A Study On Carl Schmitt's Theory Of Political Representation

Carl Schmitt,as one of the most controversial political thinkers of the 20 th century,nobaby could get rid of his ideological ghost full of sophistry and paradoxes,either on the left or the right or in the middle.With the transformation of western academic research in the 1980 s,Schmitt's research has increasingly become an international phenomenon.Unfortunately,there are few studies on “representation”which is the core element of Schmitt's theoretical system.As a matter of fact,Schmitt's discussion of the representative is often explicit or implicit in Weimar's works,and forms the ideological basis for defending the legitimacy of Weimar's presidential system with the theories of “the principle of homogeneity”,“decision of sovereignty” and “politics of enemies and friends”.As a forerunner of German conservatism in the 20 th century,Schmitt was strongly criticized liberal parliamentary politics,and tried to reconstruct the relationship between representation and democracy on the basis of the homogeneity and tradition of Catholic representative principle in order to demonstrate the realization of presidential system at the level of democratic value and national security.Combined with Schmitt's arguments changes in the early,middle and final of Weimar,the author consider that his theory of political representation can be divided into three stages: the theological basis of the representative principle,the secular construction of the representative theory,and the development of academic rationality to totalitarianism.The core of the theory is concentrated in the text and practice summary of Schmitt's 1923-1932 the past ten years,with “the generation of representation: reconstruction of homogeneity and representative”,“the power of representation: emergency decision of sovereignty”and“the responsibility of the representation: identify the enemy and protect the constitution”,three aspects provide theoretical support and evidence for the Weimar presidential system.Therefore,the theory of political representation originates fromreality and returns to reality,and it contains strong practical purpose.Through the construction of representative theory and model,Schmitt hopes that the President as the real representation of the political unity,will assume the political mission and responsibility as the “appointed dictatorship”,and perform the decisive emergency power to deal with the political exception state.This paper systematically combs Schmitt's theory of political representation on the basis of text study and context analysis.From his excavation of Catholic representative principle and Roman dictator tradition,his unique understanding of “exception state”,“decision”,“sovereignty” and“politics”,and his defense of the reality of the presidential system,the paper aims to extract the important connotation of the theory of political representation,aiming at exploring the beneficial elements within the theory,constitutes the reflection and supplement of contemporary representative theory.