Carl Schmitt

1. Introduction

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was a German jurist and political theorist whose work has become a central, if deeply contested, reference point in 20th‑ and 21st‑century debates about sovereignty, constitutionalism, and the nature of the political. Writing primarily in the turbulent decades surrounding the two World Wars, he developed a set of concepts—sovereignty as the power to decide on the exception, the friend–enemy distinction, and political theology—that continue to structure discussions of emergency powers, liberal democracy, and secularization.

Schmitt insisted that politics cannot be reduced to moral norms, economic interests, or legal procedures. Instead, he argued that political authority is revealed most clearly in extreme situations, when constitutional rules are suspended and a sovereign actor decides how to preserve or remake order. His definition of the political in terms of the possibility of existential conflict between “friends” and “enemies” has been read both as a descriptive claim about how modern states actually operate and as a normative defense of decisive, even authoritarian, leadership.

Any treatment of Schmitt must take account of his active collaboration with National Socialism, including his role in justifying dictatorial and antisemitic measures. Some interpreters regard this as inseparable from his theoretical positions; others analyze his concepts while treating his Nazi allegiance as a grave, but partially distinct, biographical fact. Schmitt’s ideas have attracted readers from across the ideological spectrum—conservatives, revolutionaries, liberals, and critical theorists—who variously appropriate, reconstruct, or reject his arguments.

This entry surveys his life and historical context, traces the development of his thought, outlines his major works and concepts, and examines the controversies and divergent receptions that shape his ongoing significance for legal and political theory.

2. Life and Historical Context

2.1 Early Life and Education

Schmitt was born in 1888 in Plettenberg, a small town in Westphalia, into a lower‑middle‑class Catholic family. Commentators often link his provincial, Catholic background to his later distance from the predominantly Protestant, Prussian legal establishment and to his sensitivity to questions of authority, order, and theological symbolism. He studied law in Berlin, Munich, and Strasbourg, receiving his doctorate and habilitation in jurisprudence before World War I.

2.2 Weimar Germany and Academic Rise

The collapse of the German Empire and the founding of the Weimar Republic formed the immediate backdrop to Schmitt’s intellectual ascent. As professor in Greifswald, Bonn, and later Berlin and Cologne, he engaged directly with constitutional crises, party fragmentation, and paramilitary violence. Proponents of contextual readings argue that his focus on states of exception, emergency decrees, and the fragility of parliamentary rule reflects this environment of perceived instability and national humiliation after Versailles.

2.3 Nazi Period

In 1933 Schmitt joined the Nazi Party and quickly became a prominent legal adviser, supporting the consolidation of Hitler’s dictatorship and endorsing regime purges and antisemitic measures. Historians debate whether this alignment followed opportunism, deep ideological affinity, or a mix of career ambition and longstanding anti‑liberal views. By the late 1930s he had lost some internal influence, but he remained an official jurist and continued to write.

2.4 Postwar Exclusion and Cold War Context

Arrested by Allied forces in 1945 and interrogated but never tried at Nuremberg, Schmitt was barred from university positions in West Germany. He retired to Plettenberg yet maintained wide correspondence and received visitors. The onset of the Cold War, decolonization, and the emergence of U.S. hegemony shaped his late work on international order and “global civil war.” Interpreters often relate his critique of liberal internationalism to broader European anxieties about declining imperial power and superpower rivalry.

3. Intellectual Development

3.1 Early Legal and Catholic Phase (to 1918)

In his early writings, such as Der Wert des Staates und die Bedeutung des Einzelnen (1914), Schmitt defended the primacy of the state over liberal individualism, drawing on neo‑Kantian legal theory and Catholic thought. Some scholars detect Thomist and Counter‑Reformation influences in his emphasis on unity and order, alongside a polemical stance against modern subjectivism.

3.2 Weimar Decisionism and Theory of Sovereignty (1919–1932)

The Weimar years saw Schmitt’s most influential theoretical innovations. In Politische Theologie (1922) and Der Begriff des Politischen (1927/32) he articulated decisionism—the view that the validity of legal norms ultimately depends on a sovereign decision—and defined the political via the friend–enemy distinction. Works like Die Diktatur, Der Hüter der Verfassung, and Legalität und Legitimität elaborated his concern with emergency powers and constitutional breakdown. Many commentators treat this as his most philosophically fertile period.

3.3 Nazi Engagement and Authoritarian Reorientation (1933–1945)

After 1933, Schmitt reworked his earlier categories to legitimate the National Socialist state, emphasizing ethnically defined political unity and attacking “Jewish” jurisprudence. Some interpreters see a continuity between his Weimar critique of liberalism and his embrace of Hitler’s “plebiscitary leader democracy”; others argue that the racial and biological elements of his Nazi‑era texts mark a significant, regime‑specific shift.

3.4 Postwar International and Spatial Turn (1945–1960s)

Excluded from academia, Schmitt turned toward the history and theory of international law. Der Nomos der Erde (1950) analyzed the “spatial” foundations of early modern European order, while later essays and Theorie des Partisanen (1963) addressed irregular warfare and superpower conflict. Commentators often describe this as a move from state theory to a broader reflection on global order and its transformations.

3.5 Late Self‑Interpretation and Fragmentary Writings (1960s–1985)

In works like Politische Theologie II and extensive notebooks, Schmitt revisited his earlier concepts, portraying himself variously as realist theorist, historian of concepts, and victim of postwar ostracism. Scholars dispute how far these retrospective narratives clarify or obscure the ideological stakes of his earlier positions.

4. Major Works and Themes

4.1 Key Works Overview

4.2 Recurrent Themes

Across these works, several themes recur:

• Sovereignty and Exception: From Political Theology through his constitutional writings, Schmitt argues that the sovereign decision on the exception reveals the foundations of legal order.
• Critique of Liberalism: In The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, Legality and Legitimacy, and Nazi‑era essays, he portrays liberal normativity and discussion as masking underlying decisions and power.
• The Political as Conflict: The Concept of the Political formulates politics as defined by the friend–enemy distinction, a theme later revisited in Theory of the Partisan.
• Spatial and Historical Order (Nomos): In The Nomos of the Earth, Schmitt links legal order to concrete acts of land‑taking and boundary‑drawing, expanding his earlier focus on the state to world order.
• Theological Analogies: Political theology, first systematized in 1922 and reconsidered in 1969, underlies many of his analyses of authority and secularization.

Interpreters differ on whether these themes form a coherent system or a sequence of opportunistic redeployments shaped by changing political circumstances.

5. Core Ideas: Sovereignty, Exception, and the Political

5.1 Sovereignty and the State of Exception

In Political Theology Schmitt defines sovereignty through his most cited formula:

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“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”

— Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, ch. 1

For Schmitt, a state of exception is a crisis in which normal legal norms are suspended to save the political order. Proponents of a “decisionist” reading argue that this shows law depends on a prior, extra‑legal decision about when it does not apply, revealing the primacy of political will over normativity. Others stress that Schmitt presupposes a “normal situation” as the horizon within which exceptions make sense, suggesting that order and continuity remain central to his conception.

Debate also concerns the subject of sovereignty: some interpret “he” as allowing for personalist dictatorship; others argue that in Schmitt’s Weimar writings the sovereign could be an office (such as the president) or even a collective bearer of constituent power.

5.2 The Concept of the Political and the Friend–Enemy Distinction

In The Concept of the Political, Schmitt claims that the specific political distinction is that between friend and enemy, understood in terms of the possibility of existential conflict:

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“The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.”

— Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, §2

Supporters of a realist interpretation see this as an attempt to distinguish politics from morality, economics, and aesthetics by identifying its distinctive intensity and stakes. Critics contend that defining the political through enmity risks glorifying conflict and legitimating extreme measures against perceived enemies. Some sympathetic readers insist that Schmitt offers a diagnostic tool for understanding how modern mass politics already operates, without necessarily endorsing perpetual antagonism.

5.3 Interrelation of Sovereignty and the Political

Many commentators emphasize that decision on the exception and friend–enemy grouping are mutually reinforcing: the sovereign decides who counts as an enemy threatening collective existence, while the intensity of such enmity justifies exceptional measures. Alternative readings, however, highlight tensions between Schmitt’s emphasis on decisive unity and the plural, conflictual realities of modern societies, suggesting unresolved ambiguities in his core concepts.

6. Political Theology and Secularization

6.1 Secularized Theological Concepts

In Political Theology, Schmitt advances the claim that:

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“All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”

— Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, ch. 3

He draws formal analogies between God and sovereign, miracle and exception, providence and legal order, arguing that modern state theory inherits structures from Christian theology, even after explicit religious content fades. Proponents interpret this as a contribution to secularization theory, suggesting that political modernity cannot be understood as a simple break with theology but as its transformation.

6.2 Competing Interpretations

Scholarly readings diverge:

Critics argue that his analogies are selective and historically overstated, neglecting non‑Christian sources of modern political concepts. Others maintain that he underplays inner‑Christian diversity, treating “theology” as monolithic.

6.3 Political Theology Beyond the State

In Political Theology II (1969), Schmitt responds to claims—associated with Hans Blumenberg and others—that political theology has been “overcome.” He argues that new “theologies” of history, technology, or humanity replace traditional religious frameworks, implying that ostensibly secular ideologies still function theologically. Later theorists across the spectrum (from liberation theologians to post‑structuralists) adopt and transform his vocabulary of political theology, sometimes in explicit opposition to Schmitt’s own political commitments.

7. Critique of Liberalism and Parliamentarism

7.1 Parliamentarism Under Scrutiny

In The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (1923), Schmitt contends that liberal parliamentarism rests on ideals of public discussion, representation, and compromise that, he argues, no longer correspond to mass democracy and organized party competition. For him, parliaments have become arenas for power struggles among disciplined party machines, rather than forums for rational deliberation.

Supporters of Schmitt’s diagnosis see him as exposing structural tensions in modern democracies, where media, bureaucracy, and party organization limit genuine public debate. Critics counter that he underestimates parliament’s capacity for adaptation and overlooks the value of incremental, negotiated change.

7.2 Liberalism and Depoliticization

Schmitt portrays liberalism as attempting to neutralize or “depoliticize” conflicts by translating them into economic regulation, moral discourse, or legal adjudication. In his view, this obscures the inescapable possibility of existential antagonism. Sympathetic interpreters claim he reveals how liberal regimes sometimes disavow their own coercive foundations. Opponents argue that he caricatures liberalism, neglecting its internal resources for conflict management and rights protection.

7.3 Democracy, Representation, and Leadership

In writings such as The Guardian of the Constitution and Legality and Legitimacy, Schmitt explores alternative models to parliamentary rule, including a plebiscitary conception of democracy centered on strong leadership and direct acclamation. Some scholars see this as prefiguring his support for Hitler’s regime. Others distinguish between his theoretical concern with the tension between legality and democratic will and his contingent, politically motivated endorsements.

Debates persist over whether his critique of parliamentarism can be separated from his later authoritarian commitments, or whether it inherently points toward illiberal outcomes.

8. International Order and the Nomos of the Earth

8.1 The Jus Publicum Europaeum

In The Nomos of the Earth (1950), Schmitt reconstructs what he calls the jus publicum Europaeum, the early modern European interstate order from roughly the 16th to 19th centuries. He argues that this system combined:

• Territorial states with defined borders
• A distinction between war among “civilized” states and violence in colonial spaces
• Legal rules that “bracketed” war, limiting its destructiveness within Europe

For Schmitt, this constituted a specific nomos—a historically concrete ordering involving land appropriation, distribution, and rule‑making.

8.2 Spatial Thinking and Global Transformation

Schmitt links international law to spatial configurations: land, sea, and later air. He claims that European expansion produced a global spatial order dividing the world into zones, colonies, and great‑power spheres. With U.S. ascendancy and global ideologies after 1919, he sees this order eroding, replaced by a more totalizing, morally charged conception of war (e.g., against “humanity’s enemies”). Admirers of this analysis value its attention to the material and territorial basis of international law; critics argue that it romanticizes a Eurocentric, imperial system and understates its violence.

8.3 Nomos and Contemporary Debates

Interpreters have used Schmitt’s notion of nomos to analyze decolonization, globalization, and new forms of empire. Some view his work as a critique of liberal internationalism and a warning about the dangers of universalist justifications for intervention. Others maintain that his framework embeds problematic hierarchies between “European” and “non‑European” spaces. The extent to which Nomos of the Earth offers tools for critical theory, as opposed to a nostalgic defense of a lost order, remains contested.

9. Methodology and Conceptual Style

9.1 Polemical Conceptualism

Schmitt’s writing is marked by a distinctive conceptual style: terse definitions, sharp distinctions, and polemical engagement with opponents. He treats key terms—such as “sovereign,” “exception,” “the political,” and “nomos”—as historically situated instruments of struggle rather than neutral labels. This has been linked to later German Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history), though some scholars caution that his use of history is often selective and subordinated to contemporary polemics.

9.2 Decisionism and Anti‑Normativism

Methodologically, Schmitt challenges normativist legal theories that seek foundations in rational principles or systematic rules. His decisionism highlights moments when law depends on concrete authority. Supporters of this approach see it as a realistic acknowledgment of how legal systems operate under stress; critics argue that it sidelines questions of justice and opens the door to arbitrary or authoritarian power.

9.3 Use of Theology, History, and Analogy

Schmitt frequently employs theological analogies and grand historical narratives to illuminate conceptual structures. For example, he reads modern sovereignty through analogies with divine omnipotence and miracle, and international law through epochs of land‑taking. Some scholars praise this as a richly interdisciplinary method that connects law, theology, and history. Others view it as speculative, relying on sweeping comparisons that risk obscuring empirical complexity.

9.4 Style and Reception

His lapidary formulations—often framed as aphorisms or paradoxes—have made his work highly quotable and adaptable across contexts. This stylistic density has facilitated wide reception but also divergent interpretations, as readers extract isolated concepts (such as “state of exception”) from their original polemical settings. Debates continue over whether his methodology is best read as systematic theory, rhetorical intervention, or ideological critique.

10. Reception, Controversies, and Ethical Critiques

10.1 Immediate Postwar Reception

After 1945, Schmitt’s Nazi involvement made him a controversial figure in Germany. He was excluded from university posts, and many legal scholars treated his work with caution or silence. Nonetheless, he maintained private influence through correspondence and seminars in Plettenberg. Some conservative and Catholic intellectuals engaged with his critiques of liberalism while distancing themselves from his Nazi‑era positions.

10.2 International and Cross‑Ideological Uptake

From the 1960s onward, Schmitt’s ideas attracted wide, often unexpected audiences:

• Conservative and right‑wing theorists have drawn on his criticisms of liberal universalism and his emphasis on order and decision.
• Left‑wing and critical theorists (including Walter Benjamin, later Giorgio Agamben, Chantal Mouffe, and others) have reinterpreted concepts like the state of exception and the friend–enemy distinction to diagnose authoritarian tendencies within liberal democracies.
• Legal scholars debate his relevance for constitutional emergency powers and security legislation.

This cross‑ideological uptake has led to disputes over whether one can “use Schmitt against Schmitt”—that is, employ his analytic tools for democratic or emancipatory ends despite his own commitments.

10.3 Ethical and Political Critiques

Critics raise several ethical concerns:

Defenders or cautious readers respond in different ways: some argue for a strict separation between his analytic insights and his political choices; others emphasize internal tensions in his work that allow for more moderate interpretations. The extent to which his concepts can be ethically reappropriated remains a central controversy.

11. Legacy and Historical Significance

Schmitt’s legacy is characterized by simultaneous influence and repudiation. Historically, he is widely regarded as one of the most original—and troubling—political thinkers of the 20th century. His concepts of sovereignty as decision, state of exception, and friend–enemy distinction have become standard reference points in discussions of constitutional crises, emergency powers, and the nature of political conflict.

In legal theory, his analyses of legality versus legitimacy and the role of constitutional guardians shape debates about judicial review, executive power, and wartime measures. In political theory and philosophy, his notion that modern politics retains theological structures informs contemporary work on secularization, ideology, and civil religion. His reconstruction of the nomos of the earth has influenced historians of international law and scholars of geopolitics and empire.

At the same time, his collaboration with the Nazi regime and his anti‑liberal commitments make him a paradigmatic example in discussions of the “dangerous thinker” and of the ethical responsibilities of intellectuals. Some historians and theorists place him within a broader tradition of authoritarian or counter‑revolutionary thought; others treat him as a critical diagnostician of liberal modernity whose insights must be carefully disentangled from his political allegiances.

Across disciplines—law, political science, philosophy, theology, and international relations—Schmitt remains a touchstone for examining how orders are founded, how they confront crises, and how claims of universality intersect with concrete decisions about friends, enemies, and exceptions. His enduring significance lies less in consensus about his merits than in the persistent, contested engagement his work provokes.