Law As Politics

by Dyzenhaus, David; Beiner, Ronald (CON); Bielefeldt, Heiner (CON); Bockenforde, Ernst-Wolfgang (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780822322443
• ISBN10: 0822322447
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-11-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

While anti-liberal legal theorist Carl Schmitt has long been considered by Europeans to be one of this century's most significant political philosophers, recent challenges to the fundamental values of liberal democracies have made Schmitt's writings an unavoidable subject of debate in North America as well. In an effort to advance our understanding not only of Schmitt but of current problems of liberal democracy, David Dyzenhaus presents translations of classic German essays on Schmitt alongside more recent writings by distinguished political theorists and jurists. Neither a defence of nor an attack on Schmitt, Law as Politics offers the first balanced response to his powerful critique of liberalism. One of the major players in the 1920s debates, an outspoken critic of the Versailles Treaty and the Weimar Constitution, and a member of the Nazi party who provided juridical respectability to Hitler's policies, Schmitt contended that people are a polity only to the extent that they share common enemies. He saw the liberal notion of a peaceful world of universal citizens as a sheer impossibility and attributed the problems of Weimar to liberalism and its inability to cope with pluralism and political conflict. In the decade since his death, Schmitt's writings have been taken up by both the right and the left and scholars differ greatly in their evaluation of Schmitt's ideas. Law as Politics thematically organises in one volume the varying engagements and confrontations with Schmitt's work and allows scholars to acknowledge-and therefore be in a better position to negotiate-an important paradox inscribed in the very nature of liberal democracy. Law as Politics will interest political philosophers, legal theorists, historians, and anyone interested in Schmitt's relevance to current discussions of liberalism. Contributors: Heiner Bielefeldt, Ronald Beiner, Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenforde, Renato Cristi, David Dyzenhaus, Robert Howse, Ellen Kennedy, Dominique Leydet, Ingeborg Maus, John P. McCormick, Reinhard Mehring, Chantal Mouffe, William E. Scheuerman, Jeffrey Seitzer

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Why Carl Schmitt?

Political Theory And Law

Carl Schmitt's Critique of Liberalism: Systematic Reconstruction and Countercriticism

The Concept of the Political: A Key to Understanding Carl Schmitt's Constitutional Theory

From Legitimacy to Dictatorship — and Back Again: Leo Strauss's Critique of the Anti-Liberalism of Carl Schmitt

Pluralism and the Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy

Liberalism as a "Metaphysical System": The Methodological Structure of Carl Schmitt's Critique of Political Rationalism

Carl Schmitt and the Paradox of Liberal Democracy

Legal Theory And Politics

Carl Schmitt on Sovereignty and Constituent Power

The 1933 "Break" in Carl Schmitt's Theory

The Dilemmas of Dictatorship: Carl Schmitt and Constitutional Emergency Powers

Revolutions and Constitutions: Hannah Arendt's Challenge to Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt's Internal Critique of Liberal Constitutionalsim: Verfassungslehre

as a Response to the Weimar State Crisis

Notes on Contributors

Index

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