Perilous Futures

The book re-examines Carl Schmitt’s late work, which until fairly recently received less attention because of its seemingly non-systematic nature. The study focuses on Schmitt’s major post-war publications, among them The Nomos of the Earth, Theory of the Partisan, Political Theology II as well as his diaries. It emphasizes formal and structural aspects, deliberately resisting a systematic approach, focusing instead on tensions and contradictions within Schmitt’s writings. The book explores Schmitt’s shift from a German nationalist position to a defence of an imperial European tradition, leading up to an international agenda that modifies Schmitt’s older position without giving up conceptual and theoretical continuities. Because of these modifications--that is the thesis of the study--Schmitt’s late work could gain international attention after the fall of the Berlin Wall, since it resonates with greater global instability and increasing doubts about the viability of international liberalism. Finally, Schmitt’s wide but controversial reception, both on the political Right and the Left, becomes the object of scrutiny against the backdrop of Schmitt’s precarious biographical situation and the global political development after World War II. It is the tension between this specific historical context and the later international appropriation that motivates and energizes this study. It aims at a critique of recent Schmitt enthusiasm.