The Concept of the Political

A Key to Understanding Carl Schmitt's Constitutional Theory

Datos Bibliográficos

ID23181237
AutoresErnst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (autor de correspondencia)
Año1997
Volumen10
Número1
Páginas5-19
Fecha de publicación1997-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCanadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0841-8209 • E-ISSN: 2056-4260
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0841820900000205
OpenAlexW2108522631
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas7

The focus of this paper is not on the person, but on the work of Carl Schmitt, in particular the significance of Schmitt's concept of the political for an understanding of his legal and constitutional theory. Let me start with a short personal memory. When I was a third year law student, I read Carl Schmitt's Constitutional Theory . I came across the formulations that the state is the political unity of a people and that the rule of law component in a constitution is an unpolitical component. I was puzzled by these two remarks. I had learned from Georg Jellinek that the state, from a sociological perspective, is a purposeful corporative unit and, from a legal perspective, represents a territorially based corporation. I had also gathered some knowledge about “organic” state theories, especially that of Otto von Gierke who considers the state an organism and a real corporative personality rather than a mere legal fiction. On the basis of these theories, I felt unable to understand Schmitt's point that the state is the political unity of a people, because in those theories the political aspect is largely missing. It was only later that, by reading and studying Carl Schmitt's essay The Concept of the Political , I gradually learned to make sense of the above remarks. Thus I have discovered that that essay, and the understanding of the political elaborated in it, contains the key to understanding Carl Schmitt's constitutional theory in general. I would now like to explain this.

Constitution · Constitutional law · Constitutional theory · Epistemology · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Central European and Russian historical studies · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought