The Contemporary Relevance of Carl Schmitt

Law, Politics, Theology

What does Carl Schmitt have to offer to ongoing debates about sovereignty, globalization, spatiality, the nature of the political, and political theology? Can Schmitt’s positions and concepts offer insights that might help us understand our concrete present-day situation? Works on Schmitt usually limit themselves to historically isolating Schmitt into his Weimar or post-Weimar context, to reading him together with classics of political and legal philosophy, or to focusing exclusively on a particular aspect of Schmitt’s writings. Bringing together an international, and interdisciplinary, range of contributors, this book explores the question of Schmitt’s relevance for an understanding of the contemporary world. Engaging the background and intellectual context in which Schmitt wrote his major works – often with reference to both primary and secondary literature unavailable in English – this book will be of enormous interest to legal and political theorists.