The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
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Against world unity 167<br />
in the second section, while criticizing some aspects <strong>of</strong> his analysis <strong>of</strong> the post-<br />
Second World War world order, I argue that his international thought <strong>of</strong>fers<br />
some interesting theoretical insights into the post-1989 international condition<br />
and, in particular, what I see as its Western-centric, liberal and global nature; the<br />
final section refers back to the beginning <strong>of</strong> this chapter by making a ‘<strong>Schmitt</strong>ian’<br />
critique <strong>of</strong> Wendt’s above-mentioned argument according to which a world<br />
state is, in the long run, inevitable. <strong>The</strong> conclusions, proceeding from <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s<br />
stance against world unity and going beyond (and, perhaps, against) him, point<br />
in an evocative and rather preliminary manner to an intellectual strategy for<br />
articulating a more pluralist world order adequate for a multicultural and globalized<br />
international society.<br />
In search <strong>of</strong> a ‘new nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth’: <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s reflections<br />
on post-Second World War world order<br />
In a short essay written in 1954 when the bipolarity <strong>of</strong> the Cold War had clearly<br />
crystallized as the structure <strong>of</strong> the international system, <strong>Schmitt</strong> argues that the<br />
new nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth might have three alternative forms:<br />
<strong>The</strong> first, and apparently the simplest, would be that one <strong>of</strong> the two partners<br />
in the present global antithesis would be victorious. <strong>The</strong> dualism <strong>of</strong> East and<br />
West then would become only the last stage before an ultimate, complete<br />
unity <strong>of</strong> the world.... A second possibility might be an attempt to retain the<br />
balance structure <strong>of</strong> the previous nomos.... That would mean that<br />
England’s former domination <strong>of</strong> the oceans be expanded to a joint domination<br />
<strong>of</strong> sea and air, which only the United States is capable <strong>of</strong> doing.... <strong>The</strong><br />
third possibility [would be] a combination <strong>of</strong> several independent<br />
Großräume or blocs.<br />
(2003d: 354–355)<br />
I cannot do justice to the complexity <strong>of</strong> the arguments behind each <strong>of</strong> these three<br />
alternative scenarios here – especially since I agree with the continuity thesis <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>Schmitt</strong>’s intellectual journey (cf. Burchard 2006) – but for the purpose <strong>of</strong> this<br />
chapter it will be enough to briefly examine them in their reverse order.<br />
It is well known that in the hypothesis <strong>of</strong> a balance <strong>of</strong> Großräume <strong>Schmitt</strong><br />
envisaged the possibility <strong>of</strong> a renewal, at a different level, <strong>of</strong> the rational construction<br />
<strong>of</strong> the jus publicum Europaeum, whose end he had dramatically narrated<br />
in the final part <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> Nomos <strong>of</strong> the Earth 1 : the pluriverse <strong>of</strong> Großräume<br />
would represent a ‘true pluralism’ responding, on the one hand, to the end <strong>of</strong> the<br />
state’s monopoly on politics and, on the other, to the need for a new jus gentium,<br />
spatially grounded in relatively internally homogenous and meaningfully differentiated<br />
‘greater spaces’ (2002: 355; cf. Piccone and Ulmen 1990). In other<br />
words, this solution would be the opposite <strong>of</strong> the forcefully criticized spaceless<br />
universalism and empty normativism <strong>of</strong> the positivist <strong>International</strong> Law incorporated<br />
par excellence into the project <strong>of</strong> the League <strong>of</strong> Nations. In his late