The Theory of the Partisan: Carl Schmitt's Neglected Legacy

The paper aims at providing the missing link between Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political (1932) and his Theorie des Partisanen (1963), revealingly subtitled Complementary Notes to the Concept of the Political. The paper argues that Theorie des Partisanen spells out the view, implicit in The Concept of the Political, that the meaning of enmity is not invariant throughout human history, and supplements it with an analysis of the interaction of factors that brought about both the erosion of 'conventional enmity' assumed by jus publicum europaeum and the advent and development of 'real' and 'absolute enmity' with the consequent criminalization and de-humanization of the enemy during the twentieth century.