Gabriella Slomp's book, Carl Schmitt and the Politics of Hostility, Violence and Terror, is excellent on its own terms. Her focus is on the friend–enemy distinction as proposed in Schmitt's Concept of the Political (1932) and developed in his Theory of the Partisan (1963). She shows that Schmitt was committed to finding political arrangements that would limit the violence, hostility, and terror that are commonly associated with friend–enemy constellations. She shows that Thomas Hobbes, who wrote his Leviathan (1651) in order to transcend the visceral hostility of the English Civil War, was an important reference point for Schmitt's thought. She looks at various forms of hostility, from the Westphalian order and its twentieth-century crisis to classical insurgencies and global terrorism, as well as the global ‘war on terror’.
The focus of the book – on hostility, violence, and terror – is topical, and the tradition of political thought that connects Hobbes and Schmitt is relevant. It is perhaps somewhat surprising to find so little in the book on the notion of political theology, as this constitutes an important although rather subterranean link between the two thinkers. Also, Slomp does not seem to be entirely privy to the extensive literature by scholars of international law and international relations on terrorism interpreted in a Schmittian perspective. However, this hardly derogates from the remarkable quality and originality of the book as a contribution to political theory.
In short, this is a relevant and timely book. If I may say so, however, I believe that Schmitt's political thought is richer than Slomp, and indeed even Schmitt himself, has realized. As I shall show in the remainder of this review, the consequence is an exalted understanding of politics as a permanent state of exception. Just as it does not do justice to wars to reduce them to decisive battles, or to history to reduce it to revolutionary upheavals, so it does not do justice to politics to reduce it to a permanent play of existential hostility versus friendship.
On the basis of Schmitt's Concept of the Political, my comprehensive understanding is that:
(1) there is a categorical difference between politics in the state of exception and politics in the state of normality;
(2) ultimate power rests with those who have the authority to declare the state of exception and, in the event, to tell political friends from political enemies; and
(3) the state of exception is more fundamental than the state of normality, because the former constitutes the political settlement in which the latter is embedded.
Pursuant to (3), Schmitt dismissed the state of normality as uninteresting. In a way this is understandable, given the constitutive importance of the state of exception. Unfortunately, however, Schmitt forgot in the process that political normality is the terminus of the state of exception. Instead, he came to see the state of exception as the permanent essence of politics. By displacing normality from his scholarly attention, the abnormal was redefined as normal. The exception became the norm. As a consequence, Schmitt was not fully able to appreciate the constitutive role played by the political settlements in the state of exception.
This exceptionalist bias had fateful consequences for the political thought of Schmitt and his followers. In her excellent book, Slomp (like Schmitt himself) neglects the constitutive role of politics in the state of exception for politics in the state of normality. Instead, she deals primarily with the friend–enemy distinction in its own right. Her understanding is that
(1) the distinction between friend and enemy is what politics is all about; and
(2) political order should maximize political friendship and limit hostility.
As far as hostility is concerned, Slomp shows that Schmitt was opposed to the identification of enemies with abstract principles (fighting them for what they are). He was opposed to unlimited moral crusading against stylized enemies on the basis of moral abstractions. Instead, he favoured the identification of the enemy by concrete demonstrations of acute hostility (fighting them for what they do). Accordingly, he glorified the old Westphalian order, where enmity between dynastic sovereigns had been compatible with the recognition of the enemy as a sovereign equal. In Theory of the Partisan, Schmitt finally offered a middle-of-the-road position: politics can also be based on the identification of the enemy with the people who threaten ‘our’ way of life (fighting them for who they are, as opposed to us).
As far as political friendship is concerned, Schmitt saw social homogeneity as the only way to banish the spectre of civil war. As mentioned, he was nostalgic about the old Westphalian order, to which he attributed a clear separation between internal pacification and external belligerence of sovereign equals. Schmitt was wary of anything that might undermine political homogeneity. He applied this even to Thomas Hobbes, the godfather of the absolutist state. Slomp shows that, despite agreement on all other relevant points, Schmitt deplored the willingness of Hobbes to accept human consciousness as the last bastion of personal conviction. He saw this as a slippery slope towards liberal pluralism, which would escalate into precisely the civil war (or war of all against all) that the Leviathan was originally intended to exorcize.
As a remedy against the alleged ills of liberal pluralism, Schmitt yearned for a total bond between the members of a political community. He had a taste for the intimate fellowship of ‘telluric’ (earth-bound) partisans, but only distaste for the abstract world of ‘global’ partisans for whom friends and enemies in flesh and blood do not really count. On the one hand, he welcomed the former as harbingers of the visceral community that he missed so much in the liberal state. On the other hand, he abhorred global partisans because of their willingness to indulge in unlimited hostility in the pursuit of abstract goals. In line with such considerations, he held an exalted view not only of enmity but also of friendship: ‘One cannot claim to have a true friend unless one is willing to kill and die for him. . . . [A] friendship formed in a time of crisis is the best sort of friendship, and hence the case of exception ought to be the ultimate aim of normality’ (pp. 123–4).
To my mind, Schmitt was misguided in confounding the state of exception with political normality. A more coherent position can be easily constructed on the basis of my synthetic understanding of Schmitt's political thought as outlined above. If we see political hostility in the state of exception as constitutive of political normality, then we can gain much analytical clarity. Instead of elevating the friend–enemy distinction to a fetish, we should give consideration to the passage from the state of exception to political normality. It will then cost us little to understand why the global partisan is such a scourge. His cause is abstract and thus elusive. His goal is unlimited and thus unattainable. As a consequence, for the global partisan the transition from the state of exception to normality is inconceivable. Just think of world revolution or global jihad. Unless we buy into the dreamworld of the revolutionaries or jihadists, an end state of their political projects is impossible to imagine. The same applies to other forms of unlimited hostility, such as the ‘global war on terror’ or ‘democratization from the barrel of a gun’. The terminus of the state of exception should always be political normality.
Once the state of exception has ushered in a constitutive settlement, there is by definition scope for normality. Take, for example, the United States after the War of Independence or Germany after the Second World War. If the constitutive settlement is liberal, then there is scope for liberal pluralism. In a liberal society, citizens are free to hold non-liberal views as long as they do not radically challenge the foundational settlement. It testifies to the vitality and not the weakness of liberal society if it can afford to tolerate dissent. In a healthy liberal society, nonconformists are respected rather than eliminated. As long as it works, this greatly contributes to the limitation of domestic hostility. Only when a liberal society is on the brink of collapse will the political settlement be put in jeopardy. The liberal order will be abrogated, replaced, or reinstated after a state of emergency. Pace Schmitt, this is by no means specific to liberalism. The same applies to the twilight of any other form of political order. Every state of normality, whether liberal or otherwise, rests on a constitutive settlement.
