Carl Schmitt’s Spatial Rhetoric

By the end of the 1930s space (Raum) had become a common catchword in the writings of Carl Schmitt. This chapter argues that space was not merely a theme during this phase of his career, but was linked to a rhetorical strategy and mode of argumentation. Focusing on Land and Sea (1942) and “Nomos” of the Earth (1950), the first two sections show how Schmitt developed two contrasting modes of argumentation inextricably intertwined with his theory of space and the poetics of his writing. In the final section Agamben’s comments on Schmitt’s “topology” and the collaborative work A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari serve as case studies for recent reconfigurations of Schmitt’s spatial thought. The analysis of their appropriations of Schmitt points to major differences between his original perspective on space and these contemporary theories. Schmitt’s spatial theory is deeply rooted in the epistemology of the early twentieth century.