The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt collects thirty original chapters on the diverse oeuvre of one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) was a German theorist whose anti-liberalism continues to inspire scholars and practitioners on both the Left and the Right. Despite Schmitt's rabid anti-semitism and partisan legal practice in Nazi Germany, the appeal of his trenchant critiques of, among other things, aestheticism, representative democracy, and international law as well as of his theoretical justifications of dictatorship and rule by exception is undiminished. Uniquely located at the intersection of law, the social sciences, and the humanities, this volume brings together sophisticated yet accessible interpretations of Schmitt's sprawling thought and complicated biography. The contributors hail from diverse disciplines, including art, law, literature, philosophy, political science, and history. In addition to opening up exciting new avenues of research, The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt provides the intellectual foundations for an improved understanding of the political, legal, and cultural thought of this most infamous of German theorists. A substantial introduction places the trinity of Schmitt's thought in a broad context.
This book reexamines the crucial debates on law and politics, which rose during the Weimar Republic. The authors show the continued relevance of these debates for the constitutional culture of the Federal Republic, and indeed for liberal democracy in general.
Can a constitutional democracy commit suicide? Can an illiberal antidemocratic party legitimately obtain power through democratic elections and amend liberalism and democracy out of the constitution entirely? In Weimar Germany, these theoretical questions were both practically and existentially relevant. By 1932, the Nazi and Communist parties combined held a majority of seats in parliament. Neither accepted the legitimacy of liberal democracy. Their only reason for participating democratically was to amend the constitution out of existence. This book analyses Carl Schmitt's state and constitutional theory and shows how it was conceived in response to the Weimar crisis. Right-wing and left-wing political extremists recognized that a path to legal revolution lay in the Weimar constitution's combination of democratic procedures, total neutrality toward political goals, and positive law. Schmitt's writings sought to address the unique problems posed by mass democracy. Schmitt's thought anticipated 'constrained' or 'militant' democracy, a type of constitution that guards against subversive expressions of popular sovereignty and whose mechanisms include the entrenchment of basic constitutional commitments and party bans. Schmitt's state and constitutional theory remains important: the problems he identified continue to exist within liberal democratic states. Schmitt offers democrats today a novel way to understand the legitimacy of liberal democracy and the limits of constitutional change.
The Legitimacy of European Constitutional Orders is a systematic and comparative study of European constitutional orders, which takes into consideration the national constitutional trajectories of European countries, as well as the defining power of EU law. Drawing on a wealth of case studies, this book explores the conceptual tools needed to undertake comparative reconstruction and assessment of national and supranational constitutional developments in the European context.
The present volume provides a variety of perspectives on democratic decay and the erosion of the rule of law, on the re-emergence of popular sovereignty as a political category, and on public reason in an age of 'post-truthism', focusing on the CEE region and South Eastern Europe.
This book argues that the introduction of popular sovereignty as the basis for government in France facilitated a dramatic transformation in international law in the eighteenth century.
What role do the people play in defining and developing human rights? This volume explores the very topical issue of the lack of democratic legitimisation of national and international courts and the question of whether rendering the original process of defining human rights more democratic at the national and international level would improve the degree of protection they afford. The authors venture to raise the crucial question: When can a democratic society be considered to be mature enough so as to be trusted to provide its own definition of human rights obligations?
This landmark volume of specially commissioned, original contributions by top international scholars organizes the issues and controversies of the rich and rapidly maturing field of comparative constitutional law. Divided into sections on constitutional design and redesign, identity, structure, individual rights and state duties, courts and constitutional interpretation, this comprehensive volume covers over 100 countries as well as a range of approaches to the boundaries of constitutional law. While some chapters reference the text of legal instruments expressly labeled constitutional, others focus on the idea of entrenchment or take a more functional approach. Challenging the current boundaries of the field, the contributors offer diverse perspectives - cultural, historical and institutional - as well as suggestions for future research. A unique and enlightening volume, Comparative Constitutional Law is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject.
Hermann Heller was one of the leading public lawyers and legal and political theorists of the Weimar era, whose main interlocutors were two of the giants of twentieth century legal and political thought, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt. In this 1927 work, Hermann Heller addresses the paradox of sovereignty. That is, how the sovereign can be both the highest authority and subject to law. Unlike Kelsen and Schmitt, who seek to dissolve the paradox, Heller sees that the tensions the paradox highlights are an essential part of a society ruled by law. Sovereignty, in the sense of national and popular sovereignty, is often perceived today as being under threat, as power devolves from nation states to international bodies, and important decisions seem increasingly made by elite-dominated institutions. Hermann Heller wrote Sovereignty in 1927 amidst the very similar tensions of the Weimar Republic. In an exploration of history, constitutional and political theory, and international law, Heller speaks clearly to our contemporary concerns, and shows that democrats must defend a legal idea of sovereignty suitable for a pluralistic world.