The Main Lines of Carl Schmitt's Political Thought (1987) by Julien Freund

This essay was initially published in Nouvelle École no. 44 published in the Spring of 1987. It was their issue dedicated to Carl Schmitt. Julien Freund (January 8, 1921 – September 10, 1993) was a French philosopher and sociologist. Freund was well-known for introducing French audiences to the German sociologist Max Weber. Thinkers like Weber, Pareto, Machiavelli, and Schmitt heavily influenced Freund’s own thought and he viewed his work as a continuation of the Schmittian tradition. Besides his translations of Max Weber’s works, Freund is most well-known for his magnum opus, “L’essence du politique” (The Essence of Politics).

In this essay "The Main Lines of Carl Schmitt's Political Thought," Julien Freund delves into Carl Schmitt's political thought, emphasizing the profound impact of Schmitt's legal and political theories. Schmitt, a jurist deeply engaged with both constitutional and international law, sought to understand the political phenomenon in its entirety, beyond just the legal framework. Freund explores Schmitt's central theme: the state as a historical and political entity, which, while crucial to modern political organization, is not eternal and can evolve or even disappear. Schmitt's work critiques liberal political theory, especially its idealization of the state as a neutral arbiter in societal affairs. He argues that politics, defined by the dichotomy of friend and enemy, transcends mere legal constructs, and the state's function must align with the existential needs of the people. Through his analysis, Freund presents Schmitt's vision of a politicized state that resists reduction to mere legal or economic functions and insists on the necessity of political authority in shaping the course of history.

Translated by Alexander Raynor

about 15,000 words. about 75 minutes reading time.

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The Main Lines of Carl Schmitt's Political Thought

Carl Schmitt was what is called in German a Staatsrechtler, that is, a specialist in public law, both constitutional law and international law. He personally held to this delimitation of his intellectual activity. His distinction comes from having gone beyond the framework of his specialty to examine the global phenomenon of politics, both in its state particularities and in its general determinations. This did not prevent him from also conducting reflection on the nature of law, for example in his writing on the three ways of conceiving law¹: it is a norm, a decision and an order, meaning a line of conduct, a sentence and an instrument of organization. However, any one of these ways is not exclusive of the others. Schmitt also addressed other subjects of a literary, religious, scientific, philosophical and other nature. Our purpose will focus primarily on the essential theme of his work: the political vision of a jurist.

Carl Schmitt centered his analyses on the problem of the State, as it constitutes the modern form of political unity. By this we must understand that the State is a historical construction that appeared at a certain period in history, that it was therefore preceded by other types of political unity, and that it risks perishing one day to give way to a new type of unity. As such, it is a specific political reality that one would be wrong to extend to all known politics, in the sense that it would be a universal and perennial institution representative of all past politics, all existing politics and all future politics. One therefore improperly calls the Greek city or the Holy Roman Germanic Empire a State. One must avoid the error of identifying the state and the political, in the manner of many jurists contemporary with Schmitt, who developed their political conception in the form of a general theory of the State. From this point of view the inaugural phrase of Begriff des Politischen is decisive: "The concept of State presupposes the concept of politics."² In other words, one must not explain politics based on the State, but rather the State based on politics.

"The qualitative aspect of politics is generally assimilated in some way to that of the state, or at least put in relation with the State. The State then appears as a political entity, political reality being itself state reality, and one evidently has a vicious circle."³ The consequence is that while political literature provides multiple definitions of the State, some of them pertinent, one encounters on the other hand few studies of the general political phenomenon.

There is nothing to criticize about this way of proceeding by jurists, insofar as current legal practice is constrained, by force of circumstances, to refer to the State, since it is the given institutional framework. The politically valid law is a state law, within the limits of the constitutional regimes in place and the governments that succeed each other in power. It is therefore normal for jurists to consider social groups and associations in their relations with politics from the angle of the state framework. Formulations of this kind, "which respond to the needs of current legal practice, simply tend to provide a practical means of delimiting the various cases submitted to legal decisions within a State; their intention is not to provide a general definition of politics itself. This is why they can stick to their reference to the State or to the state as long as there remains, as a prerequisite, the evident and stable reality of a State with its own institutions."⁴ On the other hand, this practice ceases to be judicious if the jurist believes he can reduce all politics to the state, given that the former inevitably overflows the latter. In this case "the equivalence: state = political becomes inaccurate and generates errors"⁵, simply because even in modern societies, one encounters political processes that are not state-related.

The Evolution Toward the "Total State"