The enemy: An intellectual portrait of Carl Schmitt

I argue in the dissertation that the core of Carl Schmitt's legal theory is the claim that interpretations of fundamental provisions of a constitution involve assumptions about the relationship between political authority and the rights of subjects, and as such are irreducibly political. Schmitt's intellectual development has to been seen in the context of the interwar crisis of the institutional pillars of European conservatism. Because of his frequent shifts of position in response to this crisis, I argue that the interpretation of his arguments in individual texts can only be fully understood when organized in a narrative sequence.