具体描述
Political Theology II is Carl Schmitt's last book. Part polemic, part self-vindication for his involvement in the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), this is Schmitt's most theological reflection on Christianity and its concept of sovereignty following the Second Vatican Council. At a time of increasing visibility of religion in public debates and a realization that Schmitt is the major and most controversial political theorist of the twentieth century, this last book sets a new agenda for political theology today. The crisis at the beginning of the twenty-first century led to an increased interest in the study of crises in an age of extremes - an age upon which Carl Schmitt left his indelible watermark. In Political Theology II, first published in 1970, a long journey comes to an end which began in 1923 with Political Theology. This translation makes available for the first time to the English-speaking world Schmitt's understanding of Political Theology and what it implies theologically and politically.
The Sovereign's Shadow: Law, Power, and the Making of Modernity A Comprehensive Exploration of Jurisprudence, Political Authority, and the Shifting Landscape of Governance This volume delves into the intricate and often fraught relationship between law, sovereignty, and the evolution of political structures from the late medieval period through the dawn of the contemporary era. Moving beyond simplistic narratives of progress, The Sovereign's Shadow offers a rigorous, historically grounded analysis of how foundational legal concepts—such as the nature of obligation, the legitimate exercise of coercion, and the very definition of the 'state'—were forged in the crucible of theological, philosophical, and military conflict. The central thesis posits that modern political authority is less a clean break from the sacral and more a complex rearticulation of older power dynamics, where the sacred function of legitimation was secularized, not simply discarded. This process resulted in a paradoxical legal framework: one that champions individual rights while simultaneously demanding absolute obedience to a sovereign power whose very foundation remains stubbornly resistant to full rationalization. Part I: The Crisis of Jurisdiction and the Rise of Territoriality The initial section meticulously examines the breakdown of layered medieval authority—the overlapping claims of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Papacy, and nascent monarchies. This breakdown was not merely political; it was fundamentally a crisis of jurisdiction, where appeals to universal law became increasingly inoperative. Chapter 1: The Disputed Patrimony of God. This chapter reconstructs the political theology of the Investiture Controversy’s aftermath, focusing not only on the conflict between Pope and Emperor but on the emerging jurisprudence of local princes seeking to consolidate temporal power within defined geographical boundaries. We analyze canon law’s attempts to retain universal jurisdiction and how secular jurists, drawing upon rediscovered Roman texts, countered these claims by developing the concept of plenitudo potestatis (fullness of power) applicable to the territorial ruler. Emphasis is placed on how the necessity of funding standing armies became a primary driver for asserting exclusive fiscal and judicial authority within defined realms. Chapter 2: The Cartography of Power: Defining Boundaries in the Absence of Divine Mandate. This section traces the slow, painful birth of the territorial state, arguing that fixed borders were as much a legal convention as a military achievement. We explore early modern treaties and the evolving concepts of dominium (lordship/ownership) over land versus people. Critical attention is paid to the ambiguous legal status of non-aligned territories and the jurisprudence surrounding succession, marriage alliances, and their resulting impact on the legal coherence of emergent national units. The tension between inherited feudal rights and newly asserted sovereign prerogatives forms the core of this analysis. Chapter 3: The Legalization of Necessity: War and Extraordinary Prerogative. War, often viewed as the suspension of law, is here analyzed as a crucial mechanism for its redefinition. We examine the juristic justifications for mobilization, taxation for defense, and the establishment of military courts. Key texts from legal humanists who sought to synthesize classical republican virtue with monarchical necessity are scrutinized. This chapter demonstrates how 'emergency powers'—originally conceived as temporary concessions to save the body politic—became embedded in the very definition of sovereign competence, setting a precedent for the elasticity of executive authority. Part II: The Metaphysics of Obedience and the Construction of the Subject The middle section transitions from external territorial struggles to the internal mechanics of governance, investigating how political philosophy provided the necessary metaphysical scaffolding for centralized power structures. Chapter 4: The Leviathan’s Architect: Hobbes and the Geometry of Consent. A detailed re-reading of Hobbes’s central project is undertaken, arguing that Leviathan is fundamentally a work of applied jurisprudence attempting to solve the problem of civil war through the creation of an artificial, but entirely necessary, legal fiction: the unified will of the sovereign. We dissect the implications of transferring natural rights to the sovereign, analyzing how this transfer creates the legal subject—one who possesses rights only insofar as the sovereign permits their existence, blurring the lines between legal obligation and theological grace. Chapter 5: Pufendorf, Natural Law, and the Limits of Imperium. In contrast to the absolute voluntarism suggested by Hobbes, this chapter explores the enduring influence of Neo-Aristotelian and Grotius-influenced natural law theory on the practical administration of justice. Pufendorf’s concept of obligatio as distinct from mere command is explored, showing how even the most powerful monarchs were constrained, at least rhetorically, by a perceived moral order external to their direct will. This section highlights the legal challenges faced by sovereigns attempting to manage ecclesiastical affairs while adhering to doctrines that suggested an objective moral framework applied equally to ruler and ruled. Chapter 6: The Public Thing: Res Publica and the Rise of Bureaucracy. The development of the administrative state required new legal categories to manage affairs transcending the personal domain of the monarch. This chapter examines the transformation of the 'public thing' (res publica) from a rhetorical ideal into a concrete legal entity managed by appointed officials. We analyze the growth of specialized courts, finance ministries, and the concept of 'state property,' tracing the legal mechanisms used to detach administrative functions from the ruler’s immediate household, thereby professionalizing governance and establishing a nascent form of impersonal bureaucracy. Part III: Law’s Enduring Ambiguity: Resistance, Revolution, and the Modern State The final part addresses the inevitable legal challenges to sovereignty—the moments when the foundational contract unravels or is radically renegotiated. Chapter 7: The Right to Resist: Conditional Submission and Constitutional Moments. Examining the European Wars of Religion and the English Civil War, this section investigates the intricate legal arguments used to justify political disobedience. It distinguishes between arguments rooted in theology (the obligation to obey God over Man) and those attempting to articulate a strictly secular right of resistance based on the violation of fundamental, pre-political legal agreements. The analysis focuses on how these struggles codified, in temporary legal documents, the conditional nature of sovereign authority. Chapter 8: The Revolutionary Turn: From Contract Breach to Popular Sovereignty. This chapter analyzes the transition from arguments concerning the breach of an initial contract to the more radical claim of inherent popular sovereignty. The late eighteenth-century revolutions are examined not just as political upheavals, but as profound legal moments where the source of law itself was declared to reside solely in the collective will of the nation, expressed through new constitutional instruments. We contrast the American focus on establishing a stable, written legal framework against unforeseen power accumulation with the French emphasis on abolishing the remnants of the old legal order entirely. Chapter 9: The Unstable Equilibrium: Modernity’s Legal Legacy. The conclusion synthesizes the historical trajectory, arguing that modern legal systems inherited the fundamental instability of their genesis: the tension between the assertion of absolute, centralized power necessary for order, and the lingering, often suppressed, insistence on a moral or contractual limit to that power. The volume closes by reflecting on how contemporary challenges—globalization, transnational law, and the expansion of administrative discretion—are modern echoes of the unresolved jurisdictional conflicts that plagued the architects of the modern sovereign state. The Sovereign's Shadow offers a necessary corrective to histories that treat law and power as easily separable spheres. It reveals them as eternally intertwined, continually negotiating the precise boundaries of legitimacy, obligation, and ultimate authority. This work is essential reading for historians, legal theorists, and political scientists grappling with the deep historical roots of contemporary governance.
