© Burkhard Conrad conradbu@gmx.de

A Weimar Legacy?

Liberal Decisionism in German Political Thought

after 19451

Introduction

Carl Schmitt continues to haunt German political thought and

intellectual life. In that, the name Carl Schmitt represents a

number of pre-2nd World War ideas, concepts and programmes

which have been met with a mixture of reverence and loathing

by post-war intellectuals in Germany. On the one hand,

Schmitt’s work and biography have been interpreted as an

affirmative approach towards totalitarianism which is the

cause of some embarrassment even today. On the other hand, we

may identify a rise of political and philosophical reasoning

that draws upon the work of Carl Schmitt positively. This rise

is very much also an international phenomena with the work of

Giorgio Agamben and Chantal Mouffe being indicative of a

constructive, if critical, approach towards Schmitt and the

way of thinking he came to represent.2

This article will concentrate on the shadow which the work of

Carl Schmitt still casts upon the intellectual setup in

Germany. As research on Schmitt has grown tremendously since

the late 1970s and many facets of his life and thinking have

been analysed by focusing on Schmitt’s notion of the

‘decision’ and the post-Schmittian development of this

1 With thanks to Karsten Malowitz for many helpful suggestions.2 Cf. Giorgio Agamben State of Exception (Chicago 2005) and Chantal Mouffe (Ed.)The Challenge of Carl Schmitt (London 1999).

concept. For the ‘decision’ has proved to be a stumbling block

in post-war intellectual debates about the political make-up

of German society. A number of authors have dealt with

Schmitt’s concept of the ‘decision’ and both polemic as well

as constructive contributions may be identified. Turning one’s

attention to the importance of decision-making within a

(German) democracy always had to go along with a pronounced

distance from the authoritarian ‘decisionism’ – as this trait

of thought came to be called – which Schmitt represented. As a

result, every kind of decisionism was (and often still is)

suspected of being elitist, anti-democratic or outright

fascist.

This suspicion also holds true for liberal readings of Carl

Schmitt’s decisionism which will be at the core of this

article. On the one hand a liberal interpretation of Schmitt

stresses that the political decision – both as a concept and

as a phenomenon – is a crucial element of democratic

societies. On the other hand is, however, the rejection of the

emphatic decisionism which was fashionable during the 1920s.

After the 2nd World War it seemed quite clear that as regards

political thought ‘nothing (or at least: not much) good can

come out of Weimar’.3 When it came to the new political setup

of the (divided) German state and society, the failure of

Weimar to uphold its liberal constitution was seen as a legacy

if not an outright burden. According to a number of

3 This was quite different in other spheres of life, cf. WolfgangSchivelbusch Die Kultur der Niederlage: der amerikanische Süden 1865, Frankreich 1871,Deutschland 1918 (Berlin: Fest 2001) pp. 225ff. ; cf. also Helmuth Plessner’scritique of this glorification of Weimar: Helmuth Plessner. “Die Legendevon den Zwanziger Jahren” Staatsverfassung und Kirchenordnung: Festgabe für RudolfSmend. Ed. Konrad Hesse (Tübingen: Mohr, 1962) 209-224.

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intellectuals, political thought between 1918 and 1933 was

marked by a strongly anti-liberal and anti-democratic bias

which in their eyes had become totally discredited by the

events unfolding after 1933.4 As a result, Weimar was often

interpreted not in its own right but more or less as a

foretaste of that which was to follow. Following this

interpretation, the ‘new’ intellectual class entrusted itself

with the responsibility of a “democratic constitution”5 of

Western Germany. The German society had to be democratically

educated and, thus, political science came to be called

Demokratiewissenschaft, both a science of democracy and a science

for the promotion of democracy.6 Many intellectual debates in

West Germany came to be framed with the help of a neat

dichotomy: this divided the intellectual scene into views that

distanced themselves from the incriminated political thought

of the 1920s and views that were more selective or

affirmative.

Due to this history of interpretation, the reception of Carl

Schmitt was – and to a certain extent still is – a contentious

issue within Political Science. I will make no attempt to

reconstruct the many debates that evolve around Schmitt’s

controversial legacy. Rather, this article will deal with a

4 Cf. Kurt Sontheimer Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. Die politischenIdeen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933 (München: Nymphenburger1962); Armin Mohler Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932. Grundriß ihrerWeltanschauungen (Stuttgart: Vorwerk 1950).5 Cf. Hannah Arendt On Revolution (New York: Viking Press 1963) 139; for theGerman version cf. Hannah Arendt Über die Revolution (München: Piper 1963) 183.6 Cf. Wilhelm Bleek Geschichte der Politikwissenschaft in Deutschland. (München: C.H.Beck, 2001) 265ff. The book of Michael T. Greven Politisches Denken in Deutschlandnach 1945 (Opladen & Farmington Hills: Barbara Budrich 2007) reveals thatGerman political thought immediately after the 2nd World War was not at allhomogenous. The term Demokratiewissenschaft thus stands for a particular need todistance oneself from pre-war thinking.

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small but ongoing debate that particularly focused on Carl

Schmitt as a representative of decisionism, i.e. a ‘school’ of

thought that emphasises the decision-side in comparison to the

discursive-side of politics. This ambiguity of simultaneous

affirmation and rejection has led to what I will call ‘liberal

decisionism’: a fusion of liberal, democratic conviction with

a decisionist bias in a substantial number of intellectuals’

work. This article will deal with liberal decisionism as a way

of thinking that emphasises a voluntative notion of political

decisions while at the same time avoiding any kind of emphatic

decisionism.7 This particular strand of thought has always been

part of the intellectual make-up of post-war (West) Germany.

It represents a relationship between Weimar and Bonn/Berlin

which some may wish to call a legacy, although it may also be

regarded as a debate of continued German intellectual self-

reflection.

A Weimar Legacy?

A glance at the Weimar context will serve as a background for

my analysis of post-war German political thought. As mentioned

above, Carl Schmitt only represents a particular frame of mind

which political scientists and intellectual historians have,

in the past, identified as a specific feature of the Weimar

7 The liberal reception of decisionist thought has had its recentinterpreters, cf. Jens Hacke Philosophie der Bürgerlichkeit. Die liberalkonservativeBegründung der Bundesrepublik. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006) 174-215; he speaks of ‘pragmatic decisionism’; Christian Schwaabe “Liberalismusund Dezisionismus. Zur Rehabilitierung eines liberalen Dezisionismus imAnschluß an Carl Schmitt, Jacques Derrida und Hermann Lübbe.” PolitischesDenken. Jahrbuch 2001, (Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag 2001) 175–201; he speaks of‘liberal decisionism’. Michael T. Greven speaks of ‘democraticdecisionism’, cf. Greven Kontingenz und Dezision. Beiträge zur Analyse der politischenGesellschaft. (Opladen: Leske & Budrich 2000) 51.

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era: its pronounced (or: alleged) anti-liberalism. The social

and historical roots of this anti-liberal attitude were seen

in a combination of political and economic turmoil and loss of

direction as regards the general Weltanschauung in the years

between 1918 and 1933. Thus an interpretation of Weimar as an

era of anti-liberalism commonly includes various explanatory

dimensions8: On the one hand, the period after 1918 was marked

by a total defeat in war, the loss of territory, the end of

the German monarchies and, for the first time, the

establishment of authentic democratic institutions, to name

just a few external factors. On the other hand, the

institutional changes towards a modern democratic system

overlapped with an inner desire for order and tradition. This

desire incorporated a need for orientation within wide circles

of the intellectual class for whom the new political and

social situation had come as a shock. This was highlighted by

a proliferation of political parties – many of them to the

radical left or right – and a devastating hyper-inflation at

the beginning of the 1920s. It was also marked by the spread

of pseudo-religious Weltanschauungen and mystic circles which

were part of an atmosphere marked by an interest in ideas that

promised quick solutions if not outright ‘salvation’. This

mixture of outward progression towards a liberal state in all

8 The intellectual life of the Weimar Republic has been thoroughly analysed,e.g. Dagmar Barnouw Weimar Intellectuals and the Threat of Modernity (Bloomington:Indiana UP 1988); Hubert Cancik (Ed.) Religions- und Geistesgeschichte der WeimarerRepublik (Düsseldorf: 1982); Manfred Gangl and Hélène Roussel (Ed.) LesIntellectuels et l’État sous la République de Weimar (Paris: Éditions de la Maison desSciences de l’Homme 1993). Cf. Kurt Sontheimer Antidemokratisches Denken in derWeimarer Republik. Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933(München: Nymphenburger 1962).

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spheres of life and inward and somewhat romantic regression9

into a belief in order and harmonic stability was, in the

middle of the 1930s, famously marked as Ungleichzeitigkeit by Ernst

Bloch – a conflicting contemporaneity of modernity and

tradition.10 In the eyes of Ernst Bloch this Ungleichzeitigkeit

contributed to the rise and the totalitarian rule of the

Fascist movement. This interpretative framework resulted in

the conventional wisdom, namely in an interpretation of Weimar

as a ‘situation’ of particular crisis and a time of confusion.

According to the general argument, this resulted in a strong

anti-liberal and decisionist branch within the intellectual

landscape.11

In his “conceptual history of ‘politics’ as an activity”, Kari

Palonen identifies the notion of ‘decision’ as a typically

German way of conceptualising the political. According to

Palonen, this contrasts in particular with ways of thinking

about political activity in the UK where ‘decisionism’ is all

but absent.12 Between the wars, German intellectuals found the

concept of decision to be particularly attractive as it seemed

to them to capture the crisis-atmosphere which abounded during

the Weimar Republic. This is true not only for those academics

which one may wish to call the forerunners of

institutionalised German political science such as the Social

Democrat Hermann Heller who is also an example that

decisionism could indeed accompany strong democratic9 Rüdiger Safranski Romantik. Eine deutsche Affäre (München: Carl Hanser 2007) 326-347.10 Ernst Bloch Erbschaft dieser Zeit. (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1985) 111. 11 Cf. also the influential treatise of Karl Jaspers Die geistige Situation der Zeit(Berlin & Leipzig: de Gruyter 1931).12 Kari Palonen The Struggle with Time. A Conceptual History of ‘Politics’ as an Activity.(Münster: Lit, 2006) 196.

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inclinations. More traditional disciplines like theology and

philosophy equally regarded the ‘decision’ as a particularly

useful category in their attempts to come to terms with

confusingly new and seemingly problematic times. Hence, the

notion of the final ‘decision’ was often invoked and became

one of the favourite concepts of the German intellegenzia

across all academic disciplines.

Confronted with an assumed wave of metaphysical relativism and

liberal thought, many theologians and philosophers of the

Weimar Republic believed that the ‘decision’ would contribute

to the security of personal faith, identity and authenticity.

Drawing on the German edition of Søren Kierkegaard’s work

(published from 1909), theologians like Friedrich Gogarten,

Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann stressed the importance of the

‘moment of decision’ within their respective framework of

Systematic Theology. For example, in Zwischen den Zeiten, the

influential periodical of the “Dialectic Theology” school –

Friedrich Gogarten in 1923 published an article simply called

“Die Entscheidung” – ‘The Decision’. The thrust of the article

aimed at an isolation of the existential decision as the most

important attitude (not: action!) of the human being in the face

of God (Gottesfrage).13 This confrontation between the human and

the divine would result, according to Gogarten, in an absolute

obedience as the proper attitude of the individual when faced

with a temporal order (Befehl), similar to the obedience the

faithful is asked to show when confronted with the temporal

incarnation of God. A secular variant of this idea, though

less overtly political, is inherent in Martin Heidegger’s13 Friedrich Gogarten “Die Entscheidung” Zwischen den Zeiten 1923: 1 (1923) 33-47.

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notion of Entschlossenheit in his Sein und Zeit. According to

Heidegger, Entschlossenheit – a derivative term of the word

Entschluß meaning ‘decision’ – is the authentic attitude of the

individual existence in the face of annihilating tendencies of

public discourse.14 Again, Entschlossenheit is more of an attitude

than a specific action. It will allow the human being to

escape what Heidegger called Uneigentlichkeit and reach a state of

Eigentlichkeit. Both Gogarten and Heidegger refer to different

versions of the concept of ‘decision’ in order to counter an

attitude of hesitation, waiting, moderation and deliberation.

Their understanding of the decision must be interpreted as an

intervention against the assumed spread of liberal thought in

Germany. Again, it is common knowledge that Gogarten’s and

Heidegger’s interventions were just the tip of an iceberg of

existential decisionism and a resulting anti-liberalism which

also drew criticism from their contemporaries.15

Turning towards more specific political thought, the Weimar

decisionist intellectual par excellence was Carl Schmitt.

Again marking a rhetorical standpoint of opposition towards

liberal world views Schmitt explicitly refers to the political

figure of the impulsive “decisionist” as the political

counterpart to the “normativist” who, according to Schmitt,

overemphasises the rule of abstract law in political matters.16

Throughout his work, Schmitt again and again returns to the14 Martin Heidegger Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Niemeyer) 270.15 Cf. the rather early contributions Hans Joachim Daerr Der Begriff derEntscheidung in der dialektischen Theologie (Greifswald: Adler 1932); Harald EklundTheologie der Entscheidung. Zur Analyse und Kritik der „existentiellen“ Denkweise (Uppsala:Lundequist 1937). Christian Graf von Krockow Die Entscheidung. Eine Untersuchungüber Ernst Jünger, Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger (Stuttgart: Enke 1958); Theodor W.Adorno The Jargon of Authenticity. (London: Routledge 1973).16 Carl Schmitt Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität (Berlin:Dunker & Humblot 1996, 7th edition) 8.

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decision (in German either Dezision or Entscheidung) as the central

concept of his political thought. In order to understand the

later development of German liberal decisionism with its

inherent anti-Schmittian bias somewhat better, a quick glance

at two dimensions of Schmitt’s usage of ‘decision’ may be

helpful.17

Firstly, decisionism is particularly central to Schmitt’s

earlier work, i.e. the texts published prior to the 2nd World

War. Between 1912 and the mid-1930s, Schmitt published a

number of articles and books which in some way or another

dealt with the issue of decision-making within a legal

context. An early booklet called Gesetz & Urteil introduced the

idea of the juridical decision in a rather discursive manner

as it was en vogue in the so-called Freirechtslehre.18 In this

text, Schmitt advocates the view that the decision of a judge

does not solely depend on the abstract norms of the law and

they are also not the product of the judge’s psyche. Rather,

Schmitt regards the decision as part of a wider framework of

juridical expertise and accountability and the professional

expectations of other judges which the decision-maker has to17 Carl Schmitt’s decisionism is well researched, e.g. Edward Bolsinger “Wasist Dezisionismus? Rekonstruktion eines autonomen Typs politischer Theorie“Politische Vierteljahresschrift 39:3 (1998) 471-502; Otfried Höffe “Rationalität,Dezision oder praktische Vernunft – Zur Diskussion desEntscheidungsbegriffes in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.“ Ethik und Politik.Ed. Ottfried Höffe (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1979) 334-393; Hasso HofmannLegitimität gegen Legalität. Der Weg der politischen Philosophie Carl Schmitts (Berlin: Duncker& Humblot 2002); Lorenz Kiefer „Begründung, Dezision und PolitischeTheologie. Zu drei frühen Schriften von Carl Schmitt.“ Archiv für Rechts- undSozialpolitik 76 (1990) 479-499; Karl Löwith „Der okkasionelle Dezisionismusvon Carl Schmitt.“ Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Zur Kritik der geschichtlichen Existenz. Ed.Karl Löwith (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1960) 93-126; Heinrich Meier The Lesson ofCarl Schmitt. Four chapters on the distinction between political theology and political philosophy(Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1998).18 Carl Schmitt Gesetz und Urteil. Eine Untersuchung zum Problem der Rechtspraxis. (Berlin:Otto Liebmann 1912).

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take into account. This context again results in a heightened

rationality of the whole decision-making process.19 Considering

Schmitt’s reputation as a proponent of irrational and

dictatorial decisions, such a discursive model seems to be

surprising. However, an ‘irrational’ or voluntative component

is also present in the text of Gesetz & Urteil. It is the notion of

the ‘leap’. When Schmitt discusses the short-comings of a

positivist understanding of law and juridical decision-making,

he stresses the point that a judge does not realise the

juridical norm at a ratio of 1:1. According to Schmitt, the real

decision does depart from the abstract norm to a certain but

decisive degree. The transformation of the norm into reality

is accompanied by a leap. Schmitt writes: “That which is

assumed to be the content of the law will, through its

application by the judge, cross over into another sphere.”20

Hence, one may identify a fusion of rational and irrational

dimensions within the decision, rational being that which can

be explicated by further and possibly sufficient arguments.

Secondly, the ‘irrational’ element of the leap within the

decision has widely become assumed to be the core of

Schmitt’s political decisionism although it really turns

‘irrational’ as and when it is separated from its ‘rational’

and discursive sibling. This was developed by Schmitt

especially in Political Theology but appears also in other writings.

Within Political Theology, Schmitt conceptualises the political

decision as an exceptional action which upholds the rule of

law by suspending it for a period of time. Again the decision

is not ultimately bound to a normative base but is its19 Schmitt (1912) 83ff.20 Schmitt (1912) 29; my translation.

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precondition and thereby also the prerequisite of any stable

political order.21 Compared to Gesetz & Urteil, however, Schmitt

does not point to any discursive dimension of the decision-

making process. Rather, the one making the decision is the

supreme sovereign for whom no accountability seems to apply:

“The decision, when viewed normatively, is born of nothing.”22

Schmitt departs from his earlier thought which stressed the

link between (legal) decision and discourse. He now propounds

a stark irrationality of the decision as an action of the one

sovereign who acts as a kind of temporal saviour. The

sovereign is in no need of giving sufficient reasons for the

sovereign action. This pattern of pure decisionist thought

(i.e. not ‘diluted’ with discursive elements) was to lead Carl

Schmitt in 1934 to the notorious statement that Adolf Hitler

as the Führer was the one person who would uphold the law in

that he made himself into the supreme source of law and order

in a volatile political situation.23 Hence, the decision’s

irrationality is combined with a bias towards political

totalitarianism and a total disregard of parliamentary

democracy. It is important to note that the ‘decision’ was not

only a counter-concept to liberal thought in general but, more

specifically, to anything related to parliamentarism or

democratic institutions, i.e. everything to do with

‘arguments’ instead of ‘truth’ (in terms of a given a priori).

Schmitt’s Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus,

published in 1923, is a fierce critique of the intellectual

21 This is the central argument of the first chapter of Political Theology (1996:13ff.), the best known of the whole book. 22 Schmitt (1996) 37f.; my translation.23 Carl Schmitt “Der Führer schützt das Recht“ Positionen und Begriffe im Kampf mitWeimar – Genf – Versailles. 1923-1939 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1988) 199ff.

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and philosophical roots of modern parliamentarism and must be

understood as a polemic commentary of the German situation

with its fragmented and polarised party system. Schmitt’s main

criticism is that a metaphysical relativism resides at the

base of parliamentarism which negates any substantial

understanding of truth.24 According to Schmitt, the

deliberative nature of liberal parliamentarism views truth to

be something relative and non-static, based on the outcome of

political discussions: truth (in terms of the ‘best possible’

outcome) is the result of a discursive political process and

not its precondition. In addition, the political parties in

the Weimar system seemed to be, in the eyes of Schmitt, not

interested in genuinely convincing their political opponents

of their respective views. Rather, the whole parliamentary

system had degenerated into a struggle of interests and a

machine for creating electoral majorities.25 In order to

counter the notion of deliberation within the democratic

tradition, Schmitt introduces the decisionist core of both

dictatorial and anarchist thought: both venture to destroy the

system of moderation and discussion by final, direct, (mostly)

violent and certainly irrational decisions. As parliamentarism

is morally unsound and institutionally weak, it is challenged

by two different movements which do not shun the “either-or of

the moral decision”26 and the “gory, definitive and destructive

battle of decision.”27 Although Schmitt only seems to analyse

the writings of 19th century anarchist and counter-

24 Carl Schmitt Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus (Berlin:Duncker & Humblot, 8th edition 1996) 45f. 25 Schmitt (Parlamentarismus) 9.26 Schmitt (Parlamentarismus) 68.27 Schmitt (Parlamentarismus) 81.

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revolutionaries, the context of his analyses brings home the

point that liberal democracy needs to be overcome by a

political system which offers order both politically and

metaphysically.

Liberal Decisionism post-Weimar

So far, I have only repeated what has often been analysed. I

have done this in order to provide a background for what was

to follow after Weimar as regards decisionism. Following upon

Schmitt’s critique, parliamentarism and decisionism came to be

regarded as antipodes within Weimar’s intellectual set-up.28

Thus, in order to bridge the gap between the two, liberal

decisionism post-Weimar had to reconcile the two strands of

political thought. It needed to show that the notion of a firm

decision may indeed go along with a positive attitude towards

parliamentary discourse and debate. However, for intellectuals

to combine liberalism and decisionism has never been easy in

post-war Germany. In order to analyse this somewhat ambiguous

relationship, I will divide liberal decisionism in two

chronological steps: the first section deals with

intellectuals and their critical commentators in the 1960s and

1970s. The other section provides two examples of late 20th

century German political thought. Both shared the common aim

of speaking positively about the ‘decision’ without falling

into any kind of emphatic decisionism. In order to point to

the history of (dis-)continuity between Weimar’s decisionism

28 Hermann Heller and Max Weber are just two names that point to asubstantial and quite diverse liberal strand of thinking at the time; cf.Ilse Staff “Staatslehre in der Weimarer Republik” Staatslehre in der WeimarerRepublik. Hermann Heller zu ehren. Ed. Christoph Müller & Ilse Staff(Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1985) 7-23.

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and its younger branch, the above mentioned dimensions of

‘irrationality vs. rationality’ and ‘parliamentary discourse

vs. dictatorial decision’ will be used as a comparative

framework. My analysis will thereby be highly selective. It

will, however, also deal with a long-standing critique, coming

mostly from the political Left, of any kind of decisionist

thought, be it emphatic or liberal.

Western Germany in the 1960s & 1970s

Many protagonists of this non-movement liberal decisionism –

only a few will be discussed here – have always felt compelled

to distance themselves from the emphatic, either-or notions of

the Weimar intellectuals. As regards political thought, such

opposition has usually referred back to Carl Schmitt. Thus,

Dolf Sternberger (1907-1989), who wrote his doctoral

dissertation on the idea of death in the work of Martin

Heidegger, characterised the Weimar era as a time with a

rather negative atmosphere (unselige Grundstimmung)29 which,

according to him, led to a bias towards authority and

obedience as briefly exemplified by reference to Gogarten’s

theological work. Equally, the political philosopher Hermann

Lübbe (*1926) points out that decisionism had been used as a

justification for a political irrationalism by Schmitt.30

Following Lübbe, any kind of decisionism is therefore hampered

by an intellectual burden. In order to retrieve its positive

essence for a theory of decision-making, Lübbe refers to

Hobbes, Descartes, Kant and Weber. Two of Lübbe’s texts are

29 Dolf Sternberger Begriff des Politischen. (Frankfurt/ Main: Insel 1961) 21.30 Hermann Lübbe “Dezisionismus – eine kompromittierte politische Theorie”Philosophie nach der Aufklärung (Düsseldorf: Econ 1980) 161.

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particularly useful when looking at his contribution towards a

liberal theory of decision-making. As already mentioned,

Lübbe’s Dezisionismus – eine kompromittierte politische Theorie31 starts with

the acknowledgement that ‘old school’ and Schmitt-like

decisionism may serve and has served as a justification for

irrational notions of political activity and dictatorial

regimes. According to Lübbe, the irrationality within ‘old

school’ decisionism hinged on a combination of two elements:

on the one hand, Lübbe points to a complete overcharging of

the political decision-making process in Schmitt’s work.

Instead of simply asking for the ‘validity’ of political

decisions, Schmitt constantly pressed for an ultimate

‘truth’,32 as noted earlier. As a result, ‘old school’

decisionism put this quest for the political ‘truth’ in the

hand of a sole individual: the sovereign. Thus, in Lübbe’s

view, political decisions turned into decisions of sheer power

which lacked any notion of argument or debate.33

Interestingly enough, in an attempt to secure the validity of

the political decision-making process, Lübbe also derides

suggestions made by representatives of the Frankfurter Schule, most

importantly Jürgen Habermas. Habermas explicitly criticised

liberal decisionism for being an insufficient model for

democratic decision-making because of its alleged

irrationalism and elitist bias. Although he admits that

Lübbe’s decisionism does not entail the same arbitrariness

which he identifies in Schmitt’s (and Max Weber’s) thinking,

Habermas nevertheless regards liberal decisionism as highly31 Hermann Lübbe “Dezisionismus – eine kompromittierte politische Theorie.”Philosophie nach der Aufklärung (Düsseldorf: Econ 1980).32 Lübbe (Dezisionismus) 163.33 Lübbe (Dezisionismus)161.

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questionable.34 Habermas’ criticism of liberal decisionism was

the by-product of his condemnation of Carl Schmitt’s ‘old

school’ decisionism and its resulting totalitarian

disposition.35 In Habermas’ view, there is no ‘gap’ between

reasoning, deliberation and rationality on the one hand and

decision-making on the other. Reasoned communication and

exchange of arguments between the public, the political and

the scientific sphere must not cease until further

rationalisation is achieved and a solution for the problem in

question has been found without there being the need to leap

over any gap.36 Hence “reason” and “communication” are opposed

to “decision” and it is Habermas’ objective to bolster the

first at the cost of the second.37

In reading Lübbe’s response to Habermas, one is inclined to

think that Lübbe’s real opponent is the Frankfurter Schule rather

than Schmitt whom he approaches with a kind of critical and

distanced approval. He states that Habermas’ proposal which

claims the sufficiency of rational argumentation for the

decision-making process, is flawed.38 Without engaging into any

greater discussion of Habermas’ thought, Lübbe claims that

decisions are not simply the result of ongoing discourse and

an exchange of arguments. Between these two extremes – the

imperative of the individual and irrational decision and the

imperative of collective and rational discourse – lies the34 Jürgen Habermas Technik und Wissenschaft als ‚Ideologie’ (Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp,5th edition 1971) 124f.35 Jürgen Habermas Eine Art Schadensabwicklung. Kleine Politische Schriften VI. (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1987) 113.36 Jürgen Habermas (Technik) 132.37 Jürgen Habermas “Dogmatismus, Vernunft und Entscheidung – Zu Theorie undPraxis der verwissenchaftlichten Zivilisation.” Theorie und Praxis.Sozialphilosophische Studien (Neuwied: Luchterhand 1963) 241.38 Lübbe (Dezisionismus) 162f.

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realm of Lübbe’s liberal decisionism. In Carl Schmitt liberal rezipiert

he states that decision and discussion are complementary and

not alternative concepts for the institutionalised steps of

the political process.39 Hence, we may conclude that according

to Lübbe a certain degree of irrationality – marked by the

“decision” – and a certain measure of rationality – marked by

deliberation – are necessary. Both are essential ingredients

of the political activity and either extreme is to be avoided.

In retrospect, thus, the dispute between Habermas and Lübbe

seems to be more concerned with the degree of rationalisation

which is to govern political actions than with the question of

whether reason and communication are commendable at all.

However, the polemical style of both writers covers up the

fact that they share a significant amount common ‘rational’

ground.

The (alleged) tension between irrational and rational elements

in the process of political decision-making has drawn

attention which cannot fully be discussed in this article

without going beyond our aim: the German liberal reception of

Weimar’s illiberal political thought. It is certainly a

central feature and the reconciliation of the two opposing

poles has been a constant theme in German political theory

debates since the 1960s.40 Dolf Sternberger succeeds in putting

this tension into an apt metaphor which also says a lot about

the German intellectual self-image. In an article included in

39 Hermann Lübbe “Carl Schmitt liberal rezipiert.” Complexio Oppositorium. ÜberCarl Schmitt. Ed. Helmut Quaritsch (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 1988) 435.40 Cf. for an overview Ottfried Höffe “Rationaliät, Dezision oder praktischeVernunft. Zur Diskussion des Entscheidungsbegriffes in der BundesrepublikDeutschland” Ethik und Politik. Grundmodelle und –probleme der praktischen Philosophie.(Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp 1979) 334-393.

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his “Ich wünschte ein Bürger zu sein” he refers to the Gordian knot in

order to differentiate between the authoritarian and the

authoritative decision.41 An authoritarian decision would

simply attempt to hew the knot asunder, disregarding any

adverse effects this might have. For Sternberger this is the

picture of a type of political activity which is heavy-handed

and lacks democratic legitimacy. An even-handed political

strategy would cut the Gordian knot by patience and

cleverness, i.e. with a certain degree of rational reasoning.

In Sternberger’s view this kind of strategy acquires political

legitimacy, it is authoritative in that it listens to counsel

and takes it’s time.42 Sternberger’s metaphorical language is

just another way of speaking about the irrationality and

rationality of collective decisions. It is clear that

Sternberger favours the latter and that his criticism of

authoritarianism is directed towards Carl Schmitt and Weimar’s

political and existentialist decisionism.43

A similar, namely, tense relationship between rational and

irrational elements of decision-making may be identified on

the institutional level: that which turns decision-making both

into an authoritative and democratically viable process is the

combination of discursive and decisionist moments in

parliamentary democracy. I mentioned earlier that following

the polemical rejection of parliamentarism by a range of

41 Dolf Sternberger “Autorität, Freiheit und Befehlsgewalt.” “Ich wünschte einBürger zu sein”. (Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp 1995) 75.42 Sternberger (Autorität) 80.43 Sternberger explicitly criticises Schmitt on various other occasions, cf.Dreizehn politische Radio-Reden (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider 1946) 89; Begriff desPolitischen (Frankfurt/ Main: Insel 1961) 21.

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Weimar intellectuals, political science in West-Germany was

quite deliberately undertaken as a normative Demokratiewissenschaft

by a number of scholars. It was aimed at the political

education of the people. This happened partly under the

influence of Anglo-Saxon political thought brought “back” by

former emigrants and brought “in” under the auspices of the

Allied Forces.44 Political decision-making was now framed in

the context of democratic responsibility. According to the

“founder” of the Freiburg political-science school Arnold

Bergstraesser (1896-1964), the administration of political

responsibility is a vital ingredient of political decisions in

a liberal state.45

As mentioned above, Lübbe does not regard decision and

discussion as two alternative modes of political activity but

rather as complementary steps in the political process.46 These

steps are formally integrated in parliamentary debates. Lübbe

does not see parliament as the right place to realise an ideal

Habermasian-style discourse . In Lübbe’s view, parliament

should be regarded as the institutional realisation of liberal

decisionism. For that to happen, the quest for a kind of

metaphysical truth in political life, something inherent in

‘old school’ decisionism, needs to be abandoned in favour of

the quest for parliamentary majorities. Countering both

Schmitt and (his reading of) Habermas, Lübbe emphatically

states: “Mehrheit statt Wahrheit” – majority instead of

44 Bleek (Geschichte) 265-307.45 Arnold Bergstraesser “Geschichtliches Bewußtsein und PolitischeEntscheidung.” Geschichte und Gegenwartsbewußtsein. Historische Betrachtungen undUntersuchungen. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1963) 33.46 Lübbe (Schmitt) 435.

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truth.47 Lübbe insists that the idea of parliamentary majority,

which is sufficient for a legitimate and valid decision, is

the “fundamental principle of an anti-totalitarian

liberality.”48 He disregards Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar’s

parliamentary system which, in his view, is a contemporary’s

view of a historical political system with its specific flaws.

Lübbe prefers to draw on the positive experience of

parliamentary democracy in West Germany. Contrary to Schmitt,

who saw the emphatic decision of the sovereign not as an

exception but as the rule of all political activity, Lübbe

maintains that political majority-decisions belong to the

realm of normality.49 They occur on a regular basis within

parliamentary systems. There is no need to over-emphasise

their existential significance for both state or society.

Lübbe’s emphasis on the deliberative nature of parliamentarism

does not mean that decisions do not need to overcome

insecurity and a lack of knowledge – and it is here where the

difference to a Hambermasian style of discourse rationality is

most pronounced. Decision’s rationality is something different

than 100% certainty. It does not necessarily require

sufficient reasons in order to result in an appropriate

action.50 This “gap”, as John Searle describes it51, in between

the argumentative exchange of views and the binding decision

in parliament is vital: on the one hand it ensures that

discourse does not turn into a self-perpetuating and endless

47 Lübbe (Schmitt) 434.48 Lübbe (Schmitt) 434; my translation.49 Hermann Lübbe “Zur Theorie der Entscheidung.” Theorie und Entscheidung. Studienzum Primat der praktischen Vernunft. (Freiburg/Brsg.: Rombach 1971) 14.50 Lübbe (Theorie) 21.51 John Searle Rationality in Action (Cambridge/ MA: MIT-Press 2001) 61.

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affair, hence it is an antidote to the over-deliberation which

Lübbe wishes to identify within Habermas’ thought. But on the

other hand it makes the Schmitt-like ex nihilo decision impossible

as any resolution passed in parliament is framed in a

deliberative context. The only remaining problem is to know

the right moment when one needs to close a discussion and move

on to the concluding and binding decision. According to Lübbe,

political decision-making always occurs in a temporal horizon

which is marked by limit, finality and urgency.52

Dolf Sternberger also underlines the need for a balance

between the element of temporally limited decisions and the

process of gathering and evaluating information. In the

context of his work, this is emphasised specifically against

the backdrop of Weimar’s negative experience with emphatic

decisionism. Referring to the aforementioned differentiation

between authoritative and authoritarian decisions, he regards

the activity of taking counsel and asking for advice prior to

making a particular commitment as an integral part of the

political and parliamentary process.53 A democratic decision is

something quite different to a military order which, in a

situation of great urgency, may be uttered without any prior

counsel or discussion. According to Sternberger, such

militarism is the background of Schmitt’s decisionism.54 It is

highly unsuitable for a democratic polity such as the post-war

German society with its functioning parliamentary system.

According to Sternberger’s liberal decisionism, a

52 Lübbe (Theorie) 21. The discussion of this point is certainly notrestricted to German liberal decisionism after World War 2 as Palonenpoints out, cf. Palonen (Struggle) 172.53 Sternberger (Autorität) 89.54 Sternberger (Autorität) 85.

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democratically organised political society is concerned with

the integration of diverse views into the political process

and the consolidation of those views into a viable compromise.

Democratic institutions are engaged in a “Kampf um einen

sinnvollen Kompromiß”, a struggle for a meaningful compromise,

as Bergstraesser puts it, combining the semantics of a more

emphatic ‘struggle’ with the rather less sensational

‘compromise’.55 This argument is supported by another

protagonist of post-war German political thought, namely

Wilhelm Hennis (*1923). Hennis also regards the activity of

deliberation and council-taking as fundamental for the

political community.56 Again, this proves my point, that

liberal decisionism and discourse theory are not divided by an

irreconcilable divide. One reason for the occasional polemical

outburst during the debate lies in Weimar’s prevailing shadow.

Germany in the 1990s

The debate concerning liberal decisionism continues, even if

it has become somewhat dated. Although historical

circumstances are different to the first stage of the debate,

interestingly enough similar arguments are exchanged. Schmitt

and Weimar in general continue to disturb the debate as does

the fear of political hyper-rationalisation. One figure in the

more recent debate is Michael T. Greven (*1947). Dissimilar to

Lübbe, Greven’s criticism of Schmitt is wholehearted. He

writes that Schmitt’s concept of decision is akin to a

55 Bergstraesser (Bewußtsein) 34.56 Cf. Wilhelm Hennis Politik und praktische Philosophie. Eine Studie zur Rekonstruktion derpolitischen Wissenschaft (Neuwied: Luchterhand 1963) 111f.

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“secularised creation ex nihilo”57 and stems from his inability

to cope with the plurality of modern society.58 According to

Greven, modern society is characterised by the fact that

political decision-making has become the sole source of

society-wide legitimacy. Due to the demise of traditional

norms and the lack of other legitimate institutions, modern

society has become a politische Gesellschaft. It is a ‘political

society’ which rests on the importance of the political

decision-making process, quite contrary to the common

diagnosis that speaks of an end of politics within modern and

globalised societies.59 Greven states that criticism of

decisionism has not really been directed at the significance

of decision-making but rather at the way decisions turn out to

acquire legitimacy, reflecting Sternberger’s similar argument.

The key problem is the notion of the decision’s assumed

arbitrariness. Following ‘old school’ decisionism, arbitrary

and thereby irrational decisions are taken to be the norm of

the political process and are not at all exceptional.60 Like

Lübbe before him, Greven not only criticises Schmitt whose

political thought, according to Greven, revealed more of an

emphatic existentialism than any substantial political

theory.61 He also criticises a certain measure of over-

rationalisation within theories of deliberative democracy.62

57 Michael T. Greven “Der substanzhafte und metaphysische Ansatz despolitischen Schriftstellers Carl Schmitt bis 1934.” Gegen Barbarei. Essays RobertM.W. Kempner zu Ehren. Eds. Rainer Eisfeld/ Ingo Müller (Frankfurt/Main:Athenäum 1989) 147; my translation.58 Greven (Ansatz) 143.59 Michael T. Greven Die politische Gesellschaft. Kontingenz und Deszision als Probleme desRegierens und der Demokratie (Opladen: Leske & Budrich 1999).60 Greven (Dezisionismus) 55f.61 Greven (Dezisionismus) 56.62 Greven (politische Gesellschaft) 64f.

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Again Jürgen Habermas features as an discourse opponent. In

one of his more recent contributions, Habermas claims that a

communication without subject (subjektlose Kommunikation) within

and without parliament ought to be aspired.63 Arguments like

this serve as a (negative) backdrop of Greven’s position.

According to him, political decisions cannot be properly

understood in a framework of sujektlose rationality and

discursiveness as they contain an element of irreducible

political will. The rationality of decision-making within

political societies is always bounded.64

Hence, we again arrive at a somewhat ambivalent position: the

German liberal conceptualisation of political decision-making

often hovers uneasily between an irrational and sometimes

existentialist arbitrariness on the one hand and a kind of

emphatic rationalism on the other. In the light of liberal

decisionism both are to be avoided if we want to retain the

liberal idea of a self-governing society. Rationality and

irrationality have their respective share in collective

decision-making. None is to be regarded as the absolute.

Although Greven identifies the term ‘decisionism’ as a concept

with pejorative semantics, alluding to Habermas’ criticism,65

nevertheless, he claims that arriving at binding political

decisions is a necessity within democratic societies.66 Similar

to Bergstraesser before him Greven also emphasises the

importance of responsibility for all aspects of life and

63 Jürgen Habermas Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und desdemokratischen Rechtsstaats (Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp 1992) 362.64 Greven (politische Gesellschaft) 69.65 Michael Th. Greven “Über demokratischen Dezisionismus” Kontigenz und Dezision.Beiträge zur Analyse der politischen Gesellschaft (Opladen: Leske & Budrich 2000) 53.66 Greven (Dezisionismus) 53f.

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particularly for the political decision-making process.67

Political responsibility is realised in democratic discourse

and decision-making and institutionalised within the

parliament and its argumentative style of utramque partem. It is

in this vein that Greven can combine his liberal decisionism

with a call for an extended democratisation of society. He

asks for more democratic participation and for an increase in

the number of political issues which are open for democratic

participation.68 On a theoretical level his plea is set against

Schmitt’s ‘old school’ decisionism with its drastic limitation

of democratic participation in the political process.69 On a

more contemporary and empirical level, he struggles with what

is usually referred to as Politikverdrossenheit – a public attitude

of disillusionment with politics over the years resulting in

fewer party members, a drop in electoral participation and

similar processes. Today’s liberal decisionism may thus be

understood as an effort to link the necessity of valid

political decisions with the acceptance of those decision in

the general public. This acceptance may best be achieved as

more people are actively involved in the political process be

it as party members, voters or participants in public debates.

Generally, this is also seen as the best cure against any

recurrence of the biased Weimar political thought: a

combination of proper public participation in political life –

being the “liberal” part of liberal decisionism – and the

validity and enforceability of parliamentary decisions – being

the “decisionist” part.

67 Greven (Dezisionismus) 55.68 Greven (Dezisionismus) 60f.69 Greven (Dezisionismus) 61.

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Greven is not the only political intellectual with a

preference for liberal decisionism. Both Christian Schwaabe’s

and Eckart Bolsinger’s contributions may be interpreted as an

attempt to rehabilitate the notion of the decision amidst a

perceived onslaught of Habermas-style discursivity.70 The moral

philosopher Wolfgang Kersting (*1946) also seems to be

reluctant to whole-heartedly embrace Habermas’ discursive

view.71 Although Kersting adamantly criticises any existential

affirmation of decisionism in the vein of Carl Schmitt and

Martin Heidegger72, he states that there is no reason for us to

denounce decisionism altogether. According to Kersting,

decisionism is not about total irrationality but about none-

total rationality. People do have (personal) reasons for

taking a certain course of action, but those reason do not

amount to absolute sufficiency. This ‘gap’ is best overcome by

a personal decision which, again, is something different than

total irrationality.73 Hence the whole discussion should not be

about the stark antipodes of rationality and irrationality but

rather about total rationality and near-total rationality, or:

about the kind of reasons with which we choose to justify our

decisions. Commenting on the post-war debate on decisionism,

Kersting states that the rationalist identifies the

decisionist as the Anti-Christ74, being a polemic comment on a

polemic debate. Instead of a reciprocal exchange of prejudices

and slander he then asks for a mutual recognition and70 Cf. Schwaabe (Liberalismus) & Bolsinger (Dezisionismus).71 Wolfgang Kersting “Moralphilosophie, Dezisionismus und pragmatischeRationalität” Recht, Gerechtigkeit und demokratische Tugend. Abhandlungen zur praktischenPhilosophie der Gegenwart (Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp 1997) 353-396.72 Kersting (Moralphilosophie) 363ff.73 Kersting (Moralphilosophie) 356.74 Kersting (Moralphilosophie) 359.

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integration of decisionist and rationalist standpoints. Thus

he arrives at roughly the same end-product as Lübbe in the

1960s and Greven in the late 1990s. Instead of liberal or

democratic decisionism he calls it “pragmatic justification”

(pragmatische Rechtfertigung), reflecting the more philosophical

vein of his argument. Pragmatic justification includes both an

element of deliberative rationality and decisions as part of

an open public debate and on the basis of democratic rules and

norms.75 We may thus conclude that the liberal decisionism of

Greven and Kersting is very much a kind of political thought

which serves apologetic motives in defence of modern-day

democracy.

Concluding Remarks

Looking back on the debate evolving around liberal

decisionism, one cannot escape a certain suspicion: is the

somewhat polemic post-war German debate about ideas such as

decision and discourse not a kind is somewhat of a pseudo-

debate. In the end, similar debates do not exist in other

countries. Evaluating the discussion from the outside, as it

were, one may come to the conclusion that the difference

between those who I identified as proponents of liberal

decisionism and those of a more deliberative vein is more one

of degree rather than one of substance. Whereas liberal

decisionists tend to emphasise the decision-element within

rationality and discourse, the others emphasise the discourse-

element within the political decision-making process. However,

75 Kersting (Moralphilosophie) 395f.27

and this is my claim, the strong polarisation of the debate is

due to the continued influence of Weimar: Carl Schmitt and his

contemporaries still do disturb the waters of German

intellectual life. Any (alleged) familiarity with their

thought will have the temperature of intellectual debates rise

whether or not this is justified by the issue in question. And

indeed: this debate has been more or less a German

idiosyncrasy. As such it may be part of the notion of the

German Sonderweg, whether one believes in national

particularities of intellectual life or not.76 The

“problematic” nature of liberal decisionism and the fact that

it has served as a worthwhile bone of contention seems to be

bound to the history of German political thought post-Weimar.

76 The extend of national particularities in intellectual history is verymuch a contested debate. The latest and rather prominent version whichtended towards a “denial” of those particularities has been StefanCollini’s Absent Minds. Intellectuals in Britain (Oxford: OUP 2006).

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