Panu Minkkinen – författare

Sovereignty, Knowledge, Law investigates the notion of sovereignty from three different, but related perspectives: as a legal question in relation to the sovereign state, as a political question in relation to sovereign power, and as a metaphysical question in relation to sovereign self-knowledge. The varied and interchangeable uses of legal sovereignty, political sovereignty and metaphysical sovereignty in contemporary debates have resulted in a situation where the word ‘sovereignty’ itself has become something of a non-concept. Panu Minkkinen shows here how these three perspectives have informed one another, by addressing their shared relationship to law, and to the ‘autocephalous’ function of sovereignty; that is, the attempt to provide a single source and foundation for law, power, and self-knowledge. Through an effort to domesticate the intrinsically ‘heterocephalous’ nature of power, the juridical and jurisprudential aim has been to confine power within the closed vertical hierarchy of traditional legal thinking. Sovereignty, Knowledge, Law thus elaborates this heterocephaly, proposing new understandings of sovereignty, as well as of law and of legal scholarship.

Sovereignty, Knowledge, Law investigates the notion of sovereignty from three different, but related perspectives: as a legal question in relation to the sovereign state, as a political question in relation to sovereign power, and as a metaphysical question in relation to sovereign self-knowledge. The varied and interchangeable uses of legal sovereignty, political sovereignty and metaphysical sovereignty in contemporary debates have resulted in a situation where the word ‘sovereignty’ itself has become something of a non-concept. Panu Minkkinen shows here how these three perspectives have informed one another, by addressing their shared relationship to law, and to the ‘autocephalous’ function of sovereignty; that is, the attempt to provide a single source and foundation for law, power, and self-knowledge. Through an effort to domesticate the intrinsically ‘heterocephalous’ nature of power, the juridical and jurisprudential aim has been to confine power within the closed vertical hierarchy of traditional legal thinking. Sovereignty, Knowledge, Law thus elaborates this heterocephaly, proposing new understandings of sovereignty, as well as of law and of legal scholarship.

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.

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.