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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14 L. Odysseos and F. Petito<br />
and, to some extent, even Francis Fukuyama’s (1989) ‘end <strong>of</strong> history’ versus<br />
Samuel Huntington’s (1993) ‘clash <strong>of</strong> civilizations’. Following these reflections,<br />
the analyses proposed in the Part III <strong>of</strong> this volume, under the rubric ‘Searching<br />
for a new nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth’, examine the nature and possibilities <strong>of</strong> the future<br />
world order.<br />
Searching for a new nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth<br />
Using <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s insights, Chantal Mouffe in Chapter 8 argues that the central<br />
problem that our current unipolar world, under the unchallenged hegemony <strong>of</strong><br />
the United States, is facing is the impossibility for antagonisms to find legitimate<br />
forms <strong>of</strong> expression. Under such conditions, antagonisms, when they do emerge,<br />
tend to take extreme forms. In order to create the channels for the legitimate<br />
expression <strong>of</strong> dissent we need to envisage, Mouffe suggests, a pluralistic multipolar<br />
world order constructed around a certain number <strong>of</strong> greater spaces and<br />
genuine cultural poles.<br />
Along similar lines, in Chapter 9 Danilo Zolo draws on <strong>Carl</strong> <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s philosophy<br />
<strong>of</strong> international law in order to argue against certain contemporary uses <strong>of</strong><br />
the notion <strong>of</strong> ‘empire’. He uses the notion <strong>of</strong> empire, rather, to denote the global<br />
hegemony <strong>of</strong> the United States according to a complex meaning, which is partially<br />
new with respect to the ‘Roman model’ which functions as an imperial<br />
paradigm within contemporary political theory. Against the United States’ dangerous<br />
imperial tendencies, Zolo argues that world order and peace need a neoregionalist<br />
revival <strong>of</strong> the notion <strong>of</strong> Großraum, together with a reinforcement <strong>of</strong><br />
multilateral negotiations between nation-states, which continue to be the source<br />
<strong>of</strong> democratic legitimation <strong>of</strong> the processes <strong>of</strong> regional integration.<br />
If these analyses tend to emphasise <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s preference for the emergence <strong>of</strong><br />
a new pluralistic order as the future nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth, Fabio Petito’s and J.<br />
Peter Burgess’s chapters expand respectively on the possible theory and practice<br />
<strong>of</strong> this new pluralist nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth to come. In Chapter 10 Petito critically<br />
discusses <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s own speculations on the possible configurations <strong>of</strong> a ‘new<br />
nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth’ and, moving from his apocalyptic stance against world<br />
unity, sketches the contours <strong>of</strong> an intellectual strategy in international political<br />
theory to articulate a more pluralist world order adequate for a multicultural and<br />
globalised international society. In Chapter 11 Burgess, moreover, examines the<br />
general elements <strong>of</strong> the European legal system, and the project <strong>of</strong> European construction<br />
from 1950 to 2006 more specifically, as expressed in the evolution <strong>of</strong><br />
European Union law. Outlining the broad contours <strong>of</strong> a new European nomos,<br />
which according to Burgess has more modest aspirations than the jus publicum<br />
Europaeum and which contains a particular mix <strong>of</strong> limited universality and local<br />
particularity, he speculates on the possible connection that this European order<br />
might entertain with a future nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth.<br />
At the very beginning <strong>of</strong> this introduction we asked, with <strong>Schmitt</strong>, whether at<br />
the dawn <strong>of</strong> the third millennium we were experiencing the emergence <strong>of</strong> a new<br />
nomos <strong>of</strong> the earth. Answering this question is, in the very words <strong>of</strong> the jurist <strong>of</strong>