The Challenge of Carl Schmitt

by Chantal Mouffe (Editor)

Carl Schmitt’s thought serves as a warning against the dangers of complacency entailed by triumphant liberalism. His conception of politics is a sharp challenge to those who believe that there is a third way between the left and right and that the increasing moralization of political discourse constitutes a great advance for democracy. Schmitt reminds us forcefully that the essence of politics is struggle and that the distinction between friend and enemy cannot be abolished.

Gregoris Ananiadis, Agostino Carrino, Catherine Colliot-Thélène, Jorge Dotti, David Dyzenhaus, Paul Hirst, Jean-François Kervégan, Chantal Mouffe, Ulrich Preuss, Slavoj Žižek and an important essay by Carl Schmitt available in English for the first time.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy

228 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 1999

About the author

Chantal Mouffe is a Belgian political theorist. She holds a professorship at the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom. She is best known as co-author of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy with Ernesto Laclau. Their thoughts are usually described as post-Marxism as they were both politically active in the social and student movements of the 1960s including working class and new social movements (notably second-wave feminism in Mouffe's case). They rejected Marxist economic determinism and the notion of class struggle being the single crucial antagonism in society. Instead they urged for radical democracy of agonistic pluralism where all antagonisms could be expressed. In their opinion, ‘...there is no possibility of society without antagonism’; indeed, without the forces that articulate a vision of society, it could not exist.

Reviews

[Colm Gillis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was a little disappointed with this collection of essays. I thought there was a tendency to not go out on a limb and the book very much had that air of academic conservatism about it. Essays are well-written but not necessarily thought-provoking at all times.

[inside an airport · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am NOT happy that the nazi-ness of Schmitt is not dealt with in the book, but instead, in some instances, we get the feeling that the writers, especially Mouffe herself, trying to actively push Schmitt's Nazi doctrine under the carpet and present him as a political scientist genius. The canon is aimed at the critic of liberalism –the task Schmitt undertook and later was praised by both Nazi's and ultra-leftist nationalist whiteboys. He comes into the crowd of white Schmittians and adds some psychoanalytic bullcrap to make the theological conversation even more antiquated and dull.

Here is Mouffe trying to wash out Schmitt's decisionism or some sort of revised outdated Hobbesianism:

"For Schmitt, the exception is never the rule, as it is with fascism and Nazism. If be persists in demonstrating how law depends on politics, the norm on the exception, stability on struggle, he points up the contrary illusions of fascism and Nazism. ln fact, Schmitt's work can be used as a critique of both. The ruthless logic in his analysis of the political, the nature of sovereignty, and the exception demonstrates the irrationality of fascism and Nazism. The exception cannot be made the rule in the 'total state' without reducing society to such a disorder
through the political actions of the mass party that the very survival of the state is threatened. The Nazi state sought war as the highest goal in politics, but conducted its affairs in such a chaotic way that its war­ making capacity was undermined and its war aims became fatally overextended. Schmitt's friend-enemy thesis is concerned with avoiding the danger that the logic of the political will reach its conclusion in unlimited war."

The ending essay by Schmitt "Ethics of State and Pluralistic State" edited in by Mouffe is aimed to bring an archaic argument back on the table. The theoretical ground against international law in favor of national sovereignty, nationalism and ultimately white supremacy and Nazism.

I use to care about Mouffe, but I have no respect for her anymore. Such destructive ideas are clearly against humanity in order to prioritize state and statehood above the individual and collective level, resulting in the dismissal of minority rights/difference in favor of seemingly majoritarian rights which is backed by decisionism.

[Rubén Barrán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amalgama de reflexiones del pensamiento político y constitucional de Carl Schmitt. Pone sobre la mesa antinomias, críticas y puntos de relieve del jurista alemán, así como también de la relevancia teórica que sigue manteniendo para comprender la modernidad y el siglo XX. Si se está interesado en el pensamiento de Schmitt es un libro muy recomendable que invita a la reflexión sobre sus conceptos

[Luke Echo · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few interesting esssays in this collection but it wasn't great. Overall it wasn't that essential.

[Minäpäminä · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of food for thought but with Schmitt's own essay finishing the collection, I was compelled to ask myself why I read all of this other boring stuff when I could've been reading Schmitt himself all along. He's a clear and systematic writer, though the content of his writing is difficult.

Highlights: Zizek's visionary essay on neoliberal "post-politics" leading to "ultra-politics" (this was published in 1999!); Mouffe's essay on the uneasy relationship between liberalism and democracy (again, very timely); Colliot-Thélène on Schmitt's critique of Max Weber; and finally Schmitt himself on pluralistic theories of state.

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 2 out of 5]

Underwhelming

[Robert Steuckers]

Excellent take-over of Schmitt's ideas by leftwing thinkers who, in fact, realize the dreams my old friend Günter Maschke had in his youth years. Remains to check if they really will get rid of all the humbug that's attached to liberal parties and caucuses since the decaying decades we have behind us.