Dear Clifford,

Thanks for noting this new phase in Manent. It is worth noting, I guess, but beside Lefort, I would connect it with Rosenvallon's recent writings.

As for Schmitt, I think the relevant piece is The COncept of the Political, originally published in 1927. Its resources might be the Catholic tradition, including the Restoration authors de Bonald, de Maistre, Cortez, etc. ALso important was for him, I guess, the earlier Catholic tradition, including the jesuits, and more importantly the Catholic tradittion of reason of state, as represented in Richelieu, etc.

Conntecting the recent French authors and Schmitt, one could think of Hannah Arendt as well, well versed in both the German and the classical tradition.

Jellinek does not seem to be of particular impact on Schmitt, although he plaxed a major role in German Staatslehre, in general.

Best,

Ferenc

Ferench... Hi.. Thanks for your post...

For as for Schmitt's use of the term political form your suggestion to look at the Concept of the Political, is perhaps not as useful as one might thing.  Although this is a very important piece that helps Schmitt make his so-called return to the political move that his earlier writing pointed to but did not pull the trigger on.  But the problem is that neither the Der Begriff des Politischen, in: Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften und Sozialpolitik 58/1927, 1 ff. nor in his reprint of it in Der Begriff des Politischen, 1932 (Erweiterung des Aufsatzes von 1927) the term political form is not explicitly mentioned in the text where it was in the earlier works-- Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form, 1923 and his magnum opis of German Staatslehre, Verfassungslehre, 1928--where the term political form are explicitly used.  Hence for Schmitt the political form is that place or space in which politics and political rule emerges from.

I know that Rosenvallon is trying to connect and isolate democracy from liberalism(neo-liberalism) in a way that many Italians in the 90s sought to do in the republicanism of Viroli and others... but for Rosenvallon the political form is there presented more like Lefort's treatment--that of type of political regime--with democracy properly understood being the preferential form in contradistinction to corrupted forms.

As for Hannah Arendt... she know Schmitt not... regardless of her relation to Heidegger, Schmitt never interested her... and he is conspicuously missing in her attempts to recover the separate space of the political against the social and the economic both in her Earlier writing The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: HBJ, 1951) and then her later and more Heidegger influenced The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958) and On Revolution (New York: Viking, 1963). And as such for her there is no discussion of what either Schmitt or Mannet or even what Lefort would call the political form. For her she does not pay much attention to or make any big deal about the differences between of the state and earlier forms of political order... yet she does seem to explicitly acknowledge, especially in her The Origins of Totalitarianism, that the state (and also society) is rather modern constructs in distinction from the Ancient city or civic order.  I am unsure of the impact of Arendt on Lefort, but given his open admission regarding his debt to Leo Strauss, I have serious doubts he would like much one finds in Arendt's later writings like The Human Condition and On Revolution.

I think the question of the political form in Manent must tied to his attempt to preserve the nation as a distinct political form that ought to be preserved--which subsumes the state per se with the Nation... and in doing so find himself in whole opposition to what Strauss teaches about the polis/civitas vs the state being the alternative political communities.. and what Manent means by political form Strauss would speak instead of the political community--or the form of community that embodies the politics and is the space from which politics happens. 

Thanks again for your post you provoked me to reply here....

Dear Clifford, hi, you indeed seem to have been provoked by my post.

Well, I admit I misunderstood you. I though you were interested more in "the political" and not in the "political form". My suggestion to look at the piece on the political by Schmitt was based on this assumption. As for ROsanvallon, I would not call him just one of the Italians of the 90s. I think his views on the connection between the history of political thought and political philosophy are quite relevant. In this respect his views of French 19th century liberalism seem to me quite relevant in connection with Manent, to.

As for Arendt's and Schmitt's HIDDEN dialogue, see for example Shaw, Carl. "Power and Authority in Constitutional Theory: Hidden Dialogue between Hannah Arendt and Carl Schmitt" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott, Loews Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 31, 2006 . 2013-12-16

As for the right form of a political regime, I find myself divided. In a European context I go for nations (or member states, for that matter), as the primary unit of the political. But for my political philosophy, I recently turned more to the city, as the primary unit. Certainly, the polis here is a good starting point, but historically in Europe, cities played a major role both in the late medieval period as in the early modern one. In this respect I am nowadays more interested in Althusius, and the like.

ANd a final point: I find it fascinating, that a British conservative like Scruton, too, wrote about the need for nations. 

Hoping not to fuel further explosions,

with kind regards,

Ferenc

Ferenc thanks for your reply... I hope the reaction was not too violent... it was not my intention. 

Thanks for the pointing to this hidden Strauss-Arendt dialogue but I am suspicious, because I know her talks with Benjamin, who was very influenced by Schmitt, and Arendt's horror that any one so intelligent as Benjamin could find interest in someone like Schmitt... (can be found in her letters to Jaspers and in the biography published by Yale in the 80s).

Yes I know Scruton is big into the nation.. this is I think a very knee jerk reaction to the EU and its overly bureaucratic character and the fear that most Europeans that administration is over-riding democratic rule.  The problem with the nation is the fact that from the 19th century on--its very concept is very much tied to ethnic-racial group constructs based on biology and to what that leads to.

If you like Althusius, you should love the scholarship of Daniel Elzar on federalism and covenants.  Again thanks for your input.....

Dear Clifford, it is exactly at the nation - state junction that 19th century French liberalism is interesting, including Guizot and TOcq., and where Rosenvallon and Manent is interesting.

Of course Renan's name comes to one's mind. And from here, let me jump tp John Lukacs's distinctions between patriotism and nationalism.

thanks for your reference to Daniel Elazar, if I am not mistaken. Indeed the reference to the Jewish community is important, but I am more interested right now in the actual practice of the constitutional arrangements of cities in late medieval and early modern European cities.

Do you know of Eric Voegelin's writing (his two books from the 1930s) on race and the state? This really had an impact on me on the question of nationalism, as did Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism....  And you are correct about Elazar.. the a sicks on this new wifi keyboard.   Regards.

Well, Vogelin is a bit too much for me, but I appreciate his deep culture. Totalitarianism I dod not need to learn... I experienced it.

Regards

Ferenc Horcher I owe you an apology. I just today discovered something on how Charles Schwab's Englush translation of Schmitt's The Concept of the Political led me to miss the political from in that text. I discovered that in George Schwab's translation of Schmitt's Concept of the Political he translated  "politische Form" as "the political entity"! This is why I thought the concept of the political form which was found in Schmitt's Roman Catholicism and Political Form and his Verfassungslehre was not in his Concept of the Political. So the term 'political form' is very much a key Schmittian concept!

Dear Clifford,

thanks for your kind notice, it is good to hear that in some respect I had a good intuition. ANd again, it is a good cautionary remark that translations may easily misrepresent their authors.

Best,

Ferenc