The Concept of the Political

by Carl Schmitt

Book Overview

In this, his most influential work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism's basis in individual rights cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state--a critique as cogent today as when it first appeared. George Schwab's introduction to his translation of the 1932 German edition highlights Schmitt's intellectual journey through the turbulent period of German history leading to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226738922
• ISBN13: 9780226738925
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 162 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.3" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

One of the best books on political theory ever written

Others have described the book quite well, so I simply wanted to add a corrective to Mr. Dermeval's review, which criticized Schmitt's analysis as being crudely bipolar relative to Weber. While I agree that Weber's analysis is superlative, it does not in fact contradict Schmitt's theory at all. Schmitt views "the political" as a particular process that pervades human life to varying degrees, depending upon the particular degree of friend/enemy antagonism that is involved in a given social situation. Obviously, not every judgment that involves some aspect of the political rises to the highest point of friend/enemy antagonism. Battles over health care rights, for example, are inherently less "political" in Schmittian terms than is an outright war. The health care conflict is resolved with more rational and bureaucratic elements -- for example, determining which approach will likely be lowest in total cost. Schmitt's theory takes full account of this varying intensity of the political in social life; in fact it is premised on it. It is thus a mistake to think that the "friend/enemy" distinction is fully manifested in every judgment made by a state. Many (if not most) such judgments are apolitical decisions made on generally rational grounds, consistent with Weber's description of the state. On Schmitt's theory, such particular rational judgments are not truly (i.e. distinctively) political, even though made by a political entity. Such judgments *become* political to the extent they involve one group seizing advantage over another group, rather than a purely rational technical analysis based on accepted criteria.

Great book

One of the few books on politics/philosophy worth reading. Deals with the internal conflicts of the so-called "rational" state. My only objection is the inclusion of Strauss, which is an insult to anyone capable of understanding Schmitt's original text. Re: "Good ideas, but very densely written" - did you even read the book? It is one of the only examples of clear writing and thinking on politics that we have today. Don't seek secondary academic writing on the book - it uniformly lacks clarity, as the topic of Schmitt's writing is (by nature? or nurture?) foreign to academics.

The Political as Friend-Enemy Distinction.

This edition of Carl Schmitt's _Der Begriff des Politischens_ is translated by George Schwab and contains several interesting writings on Schmitt and his thought. In addition to _The Concept of the Political_ proper, this book also contains a "Foreward" by Tracy B. Strong, an "Introduction" by George Schwab, and ends with a series of notes on the book by Leo Strauss. Carl Schmitt was a legal scholar and political theorist during the time of the Third Reich who was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. While unfortunately Schmitt joined the Nazi party, this should not prevent one from reading his otherwise important works which have much to say about the political and provide trenchant critiques of liberalism. Schmitt can be rightfully considered as one of the conservative revolutionaries, including such figures as Junger, Spengler, and Heidegger, who opposed liberalism in the period before the Second World War. Schmitt's writings were an important influence on Heidegger in particular, but have also seen a resurgence in their importance among the New Right and the Left as well. Schmitt was influenced by such political thinkers as Machiavelli, Hegel, and Hobbes, but also by Catholic counter-revolutionaries such as de Maistre and Donoso Cortes. This book lays out the essential details of his thought. In _The Concept of the Political_, a book which profoundly criticizes liberalism, Schmitt essentially argues that the political must be understood in terms of the "friend-enemy" distinction. Schmitt explains how the state presupposes the concept of the political. In searching for a definition of the political, Schmitt explains how the state has become an absolute, total state in the twentieth century in contrast to the neutral, noninterventionist state of the nineteenth century. According to Schmitt, the political may be understood in terms of the distinction between friend and enemy, much as morality can be understood in terms of the distinction between good and evil, aesthetics in terms of the distinction between the beautiful and the ugly, economics in terms of the distinction between the profitable and the unprofitable. This distinction between friend-enemy provides the groundwork upon which Schmitt builds his concept of the political. Schmitt distinguishes the idea of the "enemy" from that understood in the private-individualistic sense as the competitor or partner in conflict in general as that of the private adversary. Schmitt offers an interesting interpretation of the dictum of Christ to "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27) as indicating only the private enemy and not the political enemy. As proof of this, Schmitt offers the fact that Christians have not surrendered to the Muslims throughout the many centuries of conflict between the two groups. Schmitt also argues against pacifism claiming that eventually pacifism will be pushed into a "war against all war", leading ultimately to great destruction. Schmitt considers

The paradox of the enemy recognition

The other reviews of this book already give the potential reader a good insight into what they are buying, and so I will comment on a fascinating conceptual tension within the book. Like all political realists (or so Schmitt would claim), Schmitt begins his theorizing from the empirical fact that "man is a dangerous and dynamic being". Schmitt allows that the nature of man may not be evil, but man's nature is inarguably problematic. Schmitt then inquires as to how man's problematic nature reveals itself conceptually. His answer is the enemy recognition. We know man is evil because he is prone to locating in the stranger, the other (that person or group who holds inimical aesthetic, religious, ethical beliefs), a potential source of violent conflict. A tension (there are many in the book!) then materializes when Schmitt speaks of the necessity of the state to make the proper enemy recognition if peace and security are to be maintained. It is of course a perilous folly if the state fails to make the proper enemy recognition (see Hindenburg's 1933 alliance with Hitler, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement, and Stalin's secret pact with Hitler for three failed enemy recognitions before WWII). But how does the state make the proper enemy recognition, and not simply needlessly multiply conflict in order to root out the enemy? Thus, the Soviet archives tell us that Stalin erroneously viewed the West as a threat (particularly a rebuilt Germany) after WWII, and so seized Eastern Europe as a buffer zone. The tension of the enemy recognition is that it is the source of all of our troubles, but yet it must be made when necessary. Sounds like the stuff of which politics is made...

The allure of fascism

Schmitt's "Concept of the Political" is one of the most famous as well as notorious books of political theory. The so-called "Crown-Attorney of the Third Reich" (Gurian) develops in this brief Essay the idea, that the Concept of the Political is the differentiation between foe and friend. States should classify people as well as other states as friend or foe, because only this asures homogenity (in innerstate matters) and security (in foreign policies). Allthough this radical alternative has often been misunderstood (Schmitt does not say, that politics always operates in this binary mode), Schmitt is fascinated by the ideology of Mussolini as well as Hitler and the NSdAP. Vice versa, the Nazis showed interests in the international lawyer: His homogenity-desiderate corresponded with their plans to exterminate "Jews". With Schmitts "Concept of the Political" these extermination-ideas were based to a "philosophical background". That led critical scholars to characterize this book as a "political, not philosophical existentialism".