Carl Schmitt – författare

Carl Schmitt (18881985) var en tysk rättsfilosof som främst gjort sig känd för sina teorier om det suveräna och politisk teologi. Han är en av de mest inflytelserika stats- och folkrättsteoretikerna under 1900-talet. Omstridd inte bara för sina idéer, utan också för sitt nationalsocialistiska engagemang och sin juridiska praktik i tredje riket. Land och hav (1942) beskriver de grundläggande villkoren landet och havet både för den mänskliga existensen och som det avgörande innehållet i såväl internationell rätt som krig. De olika nationernas syn på rummet avgör deras förståelse av politik, krig och fred. I boken ställs frågan om vad som är »jordens nomos« och om det finns möjlighet för en global fred.

Viktor Brylla har översatt och Carl-Göran Heidegren har skrivit efterordet.

Carl Schmitt skrev boken Politisk teologi. Fyra kapitel om begreppet suveränitet under Weimarrepublikens tidiga och tumultartade år. I boken målar han upp en teori som kom att göra honom till en av 1900-talets både mest inflytelserika och kontroversiella politiska teoretiker.

I Politisk teologi fokuserar Schmitt på relationen mellan den rättsliga ordningens normer, den politiska ledningen och inte minst det politiska undantagstillståndet. Carl Schmitt hävdar att samhällets rättsordning i slutändan vilar på suveränens egna beslut. Därför kan endast suveränen svara upp till de behov som en exceptionell tid kräver så att rättsordningen senare skall kunna återupprättas.

I Carl Schmitts teori är den allestädes närvarande möjligheten till konflikt en tvingande ledstjärna för styrelsen av en stat. Staten existerar just för att upprätthålla säkerställa ordning och stabilitet till samhället.

Schmitt menar vidare i Politisk teologi att i stort sett alla begrepp i modernt politiskt tänkande springer ur sekulariserade teologiska begrepp i denna argumentation ryms också en kritik av liberalismen och dess, som han ser det, ovilja att fatta grundläggande politiska beslut. 

Carl Schmitt föddes i Tyskland den 11 juli 1888 (död 7 april 1985). Schmitt var jurist och politisk teoretiker och kom under 30- och 40-talet att vara knuten till den nationalsocialistiska regimen i Tyskland. Som sådan kom han att bli en kritiker av den liberala parlamentariska demokratin. Icke desto mindre har hans tänkande inom politisk- och juridisk teori samt kontinental filosofi haft stort genomslag bland senare tiders intellektuella såsom Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas och Leo Strauss, för att nämna några.

Writings on War collects three of Carl Schmitt''s most important and controversial texts, here appearing in English for the first time: The Turn to the Discriminating Concept of War, The Großraum Order of International Law, and The International Crime of the War of Aggression and the Principle "Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege".

Written between 1937 and 1945, these works articulate Schmitt''s concerns throughout this period of war and crisis, addressing the major failings of the League of Nations, and presenting Schmitt''s own conceptual history of these years of disaster for international jurisprudence. For Schmitt, the jurisprudence of Versailles and Nuremberg both fail to provide for a stable international system, insofar as they attempt to impose universal standards of ''humanity'' on a heterogeneous world, and treat efforts to revise the status quo as ''criminal'' acts of war. In place of these flawed systems, Schmitt argues for a new planetary order in which neither collective security organizations nor 19th century empires, but Schmittian ''Reichs'' will be the leading subject of international law.

Writings on War will be essential reading for those seeking to understand the work of Carl Schmitt, the history of international law and the international system, and interwar European history. Not only do these writings offer an erudite point of entry into the dynamic and charged world of interwar European jurisprudence; they also speak with prescience to a 21st century world struggling with similar issues of global governance and international law.

Legality and Legitimacy is sure to provide a compelling reference point in contemporary debates over the challenges facing constitutional democracies today. In addition to Jeffrey Seitzer’s translation of the 1932 text itself, this volume contains his translation of Schmitt’s 1958 commentary on the work, extensive explanatory notes, and an appendix including selected articles of the Weimar constitution. John P. McCormick’s introduction places Legality and Legitimacy in its historical context, clarifies some of the intricacies of the argument, and ultimately contests Schmitt’s claims regarding the inherent weakness of parliamentarism, constitutionalism, and the rule of law.

Constitutional Theory is a significant departure from Schmitt’s more polemical Weimar-era works not just in terms of its moderate tone. Through a comparative history of constitutional government in Europe and the United States, Schmitt develops an understanding of liberal constitutionalism that makes room for a strong, independent state. This edition includes an introduction by Jeffrey Seitzer and Christopher Thornhill outlining the cultural, intellectual, and political contexts in which Schmitt wrote Constitutional Theory; they point out what is distinctive about the work, examine its reception in the postwar era, and consider its larger theoretical ramifications. This volume also contains extensive editorial notes and a translation of the Weimar Constitution.

A pioneer in legal and political theory, Schmitt traces the prehistory of political romanticism by examining its relationship to revolutionary and reactionary tendencies in modern European history. Both the partisans of the French Revolution and its most embittered enemies were numbered among the romantics. During the movement for German national unity at the beginning of the nineteenth century, both revolutionaries and reactionaries counted themselves as romantics. According to Schmitt, the use of the concept to designate opposed political positions results from the character of political romanticism: its unpredictable quality and lack of commitment to any substantive political position.

The romantic person acts in such a way that his imagination can be affected. He acts insofar as he is moved. Thus an action is not a performance or something one does, but rather an affect or a mood, something one feels. The product of an action is not a result that can be evaluated according to moral standards, but rather an emotional experience that can be judged only in aesthetic and emotive terms.

These observations lead Schmitt to a profound reflection on the shortcomings of liberal politics. Apart from the liberal rule of law and its institution of an autonomous private sphere, the romantic inner sanctum of purely personal experience could not exist. Without the security of the private realm, the romantic imagination would be subject to unpredictable incursions. Only in a bourgeois world can the individual become both absolutely sovereign and thoroughly privatized: a master builder in the cathedral of his personality. An adequate political order cannot be maintained on such a tolerant individualism, concludes Schmitt.

A pioneer in legal and political theory, Schmitt traces the prehistory of political romanticism by examining its relationship to revolutionary and reactionary tendencies in modern European history. Both the partisans of the French Revolution and its most embittered enemies were numbered among the romantics. During the movement for German national unity at the beginning of the nineteenth century, both revolutionaries and reactionaries counted themselves as romantics. According to Schmitt, the use of the concept to designate opposed political positions results from the character of political romanticism: its unpredictable quality and lack of commitment to any substantive political position.

The romantic person acts in such a way that his imagination can be affected. He acts insofar as he is moved. Thus an action is not a performance or something one does, but rather an affect or a mood, something one feels. The product of an action is not a result that can be evaluated according to moral standards, but rather an emotional experience that can be judged only in aesthetic and emotive terms.

These observations lead Schmitt to a profound reflection on the shortcomings of liberal politics. Apart from the liberal rule of law and its institution of an autonomous private sphere, the romantic inner sanctum of purely personal experience could not exist. Without the security of the private realm, the romantic imagination would be subject to unpredictable incursions. Only in a bourgeois world can the individual become both absolutely sovereign and thoroughly privatized: a master builder in the cathedral of his personality. An adequate political order cannot be maintained on such a tolerant individualism, concludes Schmitt.