Carl Schmitt and the Politics of Hostility, Violence and Terror

The book investigates the connection between Carl Schmitt's 'Concept of the political' (1932) and 'Theory of the Partisan' (1963). It is argued that the partisan is an embodiment of the friend/enemy principle. The partisan is an umbrella concept that includes the member of the revolutionary total party of the Thirties, the resistance partisan of the Second World war, and the national and global terrorist. The book argues that Schmitt saw one type of partisan as 'the man of exception' that can save the political. The book brings to light the constant engagement by Schmitt with Thomas Hobbes.