If Sandrine Baume favors Carl Schmitt in her reading, the writings of the 1920s at the expense of the texts of the Nazi period, it is because she rightly considers that they are founding in her conception of the State. But is it not led to restrict Schmitt’s philosophy and to isolate her political thought of her philosophical commitments ?
Coming from a thesis in sustained political science at the University of Lausanne, this book, of an easy and pleasant reading, examines in its entire development the theory of the state of Carl Schmitt, by granting as it should be, since it is during this period that it developed, all their importance to the writings of the years 1914-1945. This means that the writings after the end of the 2e World War, where the state’s question is less central – since Schmitt’s conviction is that now “ The era of the state is at its decline “(The notion of policyPreface to 1963) – are not at the center of the examination, which is rather focused on the texts dating from the Weimar period, which is agreed to consider as the most fruitful of the very long intellectual career of the one who defined himself in his Glossarium Like a “ Theologian of legal science ». Likewise, the writings of the Nazi period, with the exception of the work The Leviathan in the doctrine of the state of Thomas Hobbes (1938, trad. Le Seuil, 2002) are hardly solicited ; Not that Sandrine Beaume wants to hide the most unpleasant aspects of Schmittienne production – she is quietly explained, in her introduction, on “ revealing breaks Who crosses it, that of 1933 being certainly the deepest – but because it considers, in my opinion rightly, that the writings of the Nazi period are quite simply less interesting, from the point of view of political theory, than those of the 1920s. There is to this, regardless of the repulsion that we experience in the face of the anti -Semitic and flatly flagorior character as the new Masters of Berlin Staat, Bewegung, Volk (1933 ; trad. State, movement, peopleKimé, 1997), an excellent reason that Sandrine Beaume clearly exposes: to understand the Schmittienne doctrine of the State, it is advisable to “ Do not immediately consider the Weimar Republic in its tragic end, but more in what precedes it »(P. 15): The collapse of the Wilhelminian Empire at the end of the First World War and, I will gladly add, the traumatic experience of the German Revolution, and in particular the ephemeral Räterrepublik from Munich. Schmitt’s habilitation thesis translator (Der wert staats1914 ; trad. The value of the state and the meaning of the individualDroz, 2003), Sandrine Beaume knows moreover better than anyone that Schmitt’s thought is rooted in the intellectual culture of the Empire, that it was built in reaction against the dominant doctrine of this period, the positivism of Gerber, Laband and G. Jelinek. Such a very well supported argument is undoubtedly the best answer that can be given to the supporters of the reductio ad hitlerumaccording to the word of Leo Strauss. There is no need to minimize the duration and intensity of Schmitt’s commitment (temptation to which S. Beaume succumbs when she affirms, p. 17, that Schmitt was from 1938 “ expelled Nazi obedience circles », Or when she wrongly writes, p. 23, that Schmitt “ is forced to leave his duties as a state councilor in early 1937 “, As he keeps them, like his post asOrdinarius At the University of Berlin, until the fall of the regime) to show that the center of gravity of his thought is outside and prior to this commitment.
The thesis of the work, which should not be forgotten that the author is neither a lawyer nor a philosopher, but a political political, is that “ The Schmittian theory of the State must be understood in a vast project to redevelop the balances between the organs of the State (P. 267). You have to understand: a redevelopment for the benefit of the executive, alone capable of effectively fighting against the “ public disorder Which threatens the constitutional-democratic state. This thesis is exposed and justified in chapter 3 of the book. It is obviously not false: it is certain that all the efforts of Schmitt, during the convulsive history of the Weimar regime, go in the direction of a redefinition plebiscite of democracy, as clearly showed its controversy of 1931 with Kelsen on the identity of “ Guardian of the Constitution And the considerations developed in 1932 in Legalität und legitimität. But it seems to restrict the purpose of the author of the author too closely Constitution theory to an authoritarian reconstruction program of “ Large and powerful Léviathan ». Not that this aspect is absent from the Schmittian writings, and in particular those who accompany the final crisis of the Weimar Republic. But because it is itself intelligible only from theoretical and philosophical positions independently of which Sandrine Beaume tests it in chapter 6 of her book (“ The mirror state of the church: the institution in ‘reflection’ ), Schmitt’s political options may appear unintelligible or free. Schmitt may not be a “ Politics Theologian “, As Heinrich Meier maintains (see Die Lehre Carl Schmitts2e ed., Metzler, 2004). But his thought of the State, the object of the book of S. Beaume, cannot be rebuilt and evaluated by putting in parentheses the philosophical (and religious) commitments of the author of Political theology.