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 ...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
170 F. Petito<br />
<strong>The</strong> Western-centric and liberal global order: <strong>Schmitt</strong> and<br />
the post-1989 condition<br />
That things have not gone as <strong>Schmitt</strong> predicted is unimportant as well as hard to<br />
express, since nothing was further from his way <strong>of</strong> thinking than the idea <strong>of</strong><br />
social-scientific prediction. Ex post, however, using <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s three scenarios<br />
against the background <strong>of</strong> his own ‘predictions’, we could say that from the<br />
dualist phase, which contained elements <strong>of</strong> ‘hidden unipolarity’ like that conceptualized<br />
by supporters <strong>of</strong> the thesis <strong>of</strong> the Pax Americana and arguably also<br />
grasped by <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s ‘hegemonic balance structure’ scenario, we have moved,<br />
with the victory <strong>of</strong> the West over the East, to a monist phase – predicated on<br />
some sort <strong>of</strong> world political unification, arguably to a much greater extent than<br />
in 1942, since there is now ‘only one game in town’ – against which the aspiration<br />
to a counter-hegemonic multipolar scenario is gaining momentum (though<br />
this tells us little about the content <strong>of</strong> the new jus gentium which is yet to come).<br />
In other words, the <strong>Schmitt</strong>ian sequence, monism, dualism, pluriverse, might<br />
well come about in the long run but ex post we have to recognize that the dualist<br />
phase <strong>of</strong> the Cold War contained more elements <strong>of</strong> monism than pluralism and<br />
that, in some way, the dualist phase was a sort <strong>of</strong> bracketing <strong>of</strong> a stronger<br />
monism that contemporary international politics has still to confront in the very<br />
concrete form <strong>of</strong> the overwhelming political and ideological dominance <strong>of</strong> a UScentred<br />
Western and liberal global order. Fred Dallmayr has given a powerful<br />
description <strong>of</strong> what I have in mind in the first paragraph <strong>of</strong> his Alternative<br />
Visions:<br />
Ever since the demise <strong>of</strong> the Cold War, the world finds itself in a situation<br />
that is unprecedented in human history, in which the entire globe is under<br />
the sway <strong>of</strong> one hegemonic framework: that <strong>of</strong> Western civilization, with its<br />
economic, technological, and intellectual corollaries. None <strong>of</strong> the previous<br />
empires in history – neither the Roman, Spanish, and British empires nor<br />
the Chinese Middle Kingdom – had been able to extend their ‘civilizing<br />
mission’ to the entire globe or humankind as a whole. Today all the countries<br />
and peoples in the world stand under a universal mandate or directive:<br />
to ‘develop’ or to ‘modernize’ and hence catch up with the civilizational<br />
standards established and exemplified by the West. ‘Globalization’ involves<br />
to a large extent the spreading or dissemination <strong>of</strong> modern Western forms <strong>of</strong><br />
life around the globe.<br />
(Dallmayr 1998: 1)<br />
As the quote also suggests, this ‘hegemonic framework’ shows an intriguing<br />
resemblance to well-known imperial models but, at the same time, seems to<br />
require substantially different analytical categories if it is to be comprehended. 4<br />
In my reading, any attempt to understand the present world order theoretically<br />
needs to confront its Western-centric, liberal and global nature. <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s international<br />
thought provides some interesting insights and directions to articulate