Totalitarianism theory was one of the ratifying principles of the Cold War, and remains an important component of contemporary political discourse. Its origins, however, are little understood. Although widely seen as a secular product of anticommunist socialism, it was originally a theological notion, rooted in the political theory of Catholic personalism. Specifically, totalitarianism theory was forged by Catholic intellectuals in the mid-1930s, responding to Carl Schmitt's turn to the in 1931. In this essay I explore the notion's formation and circulation (...) through the Catholic public sphere in both France and Austria, where was born as a new form of the traditional Catholic animus against the nation state project. (shrink)

The article analyses recent works by Giorgio Agamben and Eric Santner, who have interpreted Carl Schmitt’s ideas in the context of left-wing political theology. The article traces how the figure of the undead Muslim recurs in the various philosophers and theologians referred to by these two authors. In this way, it shows how contemporary messianic thinkers unknowingly mourned their ‘dead neighbours’, traumatic irritants from which a messianic pearl was born. In order for this pearl to glow with a miraculous light (...) (as Agamben and Santner would wish it to), modern thinking must engage in an act of neighbour-love, whereby it embraces the untimely, undead excarnations (disembodiments) of a history of typological damage. Otherwise, these traumatised and traumatising neighbours remain undead, driven by critical theories of sovereignty. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Carl Schmitt is generally considered as the father of exceptionalism – the theory that the heart of politics lies in the sovereign power to issue emergency measures that suspend everyday normality. This is why his name comes up anytime state governments, whether liberal or not, impose limits on constitutional rights and freedoms to cope with emergencies. This article problematises such a received understanding. It argues that Schmitt held an exceptionalist view for a limited period of time and that even (...) in that period his thinking cannot be regarded as unshakably exceptionalist. This interpretation offers a new entry point to Schmitt’s overall theory. While it can hardly be defended from allegations of reactionary conservatism, it remains a juristic theory of the legal order that tries to answer the question of what ensures the stability of social life. The backdrop of this view is an institutional theory of law and politics that is hardly reconcilable with any form of exceptionalism. In this light, the core of Schmitt’s thinking turns out to be the exaltation of legal science as a jurisgenerative practice that shelters a community’s institutional practices and the traditional identity. (shrink)

Straipsnio tikslas – Carlo Schmitto politinės teologijos statuso analizė. Siekiama įrodyti, kad Schmitto pristatyta koncepcija negali būti suprasta kaip teisės sąvokų sociologija, kaip ją kai kuriuose darbuose apibūdino pats autorius. Ji taip pat negali būti aiškinama kaip teologijos dalis, kaip tai daro daugelis dabartinių interpretuotojų. Schmittas „politinės teologijos“ vardu pavadino politikos teorijai priskirtiną projektą, pagrįstą teologinių prielaidų įvedimu į filosofiją. Tai primena XIX a. katalikų reakcio­nierių Josepho de Maistre’o, Louiso de Bonaldo ir Juano Donoso Corteso politinę filosofiją.

This article offers an in-depth analysis of Carl Schmitt's social ontology to explain how and why he came to reject exceptionalist decisionism. To this end, the authors unearth the considerable shifts in terms of social ontology that paved the way for this conceptual turn. The gist of their argument is that Schmitt's Political Theology (1922) espoused a Hobbesian conception of the political as the possibility condition for stable patters of social interaction. Though the first three chapters of Political Theology were (...) originally designed for and published in a posthumous Festschrift for Max Weber, his understanding of the social was indebted to a Hobbesian legacy. Nonetheless, shortly thereafter, he began to revise his conception of the social and to put stress on the organisational dynamics of social institutions as independent of there being a political authority. From 1927 through to 1950, Schmitt never got back to his 1922 exceptionalist view of politics and rather sought to make sense of how the state could and should draw the contents of the legal order from the normative life of social institutions. (shrink)