The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...

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A terrifying world without an exterior 221 —— (2002) ‘A pan-European interpretation of Donoso Cortés’, trans. G. L. Ulmen, Telos, 125: 100–115. —— (2003a [1950]) The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, trans. G. L. Ulmen, New York: Telos Press. —— (2003b) ‘Nomos – Nahme – Name’, in C. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, trans. G. L. Ulmen, New York: Telos Press. —— (2004 [1963]), ‘Theory of the Partisan: intermediate commentary on the concept of the political’, trans. G. L. Ulmen, Telos, 127: 11–78. Spinoza, B. (1989) Ethics, trans. A. Boyle, London: Everyman.
13 The ethos of insecure life Reading Carl Schmitt’s existential decisionism as a Foucauldian ethics Introduction Sergei Prozorov As the contemporary discourse on ethics is ever more suffused with answers to the question of what makes a decision or an action ethical, it appears timely to engage with the ethical thought of a philosopher who infamously affirmed the autonomy of the decision from any ‘ethical criteria’. In contrast to numerous contemporary studies that take Carl Schmitt’s political realism as the object of criticism in the name of a variably construed ‘political ethics’, in this chapter we shall venture to recast the most controversial or even scandalous aspects of Schmitt’s thought as ethical in their own right. 1 Our contention is that rather than serving as an easy target of deconstructionist or genealogical criticism, a Schmittian political ontology functions as an irreducible limit of this criticism, serving as the ‘undeconstructible’ remainder of political realism. The argument of this chapter is that this remainder also marks a locus for an ethical discourse that is both commensurable with the ethical drive of current poststructuralist criticism and able to transcend its limitations. More specifically, the chapter seeks to explore the affinities between the work of Schmitt and Michel Foucault. In his studies of Carl Schmitt’s philosophy in the context of the political thought of late modernity, Mika Ojakangas (2001, 2004) has argued that the approach of the two thinkers is marked by the same conceptual logic that locates the foundation of order in the founding rupture of the exception, a logic that we have elsewhere termed ‘ontological extremism’ (Prozorov 2004b). Nonetheless, there are also crucial divergences between Schmitt and Foucault, most notably regarding their relation to the principle of sovereignty. In contrast to Schmitt’s valorisation of sovereignty, Foucault has famously dismissed the very problematic of sovereignty in contemporary political theory with his call to ‘cut off the head of the king’ and his argument for the decentred and immanent character of power (Foucault 1977b, 1990a). However, as we have argued elsewhere, it is both possible and fruitful to reintroduce the question of sovereignty, in its Schmittian ‘quasi-transcendental’ sense of the constitutive decision on exception, into the Foucauldian genealogical problematic. 2 Moreover, as we shall suggest below, Schmitt’s political ontology strongly resonates with the work of Foucault, particularly his writings on freedom, transgression and the aesthetics of existence. 3
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The International Political Thought
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10 Ethics and Politics in Contempor
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The International Political Thought
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Contents Notes on contributors ix A
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Contributors Andreas Behnke is a Le
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Contributors xi Italy. He was edito
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Introduction The international poli
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Second, what is really at stake in
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Introduction 5 Schmitt, necessarily
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Introduction 7 According to Schmitt
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Introduction 9 which is a far cry f
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(1998), Ojakangas offers a metaphys
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The crisis of order (nomos): war, t
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Plettenberg, ‘an hazardous undert
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Introduction 17 ‘Theory of the Pa
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1 The ‘realist institutionalism
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The ‘realist institutionalism’
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which multinational Großräume led
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Geopolitics and grosspolitics 39 fo
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Großraum in Central and Eastern Eu
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Geopolitics and grosspolitics 43 (C
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Geopolitics and grosspolitics 45 Ca
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Geopolitics and grosspolitics 47 th
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Geopolitics and grosspolitics 49 Th
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Geopolitics and grosspolitics 51 ec
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mentalists’ in the member states,
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Geopolitics and grosspolitics 55
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From humanized war to intervention
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virtue, and is undermined by the ha
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The United States and international
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Hitler to carve out for Germany an
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4 Global terrorism and the state of
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evolutionary war is genuine war, be
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The problem of the status of terror
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Global terrorism and permanent exce
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8 The National Security Strategy (2
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5 Partisan warfare, terrorism and t
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Partisan warfare, terrorism and a n
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fight a ‘war against terrorism’
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6 War, violence and the displacemen
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War, violence and the political 109
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ian) values tends towards its total
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however, their presence, which keep
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Crossing the line? 125 he traces th
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Crossing the line? 127 one hand, th
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Crossing the line? 129 followed the
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Crossing the line? 131 unmediated m
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Crossing the line? 133 of the indiv
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Crossing the line? 135 decision not
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Crossing the line? 137 The War on T
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Crossing the line? 139 emptive wars
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2 Schmitt documents how, in fact, t
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Crossing the line? 143 —— (1996
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8 Carl Schmitt’s warning on the d
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The dangers of a unipolar world 149
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The dangers of a unipolar world 151
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neo-liberal model of globalization
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The re-emerging notion of Empire 15
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more traditional meaning - de Benoi
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From the standpoint of the transiti
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Notes 1A millet was a religious com
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Against world unity 167 in the seco
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Against world unity 169 unlikely) p
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Page 186 and 187: Against world unity 173 an impossib
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Page 194 and 195: Against world unity 181 with indust
Page 196 and 197: Against world unity 183 Kratochwil,
Page 198 and 199: 11 The evolution of European Union
Page 200 and 201: the jus publicum Europaeum and the
Page 202 and 203: EU law and the nomos of Europe 189
Page 204 and 205: values, which nonetheless were valu
Page 206 and 207: the individual global settings that
Page 208 and 209: integral part of the legal systems
Page 210 and 211: These structural principles are not
Page 212 and 213: seen as the first and most obvious
Page 214: EU law and the nomos of Europe 201
Page 218 and 219: 12 A terrifying world without an ex
Page 220 and 221: A terrifying world without an exter
Page 224 and 225: exception proves everything: It con
Page 230 and 231: Schmitt, this radically conservativ
Page 232 and 233: Notes A terrifying world without an
Page 236 and 237: It is from this perspective that th
Page 238 and 239: The ethos of insecure life 225 enem
Page 240 and 241: The ethos of insecure life 227 and
Page 242 and 243: part to decisionism. Yet the images
Page 244 and 245: The ethos of insecure life 231 it.
Page 246 and 247: The ethos of insecure life 233 Domi
Page 248 and 249: The ethos of insecure life 235 diff
Page 250 and 251: Conclusion The ethos of insecure li
Page 252 and 253: 10 For a more detailed argument on
Page 254 and 255: The ethos of insecure life 241 Stra
Page 256 and 257: Carl Schmitt viewed The Nomos of th
Page 258 and 259: Nomos: word and myth 245 If Michel
Page 260 and 261: Nomos: word and myth 247 cerned to
Page 262 and 263: The demonic nomos Nomos: word and m
Page 264 and 265: Nomos: word and myth 251 ence of 18
Page 266 and 267: Nomos: word and myth 253 picture. S
Page 268 and 269: ent kinds of police action. There w
Page 270 and 271: Notes 1 This and the following four
Page 272 and 273: Index 9/11 attacks 73, 78, 83-92, 9
Page 274 and 275: European Community 195, 196; contra
Page 276 and 277: 245-6, 250, 255; globalization of 1
Page 278 and 279: terrorism 1, 76-9, 80-5, 88-9, 116,
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