An Apocalyptic Speech Outlining a Theory of Dictatorship: Carl Schmitt Inspired by Juan Donoso Cortés

Abstract

Carl Schmitt’s Die Diktatur (1921) and Politische Theologie (1922) have been widely discussed in political science and constitutional law literature. His distinction between commissarial and sovereign dictatorships makes these works indispensable references for studying autocracy. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, his idea of decisionism, which he summarized in the adage ‘sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception,’ attracted international attention. However, the literature largely overlooks that Schmitt based his decisionist theory of dictatorship and political theology on an apocalyptic speech delivered by Juan Donoso Cortés in 1849, after the 1848 revolutions in Europe. Cortés alluded to various metaphors that presented the history of the West as a parable for the end of time. Schmitt’s early writings reveal his engagement with legal decisionism, but how he expanded this legal decisionism into a political decisionism as expressed in Politische Theologie, has not been explained yet. Through an analysis of his personal manuscripts from the early 1920s, I show that his reading of Donoso Cortés’s Speech on Dictatorship is an important source of inspiration for his decisionist theory of dictatorship that criticizes parliaments and liberalism. My paper is divided into two sections. First, I will explain the influence of Donoso Cortés on Schmitt’s works. Second, I present for the first time in the literature an analysis of Schmitt’s