Carl Schmitt and the Intensification of Politics

by Kam Shapiro

Overview

This book explores Carl Schmitt's efforts to distinguish sources of sovereignty and political identity in an age of rapid and volatile social change. In Schmitt writings, Shapiro finds a dynamic conception of the relationship between political power and social form, organic traditions and their strategic deployment. As these writings indicate, the political constitution of a sovereign people involves the channeling of attachments and antagonisms of various kinds. The book explicates this process as it appears in changing contexts, following Schmitt's turn from Catholic politics to secular nationalism, and finally beyond the nation-state during and after the Second World War. These shifts in Schmitt's approach reflect a general intensification of politics as its grounds are rendered increasingly fluid and volatile by accelerated movements of finance, warfare and communication. The result is a both a transformation in the practice of government - requiring flexible and rapid adjustments to changes across the globe - and in the nature of legitimacy, whereby an ethos of belief grounded in relatively stable cultural and social rituals is supplanted by a more fluid and mobile pathos of identification.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742533417
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/25/2008
Series:	Modernity and Political Thought
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Kam Shapiro is an assistant professor of politics and government at Illinois State University. He is the author of Sovereign Nations, Carnal States (2003).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Schmitt at Large
Chapter 2 Channels of Political Authority
Chapter 3 From Ethos to Pathos
Chapter 4 Globalization and Nihilism
Chapter 5 Carl Schmitt and the Intensification of Politics

Editorial Reviews

The author writes confidently and engagingly, successfully blending together careful exegesis, conceptual analysis, and intellectual biography....Highly recommended. Three-star review.

Choice Reviews

Kam Shapiro's Carl Schmitt and the Intensification of Politics provides a timely interpretation of a complex and original thinker. Exploring the full range of Schmitt's writings, the book's elegant and engaging style establishes beyond doubt that Schmitt has much to contribute to our understanding of a rapidly changing world. The careful exegesis also enables Shapiro to address pressing issues in contemporary international politics.

David Howarth

The author writes confidently and engagingly, successfully blending together careful exegesis, conceptual analysis, and intellectual biography....Highly recommended. Three-star review.

March 2009 CHOICE

Theorists in political theory, anthropology, philosophy, and literary theory feel compelled to encounter Carl Schmitt again. Kam Shapiro's book, however, provides the most illuminating engagement I have seen. He uncovers the importance of the somatic in Schmitt's thought, how the acceleration of pace in contemporary life moves it back to the center of attention, the resonances between Schmitt and Rumsfeld, and, above all, ways to work through Schmitt to reach a place Schmitt himself avoided. This is a superb and timely book.

William E. Connolly

Kam Shapiro makes the case not only that one can find a potentially fascist aesthetic in the work of Carl Schmitt, but also the material for a critical response to it, much as one might find a remedy in the illness itself.

This is dangerous territory and Shapiro guides us skillfully through it, never loosing his political and moral feet, while never yielding to a desire to score easy points. A final chapter places Schmitt in the company of the present conduct of American foreign policy — it is disturbing because it is an accurate picture.

Tracy B. Strong

The author writes confidently and engagingly, successfully blending together careful exegesis, conceptual analysis, and intellectual biography....Highly recommended. Three-star review.

March 2009 Choice Reviews

The author writes confidently and engagingly, successfully blending together careful exegesis, conceptual analysis, and intellectual biography....Highly recommended. Three-star review.

Choice

Kam Shapiro's Carl Schmitt and the Intensification of Politics provides a timely interpretation of a complex and original thinker. Exploring the full range of Schmitt's writings, the book's elegant and engaging style establishes beyond doubt that Schmitt has much to contribute to our understanding of a rapidly changing world. The careful exegesis also enables Shapiro to address pressing issues in contemporary international politics.--David Howarth, University of Essex

Theorists in political theory, anthropology, philosophy, and literary theory feel compelled to encounter Carl Schmitt again. Kam Shapiro's book, however, provides the most illuminating engagement I have seen. He uncovers the importance of the somatic in Schmitt's thought, how the acceleration of pace in contemporary life moves it back to the center of attention, the resonances between Schmitt and Rumsfeld, and, above all, ways to work through Schmitt to reach a place Schmitt himself avoided. This is a superb and timely book.--William E. Connolly, Johns Hopkins University, author of The Fragility of Things: Self Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism

The author writes confidently and engagingly, successfully blending together careful exegesis, conceptual analysis, and intellectual biography....Highly recommended. Three-star review.--CHOICE, March 2009

From the Publisher