Carl Schmitt

Biography

Carl Schmitt was born on July 11, 1888, in Plettenberg, Germany. He studied law at the University of Berlin and held professorships at several German universities, including the University of Bonn, the University of Berlin, and the University of Cologne. Schmitt was initially a prominent legal scholar in the Weimar Republic, but his career was deeply compromised by his participation in the Nazi regime.

Schmitt joined the Nazi Party in 1933 and served as a legal advisor to the regime. He was instrumental in providing legal justifications for the Nazi consolidation of power, including the argument that the Reichstag Fire Decree constituted a legitimate state of exception. After World War II, Schmitt was interned by the Allies and barred from holding academic positions, though he continued to write and influence political thought until his death on April 7, 1985.

Historical Background

Schmitt's political philosophy must be understood in the context of the Weimar Republic, a period of profound political instability in Germany. The Weimar Constitution was unable to reconcile the competing forces of communism, fascism, and liberal democracy. Schmitt's diagnosis of the weaknesses of liberal democracy and parliamentary government was shaped by this crisis.

Schmitt's critique of liberalism focused on its inability to make decisive political decisions. He argued that liberal emphasis on discussion, compromise, and proceduralism paralyzed the state in moments of crisis and left it vulnerable to more decisive political forces. This critique was validated, in his view, by the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism.

Core Ideas

The Friend/Enemy Distinction

Schmitt's most famous thesis is that the political is defined by the distinction between friend and enemy. For Schmitt, the political is not a domain of activity like economics or aesthetics but a criterion of intensity: any conflict, whether religious, economic, or moral, becomes political when it reaches the level of the friend/enemy grouping. The enemy is not a personal opponent but a public adversary who threatens the collective existence of the group.

State of Exception

Schmitt famously defined sovereignty as the power to decide on the state of exception. The sovereign is the one who decides when the normal legal order is suspended and when extraordinary measures are necessary to preserve the existence of the state. This concept challenges liberal legalism, which assumes that law can always be applied to regulate political life.

Decisionism

Decisionism is the theory that legal and political order ultimately rests on a decision that is not itself grounded in law. Schmitt rejected the idea that legal norms could fully govern political life. At the foundation of every legal order is a sovereign decision that cannot be derived from preexisting norms. This decisionism is the basis of his critique of legal positivism and liberal constitutionalism.

Political Theology

Schmitt's famous dictum, "All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts," expresses his thesis that modern political concepts are derived from theological ideas. The sovereign is a secularized version of God, the state of exception is a secularized miracle, and the legal order is a secularized divine order.

Major Works

The Concept of the Political (1927) is Schmitt's most important work. It develops the friend/enemy distinction as the criterion of the political and critiques liberal attempts to depoliticize social life. The book has been enormously influential in contemporary political philosophy, particularly in debates about the nature of the political.

Political Theology (1922) develops the thesis that modern political concepts are secularized theological concepts and introduces the definition of sovereignty as the power to decide on the state of exception. Constitutional Theory (1928) is a systematic analysis of constitutional forms and a defense of the presidency as the guardian of the constitution in the Weimar Republic.

Philosophical Influence

Despite his association with the Nazi regime, Schmitt's work has been taken up by thinkers across the political spectrum. On the left, Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer series draws heavily on Schmitt's analysis of the state of exception to critique contemporary security practices. Chantal Mouffe has used Schmitt's critique of liberalism to develop an agonistic model of democracy.

On the right, Schmitt's work has been influential among conservative and nationalist thinkers who reject liberal internationalism and universal human rights. His critique of liberal democracy has been taken up by theorists of authoritarian populism.

In legal theory, Schmitt's decisionism continues to inform debates about the limits of judicial review, the nature of constitutional interpretation, and the relationship between law and politics.

Related Concepts

Schmitt's thought is closely connected to debates about sovereignty, emergency powers, and the nature of the political. His critique of liberalism resonates with contemporary discussions of populism, democratic backsliding, and the crisis of liberal democracy. His concept of the state of exception has been used to analyze the war on terror, Guantanamo Bay, and the expansion of executive power in modern states.