Sovereignty, Exception, and Norm

Carl Schmitt's Political Theology is the locus classicus of contemporary discussions of sovereignty. I argue that Schmitt's conception of sovereignty is excessively metaphysical and that it posits an incoherent 'sovereign’ ability to decide what shall count as normal. Schmitt follows and radicalizes the late Bodin's claims – themselves the product of a political theology, namely, Bodin 's conversion to Judaism – regarding the necessity of an indivisible and absolute sovereignty. In each, the relation between the executive and the other parts of government is reduced to what Schmitt describes as an ‘either/or.’ This move is a disastrous mistake. The question is not whether exceptions and emergencies such as terrorist attacks are real, but to what extent the executive branch can rightly claim a monopoly on the ability to determine whether an exception exists, and whether its resulting actions will be permanently unchecked and unregulated. Recent work by Bruce Ackerman is a better guide in these matters than the metaphysics of either Schmitt or Bodin.