics; the legal theoretical critique of universalistic approaches to "human" rights and associated liberal-cosmopolitan 'ideologies of humanity,' including the rhetoric of 'humanitarian intervention'; and the limitations of liberal constitutionalism and liberalism more generally as an approach to law. In Carl Schmitt: Law as Politics, Ideology and Strategic Myth, the author provides an overview and assessment of Schmitt's thought, as well as a consideration of its relevance for contemporary legal thought and debates.

Carl Schmitt's friend/enemy principle is exposed to in-depth philosophical analysis and historical examination with the aim of showing that the political follows hostility, violence and terror as form follows matter. The book argues that the partisan is an umbrella concept that includes the national and global terrorist.