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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172 F. Petito<br />
<strong>Liberal</strong>ism, technology and a worldwide centralized and rational<br />
administrative machine<br />
But the central role <strong>of</strong> the only world superpower is insufficient to articulate the<br />
meaning <strong>of</strong> the new world order, in the same way that nomos cannot be reduced<br />
only to its spatial orientation (Ortung) but must include also a politico-legal<br />
order (Ordnung) for ‘all law is law only in a particular location’ (2003a: 98). In<br />
my view, therefore, liberalism is the other necessary ingredient to describe the<br />
present global predicament. <strong>Liberal</strong>ism, however, is an extremely flexible and<br />
multifaceted concept, and <strong>Schmitt</strong>, who was well aware <strong>of</strong> that, defined it as an<br />
‘extraordinary intricate coalition’ <strong>of</strong> many different things: subjectivism, individualistic<br />
thought, parliamentary democracy, economy, ethics and technology<br />
(1996a: 26, 76; cf. Galli 2000). Overall, liberalism was both the ideology incapable<br />
<strong>of</strong> grasping the defining distinction <strong>of</strong> the political – that between friend<br />
and enemy – and the key to ‘the politics <strong>of</strong> the Anglo-American sea-powers oriented<br />
towards global trade and competition, and only indirectly – through universal<br />
ethics – towards conflict and war’ (Galli 2000: 1598).<br />
<strong>The</strong> centrality <strong>of</strong> liberalism as the structuring and sustaining pensée unique <strong>of</strong><br />
the post-Cold War condition is both a self-evident truth and, at the same time,<br />
something in need <strong>of</strong> greater theoretical elaboration in the context <strong>of</strong> international<br />
relations. In terms <strong>of</strong> dominant political discourse, however, the<br />
strongest argument remains that <strong>of</strong> Francis Fukuyama according to whom world<br />
history reached its end as a dialectical process with the defeat <strong>of</strong> communism,<br />
and liberalism, now the only game in town, represents the only rational model<br />
available worldwide in the now final consolidation <strong>of</strong> the linear progress <strong>of</strong><br />
mankind (1992). From this perspective, the problem <strong>of</strong> the new international<br />
order is greatly simplified – if not finally resolved – by the globalization <strong>of</strong> liberalism,<br />
i.e. the greater international homogeneity based on the liberal values <strong>of</strong><br />
free market, democracy and human rights, the new forms <strong>of</strong> legitimacy <strong>of</strong> the<br />
system, which provides the conditions to develop some form <strong>of</strong> cosmopolitan<br />
governance and fulfil the Kantian ideal <strong>of</strong> perpetual peace; in <strong>International</strong> Relations<br />
jargon, the final victory <strong>of</strong> liberalism, by expelling or at least substantially<br />
mitigating the two defining features <strong>of</strong> modern international society, war and<br />
anarchy, marks the end <strong>of</strong> history <strong>of</strong> international relations as we have known<br />
them.<br />
For <strong>Schmitt</strong>, however, the unstoppable force that was already operating<br />
behind liberalism was technology: not only the material impact <strong>of</strong> technology on<br />
politics, which he also recognizes with reference, for example, to military issues,<br />
but also, and more essentially, the nature <strong>of</strong> technology as a new pseudo-religion<br />
or Weltanschauung <strong>of</strong> the masses in the successive stages <strong>of</strong> neutralization and<br />
depoliticization that characterize the dynamics <strong>of</strong> modernity. In his view, the<br />
European mind had moved in the last four centuries from one central sphere <strong>of</strong><br />
neutrality to another – ‘from the theological, over the metaphysical and the<br />
moral to the economic . . . to the absolute and ultimate neutral ground [<strong>of</strong><br />
technology] . . . since apparently there is nothing more neutral’ (1993: 138) – in