Constituent power and plebiscitary leader: Forms of the nation in the political theory of Carl Schmitt

Abstract

I intend to examine the relationship of the conceptions of constituent power and of plebiscitary leader in Carl Schmitt's political philosophy with the political sociology of Max Weber. I sustain that starting from this relationship one can better understand the nationalist background of the schmittian theory, in their differences with Weber and in their rousseanian inflections. This way, the friend-enemy conflict, central in the theory of Schmitt, receives a concrete content: the confrontation with the triumphant communism in Russia like central axis of the concept of the political.