© Burkhard Conrad [email protected]
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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