Table Of Contentcarl schmitt’s institutional theory
In1922,CarlSchmittpennedPoliticalTheology,thecelebratedessayinwhichhe
elaborated on the notorious theory that the heart of politics lies in the sovereign
power to issue emergency measures that suspend the legal order. Ever since,
Schmitt’s thinking has largely been identified with this concept, despite him
renouncingitovertime.OfferingacomprehensiveanalysisofSchmitt’swritings,
Carl Schmitt’s Institutional Theory provides an ambitious, novel perspective on
CarlSchmittandhislegalandpoliticalthinking.BydelvingintoSchmitt’soutput
over his decadeslong career, Mariano Croce and Andrea Salvatore explore
Schmitt’s varied and developing thoughts on exceptionalism, societal pluralism,
and the law as the progenitor and enforcer of normality. Challenging dominant
interpretations, Croce and Salvatore dethrone the false centrality of certain key
texts, and instead provide a more unified, coherent account of his institutional
theoryfromacrosshislongandcontroversialcareer.
Mariano Croce is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at Sapienza
University of Rome. He held the post of Marie Curie Fellow at the Faculty of
Law of the University of Antwerp, where he is coleader of the research line in
kinship studies. His books include The Legal Theory of Carl Schmitt (2013, with
Andrea Salvatore), The Politics of Juridification (2018), and The Legacy of
Pluralism: The Continental Jurisprudence of Santi Romano, Carl Schmitt, and
CostantinoMortati(2020,withMarcoGoldoni).
Andrea Salvatore is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at Sapienza
University of Rome. His books include The Legal Theory of Carl Schmitt (2013,
withMarianoCroce)andUndoingTies:PoliticalPhilosophyattheWaningofthe
State(2015,withMarianoCroce).
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’
Carl Schmitt s Institutional Theory
the political power of normality
MARIANO CROCE
Sapienza Università di Roma
ANDREA SALVATORE
Sapienza Università di Roma
Published online by Cambridge University Press
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title:CarlSchmitt’sinstitutionaltheory:thepoliticalpowerofnormality/MarianoCroce,
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|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
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Politicaltheology.|Schmitt,Carl,1888-1985.PolitischeTheologie.
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Contents
Acknowledgements page vii
Introduction 1
1 WhatIs Exceptionalist Decisionism?:Reinterpreting Political
Theology 8
Political Theory or Jurisprudence? The Exceptionalist
vs The Jurisprudential Reading 10
How to Describethe Legal Oder as an Order 13
On Coercion andthe Basic Norm 17
The Structural Nature ofthe SociologyofLegal Concepts 23
2 Looking Backwards: Schmitt before
Exceptionalist Decisionism 27
The Antidecisionist Stance of Schmitt’s Early Writings 28
Correctio oppositorum: AnInstitutional Detailin the
Decisionist Painting 34
ADictatorship under PriorAuthorisation 38
3 How Exceptionalist DecisionismCame About: Schmitt
and Coeval Critics 47
Irrational Conducts 49
Indiscriminate Decisions 54
Vicious Circles 58
4 A Fresh Start: Schmitt and State Pluralism 66
The Exceptionalist Reading of TheConcept of the Political 69
The Concretist Reading of The Concept ofthe Political 74
The Roleof the State visàvis Pluralism 78
v
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vi Contents
5 Out of the Exceptionalist Quagmire: The Notion
of Institution in Schmitt’sThinking 84
The Paninstitutionalist Reading 85
Towardsa Thicker Notion ofInstitution 90
Normality andIts Contents 98
6 The Politics of Normality:Schmitt’s
Concrete-OrderThinking 106
The Ambivalent Relation with Legal Institutionalism 107
The Substantive Twist ofInstitutionalism 114
Decisionism Reborn 117
Was Decisionism aNecessary Outcomeof ConcreteOrder
Thinking? 120
7 Doing Awaywith Politics: Schmitt’sJuristic
Institutionalism 125
Nomos, orthe Long Goodbye toDecision 127
AJuristAppealing (again) toJurists 133
The Last Battle: Law inContext vs Borderless Technique 138
Conclusion: Demythologising Carl Schmitt 143
References 147
Index 157
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Acknowledgements
Alongtheway,variousportionsofthisbookhavebeendiscussedatnumerous
workshops and conferences on Carl Schmitt’s thinking and related themes.
We are grateful for the feedback, comments and criticisms we have received
from various colleagues, and especially Adalgiso Amendola, Daniele
Archibugi, Sandrine Baume, Sandro Chignola, Emanuele Conte, Roger
Cotterrell, Giuseppe Duso, David Dyzenhaus, Alessandro Ferrara, Filippo
Fontanelli, Marco Goldoni, Martin Loughlin, Clara Maier, Francesco
Mancuso, Giuseppe Martinico, Virginio Marzocchi, John McCormick,
Reinhard Mehring, Jens Meierhenrich, Panu Minkkinen, Damiano Palano,
Stefano Pietropaoli, Cesare Pinelli, Geminello Preterossi, Aldo Sandulli,
William Scheuerman, Benjamin Schupmann, Luca Scuccimarra, Nadia
Urbinati, Lars Vinx, Marc de Wilde, Lea Ypi and Samuel Zeitlin.
Thanks also go to the Rethinking Political Philosophy group (RePoP),
whichtrulyproves an experimental site ofcreative thinking.
WeareparticularlythankfultoMartinLoughlinforbelievinginthisproject
andforencouragingustoarrangeabookproposal.Abig‘thankyou’toFinola
O’Sullivan and Marianne Nield at Cambridge University Press for their
valuable help and assistance. We are also very grateful to the anonymous
readers, whose excellent suggestions significantlyimproved the book.
This is a revised and extended version of M. Croce and A. Salvatore,
L’indecisionista. Carl Schmitt oltre l’eccezione (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2020).
We are very grateful to Stefano Verdicchio and the Italian publisher
Quodlibet for waiving their translation rights.
vii
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Introduction
It is somewhat ironic that this book publishes with the centenary of Political
Theology,firstpublishedin1922.Intheend,oneofthemainclaimsweshall
makehereisthatCarlSchmitt’scelebratedessayhasbeenundulyoverempha
sisedandthatitformulatedatheoryoflawandaconceptionofnormalitythat
hehimselfdismantledafewyearsafteritspublication.Arelatedclaimwillbe
thatinterpretationsthatidentifyaconnectionbetweenPoliticalTheologyand
successiveworkssuchasTheConceptofthePolitical(1928)andConstitutional
Theory(1928)arewronginatleastoneimportantrespect:throughthoseworks,
Schmitt tried to pull himself out of the quagmire in which he was bogged
down in 1922 namely, the problematic conception that we shall dub
‘exceptionalist decisionism’. But we shall have to go further. Works that are
coeval with Political Theology, such as Dictatorship (1921) and Roman
Catholicism and Political Form (1923), offer much leeway for criticising
exceptionalist decisionism, either because the notions of exception and deci
sion are thinner and more tenable (as is the case with Dictatorship), or
because there is no room at all for any of them (as is the case with Roman
Catholicism and Political Form). In sum, as a celebration of Political
Theology, this book cuts apoor figure.
Nevertheless,thisbookisnotacelebrationofanyspecificSchmitt’stextbut
anexplorationofhiswork withaviewtounearthinghistheoryoflawandits
bearingsonhisconceptionofpolitics.Weshallsoonseethatitispointlessto
lookforatheoryoflawinSchmitt’soveralloeuvre.Asisthecasewithalmost
allgreatauthors,mostoftenhischangesofmindaremoreenlighteningthan
his firm points and indeed we shall see that his firm points are the most
hideous, such as his unshakeable conviction that the homogeneity of the
social justifies political exclusion and the reduction of pluralism through
administrative policies. We shall then be on the trail of Schmitt’s smaller or
greater amendments to his own theorising as he himself came to realise that
1
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2 Introduction
he was on the wrong track. For there is little doubt that his chief theoretical
objective was to understand how a state could secure the stability of the
politicalcommunityandmakesurethatafixedsetofloyaltiesandallegiances
bindthepopulacetothestategovernment.Yet,heexploreddifferentwaysof
thinking about the means whereby the state could achieve this. While most
interpreters in the last hundred years have concentrated on the theoretical
framework that he developed between 1922 and 1928, we shall contend that
Schmitt could only get his project off the ground in between 1928 and 1934,
when he elaboratedon an institutional theory oflaw.
This book will not specifically focus on that span of years, since we have
already offered our take on (what we called) Schmitt’s ‘institutional turn’.1
Rather,wewilldiscussvariousinterpretationsofhiswritingsandwillputthem
to the test of his own rethinking of a few substantial points. In short, our
centralthesiscanbesummarisedasfollows.Schmittisgenerallyconsideredas
the father of exceptionalist decisionism that is, the theory that the heart of
politics lies in the sovereign power to suspend the legal order andto create a
newoneexnihilo.However,heheldanexceptionalistviewforaverylimited
period, and even in that period his thinking cannot be regarded as unwaver
ingly exceptionalist. By contextualising Political Theology and by looking at
his output from the 1910s through to the 1950s, we shall make the case that
Schmitt’sisajuristictheoryofthelegalorder thatattachesspecialimportance
totheactivityofthejuristsandportraysjurisprudenceasavitalcomplementof
legislative power in the making of the law. Schmitt’s most consistent view,
aftersomeoverhauling,isaninstitutionaltheoryoflawandpoliticsthatexalts
legal science as a jurisgenerative practice that shelters a community’s insti
tutionalpractices and itshistorical identity.
Needless to say, this will not amount to a defence of Schmitt’s theory,
letalonetoanattempttoteaseoutademocraticresidueinhisthinking.Both
routes are tortuous and hazardous. Schmitt was a highlyconservative thinker
who lent support to revolting ideas such as the ethical and ethnic identity
shared by the people and the Leader, which he defended in the hope of
winningthesympathyoftheNaziregime.Noliberalordemocraticviewscan
be advocated based on the conceptual resources Schmitt provided us with.
However, this hardly makes his theory useless. Quite the contrary, he is an
excellent case study to investigate the relation of the legal order to social
practices, for his moving away from exceptionalist decisionism can be
1
See,amongotherthings,CroceandSalvatore,TheLegalTheoryofCarlSchmitt;Croceand
Salvatore,‘AfterException:CarlSchmitt’sLegalInstitutionalismandtheRepudiation
ofExceptionalism’.
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