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Carl Schmitt's Internal Critique of Liberal Constitutionalism: Verfassungslehre as a Response to the Weimar State Crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2015

Jeffrey Seitzer
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In one of his most famous dicta, the German legal and political theorist Carl Schmitt proclaimed it “obvious” that “all political concepts, images, and terms have a polemical meaning,” because “[t]hey are focused on a specific conflict and are bound to a concrete situation.” Taking Schmitt at his word, I argue that one must read Schmitt's masterpiece of comparative law from the Weimar period, Verfassungslehre, as a response to the Weimar state crisis. Schmitt's conceptual approach in Verfassungslehre aims to create a form of constitutional theory capable of compensating for structural defects of the Weimar state. Reading Verfassungslehre in this way also reveals that Schmitt does not present his constitutional theory as an alternative to liberal constitutionalism, but rather Schmitt's comparative history of constitutionalism in Verfassungslehre locates his decisionism at the very core of the liberal constitutional tradition.

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Research Article
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Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence , Volume 10 , Issue 1: CARL SCHMITT , January 1997 , pp. 203 - 225
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Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1997

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References

I am grateful to Olivier Beaud, Hartwin Bungert, David Dyzenhaus, Gary Herrigel, Stephen Holmes, Oliver Lepsius, Bernard Manin, John McCormick, George Schwab, and Janet Smith for helpful advice and encouragement as well as to the German Academic Exchange Service for a grant to complete some of the research for this essay at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

1. Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political, trans. Schwab, George (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996) at 30 [hereinafter Concept of the Political].Google Scholar

2. Schmitt, Carl, Verfassungslehre, 7th ed. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989) [hereinafter Verfassungslehre].Google Scholar

3. A focus on Schmitt's methodology distinguishes my analysis from more narrowly philosophical treatments. Compare in this regard the famous claim by Leo Strauss that Schmitt's critique of liberalism is “in the horizon of liberalism.” See for example Concept of the Political, supra note 1 at 107.

4. András Sajó, for example, claims that “for Hungarians, the natural interpretation of power is based on ‘decisionism’” and that “the dissatisfaction of the power elite” in Hungary “is derived from Carl Schmitt's interpretation of power.” See Grudzi_ska-Gross, Irena, ed., Constitutionalism in East Central Europe (Bratislava: Czecho-Slovak Committee of the European Cultural Foundation, 1994) at 56ff.Google Scholar

5. See “Constitutional Powermaking for the New Polity: Some Reflections on the Relations between Constituent Power and the Constitution” in Rosenfeld, Michel, ed., Constitutionalism, Identity, Difference, and Legitimacy: Theoretical Perspectives (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994) at p. 153.Google Scholar

6. Bendersky, Joseph W., Carl Schmitt: Theorist for the Reich (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Meuter, Günther, Der Katechon: Zu Carl Schmitts fundamentalistischer Kritik der Zeit (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1994)Google Scholar offer examples of biographical and esoteric approaches, respectively. For a thoughtful analysis of the potential of the esoteric approach pioneered by Leo Strauss, see Beaud, Olivier, “L'art d'écrire chez un juriste: Carl Schmitt” in Herrera, Carlos-Miguel, ed., Le Droit, le Politique: autour de Max Weber, Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt (Paris: Éditions L'Harmattan, 1995). Google Scholar

7. In many respects, my analysis in this section echoes much recent scholarship on Schmitt's relation to Sorel. My treatment differs in that I argue that parallels between Sorel and Schmitt suggest why Schmitt cast Verfassungslehre in the form of an internal critique of liberal constitutionalism. The conventional view, by contrast, stresses Sorel's influence in Schmitt's efforts to discredit liberal institutions.

8. Schmitt, Carl, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, trans. Kennedy, Ellen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988).Google Scholar

9. See Sorel, George, Reflections on Violence, trans. Hulme, E. & Roth, J. (London: Collier Books, 1950) at 259 Google Scholar and 263-64 for Sorel's description of his method. According to the translators, diremption is Sorel's coinage.

10. This is illustrated by Sorel's analysis of the struggle between the Catholic Church and the French state, for example. In the struggle with secular authority, according to Sorel, the Church was forced to surrender control of ever more extensive portions of the social order. This is neither surprising, nor disturbing, since secular authority was better suited to execute many essential tasks. The problem, in Sorel's view, was the Church acquiesced on the truly important moral/religious issues, mistakenly seeking to preserve its position in secular society by compromising its stewardship of moral and religious truth, which is the true basis of its authority. There are many good reasons for cooperation with secular authority, according to Sorel. Such cooperation is especially important for the masses, for whom a degree of “economic-juridical uniformity” guaranteed by secular authority is beneficial. But compromises on these larger questions eroded the Church's authority. In the long-run, this did much more to undermine the position of the Church within society than would have its steadfast refusal to compromise its principles. Ibid. at 253-73.

11. On Schmitt's relation to Hobbes, see Rumpf, Helmut, Carl Schmitt und Thomas Hobbes: Ideelle Beziehungen und aktuelle Bedeutung mit einer Abhandlung über: Die Frühschriften Carl Schmitts (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and McCormick, John P., “Fear, Technology, and the State: Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and the Revival of Hobbes in Weimar and National Socialist Germany” (1994) Political Theory 619.Google Scholar

12. See Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, trans. Schwab, George (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985) at 33-35 [hereinafter Political Theology].Google Scholar

13. For an excellent treatment of Hobbes' effort to counter the destructive power of irrational beliefs, see Holmes, Stephen, Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995) at 69-99.Google Scholar

14. On the complex relationship between Schmitt and Strauss as well as important changes in their respective interpretations of Hobbes in the interwar period, see McCormick, , “Fear, Technology, and the State”, supra note 11.Google Scholar

15. Concept of the Political, supra note 1 at 100-01.

16. This explains the peculiar book report quality of Schmitt's treatment of the counter-revolutionaries in the final chapter of Political Theology, supra note 12 at 5. Schmitt opened the chapter by recounting in a sympathetic tone the counterrevolutionary “recognition that their times needed a decision”. Since much of Schmitt's work in the Weimar period, but especially Political Theology itself, is devoted to showing the necessity of decision in his time, this leads one to expect Schmitt to conclude the work with an argument for the continued relevance of the counterrevolutionary vision of social order. Instead, he merely reviewed their rejection of liberalism and advocacy of hierarchical authority without taking a stand on it. The closest Schmitt comes to this, in fact, is his claim that Donoso Cortes' characterization of the bourgeoisie as the “discussing class” is “not the last word on Continental liberalism in its entirety, but it is certainly a most striking observation”; Political Theology at 62-63.

17. See Preuß, , “Constitutional Powermaking for the New Polity”, supra note 5 at 153.Google Scholar

18. Reinhard Mehring rightly stresses the connection between Schmitt's “sociology of concepts” in Political Theology and the conceptual framework of Verfassungslehre. Schmitt deems it necessary to resolve oppositions between conflicting principles and to produce harmony between reigning principles and the institutional structure of states. But Mehring mistakenly argues that in Verfassungslehre Schmitt seeks to produce the necessary harmony by discrediting and replacing liberalism. See Mehring, , “Carl Schmitts Lehre von der Auflösung des Liberalismus: Das Sinngefüge der ‘Verfassungslehre’ als historisches Urteil” (1991) 38 Zeitschrift für Politik 200 at 214.Google Scholar

Given Schmitt's understanding of the radical contingency of norms, there is no principled reason why the liberal tradition cannot be simply transformed such that the necessary harmony is secured, if this seems the most effective means to this end. Schmitt's only concern is whether his reconstruction of liberal constitutionalism is able “to inspire confidence” and spark action in defense of the Republic as he has interpreted it.

19. For a overview of Schmitt's understanding of world history, see McCormick, John P., “Introduction to Schmitt's ‘The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations” (1993) 96 Telos 119Google Scholar. This topic is handled more extensively in Ulmen, G.L., Politische Mehrwert: Eine Studie über Max Weber und Carl Schmitt (Weinheim: VCH Acta humaniora, 1991).Google Scholar

20. I have stressed the need to properly contextualize Schmitt's works, because Schmitt tailors his approach to respond to particular problems. This is not to say that one cannot read Schmitt's works in reference to one another, only that one must remain aware of the important differences between them. With this in mind, I suggest Schmitt's underappreciated essay, Hugo Preuss: Sein Staatsbegriff und seine Stellung in der deutschen Staatslehre (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1930) as a companion volume to Verfassungslehre. For reading the two essays together shows that Verfassungslehre is an attempt to reconstitute the unified science of the state on different grounds than the 19th century version. For an excellent overview of traditional German state theory, see Emerson, Rupert, State and Sovereignty in Modem Germany (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1928; Westport, CN: Hyperion Press, 1979) at 1-46.Google Scholar

21. Generations of scholars have devoted themselves to explaining Germany's belated transition to a full-fledged liberal democracy. See, for example, Veblen, Thorstein, Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1966)Google Scholar, Plessner, Helmut, Die verspätete Nation: über die politische Verführbarkeit bürgerlichen Geistes (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1974)Google Scholar, Meinecke, Friedrich, The German Catastrophe: Reflections and Recollections (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950)Google Scholar, Krieger, Leonard, The German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957)Google Scholar, Dahrendorf, Ralf, Society and Democracy in Germany (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company; Anchor Books, 1968)Google Scholar, and Blackbourn, David & Eley, Geoff, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Schmitt's emphasis on the peculiarities of German federalism and Bismarck's brilliant political leadership echoes Weber's famous argument to this effect. See especially “Parliament and Government in a Reconstructed Germany: A Contribution to the Political Critique of Officialdom and Party Politics” in Roth, Guenther & Wittich, Claus, eds., Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).Google Scholar

Unless otherwise indicated, my analysis in this section draws from Schmitt's treatment of parliament (Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 303-59), particularly his discussion of constitutionalism in the Reich (Verfassungslehre at 330-38).

22. The best work on the Prussian reform movement, particularly the relation of political and legal reform, remains Koselleck, Reinhart, Preussen zwischen Reform und Revolution: Allgemeines Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1791 bis 1848. 3rd ed. (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1989).Google Scholar

23. For a thorough analysis of the tumultuous events surrounding the “imposed” Prussian Constitution of 1850 and the legal and political changes it effected, see Huber, Ernst Rudolf, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789 (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1960), vol 3 at 35-128.Google Scholar An overview is offered in Grimm, Dieter, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, 1776-1866: Vom Beginn des modernen Verfassungsstaats bis zur Auflösung des Deutschen Bundes (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988) at 175-217.Google Scholar

24. Blackbourn & Eley, supra note 21, provide an excellent treatment of the failed “bourgeois revolution” during the Reich period. Though they underestimate the significance for German political development of the failure to institute full political reform in the 19th Century, they are right that legal reform at the Reich level provided liberals with many of their demands. Also, many of the individual Länder constitutions protected an extensive array of civil liberties, compensating somewhat for the absence of constitutional rights under the Reich Constitution. See Luebbe-Wolff, Gertrude, “Safeguards of Civil and Constitutional Rights—The Debate on the Role of the Reichsgericht” in Wellenreuther, Hermann ed., German and American Constitutional Thought: Contexts, Interaction, and Historical Realities (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).Google Scholar

25. This is clear, for example, in Savigny's understanding of the role of the legal profession in German politics. See Savigny, Carl Friedrich, Of the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence (London: Littlewood & Co., 1975)Google Scholar, where he praises Roman jurists for cultivating a system of customary law with the necessary scope and elasticity for a complex, rapidly changing society. For an excellent discussion of the importance for 19th Century German politics of the efforts of Savigny and his followers to promote the Roman Law, see Whitman, James Q., The Legacy of Roman Law in the German Romantic Era (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. On the complicated politics surrounding the drafting and promulgation of the Civil Code, see John, Michael, Politics and the Law in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Origins of the Civil Code (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

27. Ott, Walter, Der Rechtspositivismus. Kritische Würdigung auf der Grundlage eines juristischen Pragmatismus, 2d. ed. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1992) at 32-116 Google Scholar, offers a good overview of the diverse strains of legal positivism in Germany. On the basic issues and positions in the debate over legal positivism in the Weimar Republic, see Wendenburg, Helga, Die Debate um die Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit und der Methodenstreit der Staatsrechtslehre in der Weimarer Republik (Göttingen: Verlag Otto Schwartz, 1984).Google Scholar

Legal positivism is the dead horse of German legal theory. For useful correctives, see Maus, Ingeborg, Rechtstheorie und politische Theorie im Industriekapitalismus (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1986) at 205-26Google Scholar, Caldwell, Peter, “Legal Positivism and Weimar Democracy” (1994) 39 Am. J. of Juris. 273Google Scholar, and Dreier, Horst, Rechtslehre, , Staatssoziologie und Demokratietheorie bei Hans Kelsen (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1990).Google Scholar Maus offers a nuanced understanding of legal positivism, Caldwell disputes the oft-repeated charge that legal positivism is politically naive, and Dreier supplies an impressive reinterpretation of the unfairly maligned Hans Kelsen.

28. For an overview of the complex constitutional structure of the Reich, see Craig, Gordon A., Germany, 1866-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) at 38-60.Google Scholar

29. Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at ix.

30. This view is presented throughout Schmitt's works from this period. Drawing on Schmitt's contemporary Thoma, Richard, Caldwell, , “Legal Positivism and Weimar Democracy”, supra note 27 at 297-98Google Scholar rightly points out that “Schmitt's invocations of a tyrannical two-thirds majority… were absurd in a period when a simple majority in the Reichstag was almost impossible to reach.”

31. Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 28-36.

32. Preuß also sought to build and maintain bridges between warring social factions. Though his preference was for a Western-style parliamentary democracy, Preuß was favorably impressed by the fact that at the “decisive moment” the Social Democrats opted for “political democracy” rather than “dictatorship.” This bodes well for the future, according to Preuß, as it indicates that the bourgeoisie and the socialists can work together. But it should not lead one to believe that the class struggle is over, nor that there are not real differences between the classes. Formal equality alone is not enough, in his view. The new Republic, rather, must infuse formal legal equality with the “social spirit.” See Preuß, Hugo, Staat, Recht und Freiheit: aus 40 Jahren deutscher Politik und Geschichte (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1964) at 421-28, especially at 428.Google Scholar

Despite his stature as a legal theorist in the Reich period and his important role in the early part of the Weimar Republic, Preuß has not received much scholarly attention. On Preuß' political theory, see Lehnert, Detlef, “Hugo Preuß als moderner Klassiker einer kritischen Theorie der ‘verfaßten’ Politik. Vom Souveränitätsproblem zum demokratischen Pluralismus” (1992) 33 Politische Vierteljahresschrift 33.Google Scholar

33. On Naumann's role in the early Republic, particularly his position on the Basic Rights, see Theiner, Peter, Sozialer Liberalismus und deutsche Weltpolitik: Friedrich Naumann im Wilhelmischen Deutschland (1860-1919) (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 1983) at 283-304, especially at 292-94.Google Scholar

34. The economic and social rights lent constitutional status to the extensive social legislation of the Reich. In practical terms, therefore, the inclusion of these rights represented mostly a only symbolic change from the previous era, though not an altogether insignificant one. On the Basic Rights in the politics of the era, see Peukert, Detlev, Die Weimarer Republik: Krisenjahre der klassischen Moderne (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1987) at 137-47.Google Scholar

35. Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 157-82, especially at 181-82.

36. Of course, class conflict was a major factor in the unstable politics of the era, but it is difficult to say whether the Basic Rights provisions further exacerbated already tense social relations. For example, civil servants insisted their salaries not be curbed and unions objected to increases in unemployment contributions for workers. These disputes contributed to the governability problems of the Republic. But both of these groups no doubt would have agitated for their cause even absent constitutional provisions supporting their claims. On social conflict in the Weimar Republic with a view to the Basic Rights, see Peukert, , Die Weimarer Republik, supra note 34 at 132-47.Google Scholar

37. See Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 20-36, especially at 24-25. Schmitt's aim in removing issues from political contestation in the usual way was not the liberal one of moderating political conflict for the sake of the democratic process generally. It was, rather, to enhance central state power. For an excellent analysis of the liberal insight regarding the removal of contentious issues from everyday political struggle, see Holmes, Passions and Constraint, supra note 13 at 202-35.

38. Quoted in Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 332.

39. Though the civil service was a traditional preserve of the bourgeoisie and was an important component of the independent state Schmitt envisioned, Schmitt rejected the claim based on Art. 129 that the salaries of civil servants could not be reduced. Besides noting that this provision was meant to ensure merely the retention of then serving civil servants at the inception of the Weimar Republic, Schmitt points out how such a subjective right contributes to the worsening financial condition of the Republic. See Verfassungsrechtliche Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1924-1954: Materialien zu einer Verfassungslehre, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1958) at 174-79.Google Scholar

40. Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 99-112. Schmitt's insistence on the primacy of the Constitution as a whole over its particular parts was quite novel at the time. “In Schmitt's Verfassungslehre,” according to a recent French commentator, “one finds for the first time a systematization of this thesis of a substantive limitation on the power of amendment.” See Beaud, Olivier, La Puissance de l'État (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994) at 340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

I examine the problems in state structure which induce Schmitt to embrace the concept of super-constitutionality, and I show how Schmitt elaborates his “systematization” through a comparative history of constitution-making. A more complete study would examine in full Schmitt's relation to French constitutional theory in the Third Republic, particularly to that of Maurice Hauriou.

41. The classic statement of this tendency is Mohl, Robert V., Staatsrecht, Völkerrecht und Politik, vol. 1 (Berlin: Tübingen, 1860) at 96-143.Google Scholar An excellent contemporary treatment in reference to constitutional law is Hesse, Konrad, Grundzüge des Verfassungsrechts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 18th ed. (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Juristischer Verlag, 1991) at 19-32.Google Scholar

42. For an excellent overview of legal theory in the Reich period, see Emerson, , State and Sovereignty in Modern Germany, supra note 20 at 47-91.Google Scholar

43. A useful introduction in English to Savigny's view of history and of the state is the famous lecture Of the Vocation of our Age. For an introduction to his method, see Anleitung zu einem eigenen Studium der Jurisprudenz (Stuttgart: K.F. Koehler Verlag, 1951). Regarding Savigny's “idealism,” see Rückert, Joachim, Idealismus, Jurisprudenz und Politik bei Friedrich Carl von Savigny (Ebelsbach: Verlag Rolf Gremer, 1984).Google Scholar For an interesting discussion of theoretical problems with Historical School approach, see Böckenförde, Ernst-Wolfgang, “Die Historische Rechtsschule und das Problem der Geschichtlichkeit des Rechts” in Staat, Gesellschaft, Freiheit: Studien zur Staatstheorie und zum Verfassungsrecht (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1976) at 9-41.Google Scholar

Savigny does not come on Schmitt's radar screen until late in World War Two (1943/44). Ulmen, , Politische Mehrwert, supra note 19 at 74-86 Google Scholar, provides a thorough discussion of Schmitt's treatment of Savigny.

44. In an appendix to his book on dictatorship, for example, Schmitt draws on the intent of the framers to resolve a tension between the first and second clauses of the Weimar Constitution's infamous Article 48. Schmitt stresses, however, that the intent of the framers has no independent normative validity—the drafting history is not examined for its own sake, in other words. Rather, it “demonstrates the dominant sentiment of the Weimar national convention that Germany is in an abnormal situation.” See Die Diktatur: Von den Anfängen des modernen Souveränitätsgedankens bis zum proletarischen Klassenkampf, 5th ed. (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989) at 233.Google Scholar Hereinafter Diktatur. It is this “general awareness” which provides the “rationale” for the clauses in question.

45. Friedrich, Carl J. provides a useful comparison of Hegel and the Historical Law School on this point. See The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963) at 131-42.Google Scholar

46. See, for example, Schmitt's view of the implications of the radical contingency of norms for existing understandings of constitutions in Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 44-91, especially at 87-91.Google Scholar

47. Kelsen's understanding of democracy, for example, is premised on this recognition. See especially Vom Wesen und Wert der Demokratie, 2nd. ed. (Aalen: Scienta Verlag, 1981).Google Scholar

Though Schmitt expressed disdain for Kelsen, there are important parallels between his theory of decisionism and Kelsen's value relativism, as many commentators have pointed out. For a recent reworking of this claim in reference to Schmitt's critique of liberal constitutionalism, see Scheuerman, William, “Carl Schmitt's Critique of Liberal Constitutionalism” (1996) 58 Rev. of Pol. 299.Google Scholar

Kelsen is arguably the most misunderstood legal theorist of the 20th century. Kelsen's relativism was far from naive about the nature of power. The pure theory of law seeks the depolitization of legal scholarship, but not of law, which Kelsen considers inseparable from politics. And his emphasis on formalism seeks to derail the tendency to use legal scholarship for ideological purposes.

For an excellent example of Kelsen's efforts to hinder the politicization of legal scholarship, see his dismantling of Smend's, Rudolf theory of integration: Der Staat als Integration: Eine Prinzipielle Auseinandersetzung (Wien: Verlag von Julius Springer, 1930)Google Scholar. A good introduction to Kelsen's view of the relation of law and politics is “Was ist die Reine Rechtslehre?” in Klecatsky, Hans, Marcic, René, & Schambeck, Herbert, eds. Die Wiener Rechtstheoretische Schule: Schriften von Hans Kelsen, Adolf Merkl, Alfred Verdross (Wien: Europa Verlag, 1968).Google Scholar

48. Bruce Ackerman's understanding of dualist democracy is structurally quite similar to Schmitt's decisionism both in terms of their respective views of a sovereign people asserting its will in founding moments as well as in their insistence on a qualitative distinction between the founding moment and ordinary politics. An important difference between them is that Schmitt, but not Ackerman, accepts the concept of an unconstitutional constitutional amendment. See We the People: Foundations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991) at 3-33 Google ScholarPubMed for Ackerman's elaboration of dualist democracy.

49. The peculiar abstractness of Schmitt's understanding of founding moments is illustrated by his claim that there is an underlying continuity between Bismarck's Reich and the Weimar Republic. In 1870, the Germans obviously attained a “national” identity, according to Schmitt. Less obviously, he argues, they recognized but did not act upon the democratic principle. They established the Reichstag, for example, as a limited means of expressing the democratic will of the people, but they still adhered to the monarchical principle in regard to constitution-making. With the discrediting of the monarchical principle, the Germans adopted the democratic principle to its fullest extent, that is, in regard to constitution-making as well. On the surface, this is a fundamental change, Schmitt argues, but it obscures the fact that the Germans merely sought to “renew” not eliminate the “Reich” ( Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 46-60).Google Scholar

Schmitt is referring here to the Republic's official title “the German Reich.” According to the principal drafter of the Weimar Constitution, Hugo Preuß, the retention of the designation German Reich aimed merely at placating potential rightist opponents and signified nothing in regard to the source of governmental authority or its particular form. See Preuß, Hugo, Staat, Recht, Freiheit, supra Google Scholar note 32.

50. Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at xi.Google Scholar

51. Ibid. at 38-40.

52. Ibid. at 36-38.

53. Ibid. at 49-51.

54. Ibid. at 23-25.

55. Verfassungslehre revolves around Schmitt's distinction between the political and rechtsstaatliche components of the constitution; see, for example, Ibid. at 40-41. This is because this distinction permits Schmitt to subordinate the ordinary political process to energetic presidential government. Schmitt's theory of constitution-making as decision provides the theoretical foundation for this distinction, and Schmitt develops this theory through a comparative history of constitution-making, so it is necessary to examine this feature of his argument, if one is to fully understand Verfassungslehre.

Most treatments of Schmitt, however, do this to only a very limited degree. Scheuerman rightly stresses, for example, the importance of Schmitt's reinterpretation of Sieyès, but he wrongly argues that according to Schmitt “liberal democratic jurisprudence implicitly recognizes the existence of an omnipotent, inalienable, and indivisible founding subject, the pouvoir constituant”. See Scheuerman, , “Carl Schmitt's Critique of Liberal Constitutionalism”, supra note 47 at 309.Google Scholar Reading Schmitt's reinterpretation of Sieyès in reference to Western constitutional history, rather than focusing narrowly on Schmitt's treatment of early modem liberal theory and the legal positivism of Hans Kelsen, as does Scheuerman, demonstrates that for Schmitt this recognition is not “implicit.” In Schmitt's account, rather, a peculiar strand of Sièyes's thought comes to define liberal constitution-making.

56. Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 46-47.Google Scholar

57. Ibid. at 76-80, especially at 78.

58. Ibid. at 76-80.

59. For an excellent brief comparison of the American and Continental understandings of the state and an analysis of the implications of these understandings for constitutionalism in the United States and Europe, see Casper, Gerhard, “Changing Concepts of Constitutionalism: 18th to 20th Century” (1989) Supreme Ct. Rev. 311.Google Scholar

60. Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at xi.Google Scholar

61. On the American influence on German constitutional development, see Steinberger, Helmut, 200 Jahre amerikanische Bundesverfassung: Zu Einflüssen des amerikanischen Verfassungsrechts auf die deutsche Verfassungsentwicklung (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987).Google Scholar

62. Merryman, John Henry, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar provides a concise introduction to the civil law tradition and how it differs from its common law counterpart.

63. For an overview of the complex strands in the French constitutional tradition, see Stone, Alec, The Birth of Judicial Politics in France: The Constitutional Council in Comparative Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) at 23-45.Google Scholar

64. Political Theology, supra note 12 at 15.Google Scholar

65. Kenneth Baker provides an excellent discussion of Sieyès' role in the French Revolution. See “Sieyès, ” in Furet, François & Ozouf, Mona, eds., A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989) at 313-23.Google Scholar

Stefan Breuer also examines Schmitt's appropriation of Sieyès. We agree that Schmitt radicalizes Sieyès understanding of constituent power by failing to properly contextualize Sieyès' writings and political activity. But whereas Breuer's treatment focuses on social relations, my analysis stresses the immediate political context and Sieyès' place in the French constitutional tradition. See “Nationalstaat und pouvoir constituant bei Sieyès und Carl Schmitt” (1984) 70 Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 495.Google Scholar

66. Article 2. reads: “The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” Article 16. reads: “A society in which the guarantee of rights is not secured, or the separation of powers not clearly established, has no constitution.” See “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” in Baker, Kenneth, ed., The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) at 237-39.Google Scholar

Schmitt recognizes the importance of the concept of normative constitution for the French and American efforts at constitution-making ( Verfassungslehre, supra note 2 at 38-39 Google Scholar), but he sees the concept of a normative constitution as merely another in a number of attempts to portray political aims as constitutionalism per se. Nonetheless, he believes that these revolutions reveal the nature of the constitution-making power, though in different ways.

The normative understanding of a constitution associated with the American and French Revolutions differs from the understanding of a constitution as “a unified, closed system of the highest and most fundamental norms” Schmitt attributes to early liberals and Hans Kelsen. For Schmitt's treatment of the latter, Verfassungslehre at 7-9.Google Scholar

67. See, for example, Kühne, Jörg-Detlef, “Die französische Menschen- und Bürgerrechtserklärung im Rechtsvergleich mit den Vereinigten Staaten und Deutschland” (1990) 39 Google Scholar Jahrbuch des Öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart 1 and Philip, Loïc, “La protection des droits fondamentaux en France” (1989) 38 Google Scholar Jahrbuch des Öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart 116.

68. On this crucial period in French constitutional history, see Geny, François, Science et Technique en droit privé positif, Seconde Partie: Elaboration Scientifique du Droit Positif (L'irreductible “droit naturel”) (Paris: Societe anonyme du Recueil Sirey, 1927) especially sections 130-32.Google Scholar

Schmitt's great French contemporary Leon Duguit provides an especially interesting contrast in this regard. Schmitt's reading of the French understanding of the nation and its importance for constitution-making echoes Duguit's in important respects. Moreover, both Schmitt and Duguit stress the need to break from outdated concepts. Interestingly, though, Schmitt applies the concepts of the nation and a radical break with the past to problems in the interwar period, whereas Duguit argues for an alternate understanding of the state centering on the notion of “public service.” See Duguit, Leon, Law in the Modern State (New York: B.W. Huebsch, 1919) especially at 1-66.Google Scholar

69. This concern was reflected in the debate in France over the appropriateness of American style judicial review early in this century. See especially Carré de Malberg, Raymond, La Loi, expression de la volonté générale (Paris: Economica, 1984)Google Scholar and Lambert, Eduoard, Le gouvernement des juges et la lutte contre la législation sociale aux États-Unis: L'expérience américaine du controle judiciare de la constitutionalité des lois (Paris: Marcel Giard, 1921).Google Scholar On the importance of this controversy for French constitutionalism generally, see Stone, , The Birth of Judicial Politics in France, supra note 63 at 33-40.Google Scholar

70. For a particularly eloquent statement of the need for vigilance on this score, see Tracy, David, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).Google Scholar

71. The classic treatment of this issue remains Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution (London: Penguin Books, 1973).Google Scholar

For a thoughtful recent treatment on the novel challenge to liberal constitution-making stemming from an understandable concern with social justice, see Preuß, Ulrich K., “Patterns of Constitutional Evolution and Change in Eastern Europe,” in Hesse, Joachim Jens & Johnson, Nevil, ed., Constitutional Policy and Change in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).Google Scholar Preuß's treatment is also noteworthy for his interesting argument regarding the implications of particular understandings of constituent power for the structure of government.

72. In this regard, Ackerman and Schmitt arrive at a common destination via different routes. By refusing to read the American constitutional tradition through the distorting lens of dangerous foreign theorists, such as Locke, Hume, and Kant, Ackerman gives pride of place to what he considers the most distinctive American contribution to political theory, more specifically, Ackerman's rather Schmittian notion of Dualist Democracy. See Ackerman, , We the People, supra note 48 at 3.Google Scholar