ABSTRACT

The rise of a discourse on increased visibility of religion, put in terms of a 'post-secular turn', has coincided with an ever-increasing interest in the ideas of Carl Schmitt. In a recent reflection on Schmitt's political theology, Paul W. Kahn draws a sharp distinction between the work of the political philosopher and the intellectual historian. This chapter investigates Schmitt's politico-theological project which provides attention to the intellectual history of law and political theory. It explores the original feature of Schmitt's discussion of political theology emerges: it is character of what he calls conceptual sociology, that is the analysis of how politico-juridical concepts and certain metaphysical assumptions correspond to each other. The chapter makes an argument for a contextual understanding of Schmitt's professed Catholicism, an argument which can be read through a quip about 'a struggle for Rome', 'Kampf um Rom'. This struggle, ultimately with the thoughts of German legal scholar Rudolph Sohm, supplies a largely ignored context for Schmitt's work.