Carl Schmitt: nepřítel otevřené společnosti – Buráň Jan (2025)

It is not surprising that the influence of Carl Schmitt – the Nazi lawyer and political theorist, whom many commentators on both the right and the left consider perhaps the most penetrating critic of liberalism – is growing precisely at the time of the end of the 'end of history', when so many professional and lay theorists are seeking or defending alternatives to liberal democracy. This lifelong, albeit often covert, proponent of 'theocratic totalitarianism' and 'true Catholic intensification of politics' is today, alongside genuinely intended efforts for a 'more democratic' democracy, an important ideological source for authoritarian regimes in both Russia and China. Last but not least, he is also a thinker who provided a detailed guide over a hundred years ago for what we now call authoritarian populism: to entrench oneself in power while the populist invokes precisely 'more democratic democracy'. However, Schmitt's seemingly neutral and 'penetrating' analyses cannot actually be separated from his political goals. Rejecting Schmitt, however, does not mean that we must give up efforts to remove from democracy those elements of liberalism that are not truly democratic – it is precisely those elements that liberalism – surprisingly – shares with Schmitt.