State and Civil War: A comparative analysis of the political thought of Carl Schmitt and Vladimir I Lenin

Abstract

The end of the Cold War has seen the resurgence of old patterns of internal and external armed conflicts. War and civil war as factors in the process of the dissolution and formation of political structures have reappeared even within Europe. In the post-Cold War world politics appears less to be ordered by clear principles. Instead, it is insecure and undermined by violence and instability) It would, however, be misleading to assume that the contemporary experience of eruptive violence simply signifies an aberration from a peaceful path of social and political development. Against the identification of modernization and the gradual decline of (civil) wars, Hans Joas (1996), in close reference to current historical sociology, has emphasized that external and internal forms of armed struggle cannot be seen as deviations, anomalies, or interruptions in the development of modern social and political structures. Rather, they represent their inherent feature.2 According to his view, (civil) war and violence are constitutive parts of mRdernity and not its prehistory; the ongoing military and armed conflicts are thus only a reminder of this close connection. How should political theory react to the central role of (civil) war and armed violence in shaping modern political structures? If current historical sociology is right that (civil) war and armed conflicts lie at the foundations of modern politics, political theory would find its overriding field of interest in the conceptual analysis of politics and violence.