Introduction

What does it mean to say that, from first to last, Kelsen’s political thinking was focused on the real You and Me? Why such a hard-edged defence of Kelsen as a man of political realism for our time? The introductory chapter situates the book’s central theme against the current wave of substantial interest in Kelsen’s legal philosophy and democratic theory. It elaborates on the book’s political methodology of doing combined intellectual biography and comparative conceptual analysis, and explains its combative writing style. This scene-setter suggests forgetting the jurist for a little while, and outlines how the book’s five analytical chapters bring Kelsen’s life and thought into a productive tension with today’s Schmittians and conventional views of foreign-policy realism.