Schmitt, Locke, and the Limits of Liberalism

Abstract

This article brings Carl Schmitt's Political Theology into conversation with John Locke's Second Treatise of Government. Two fundamental issues are considered: the relationship between Locke's theory of prerogative power and Schmitt's sovereign/commissarial distinction, and the place of the theological—in particular the “miraculous” nature of the exception. While some have claimed that Locke's theory of prerogative fits the model of “commissarial dictatorship” I argue that Locke actually complicates the sovereign/commissarial distinction by maintaining the tensions between prerogative, law and popular judgment. Schmitt, on the other hand, dissolves the tension by absorbing popular sovereignty into sovereign exceptionalism. Concerning the miraculous nature of the exception, I argue that Schmitt's claim should be understood as part of a broader effort to render politics serious and so I situate his remarks in light of the complex relationship between the political and the moral in his Concept of the Political. Because Locke's politics is “already” serious in the sense of being firmly situated within natural law, exceptional circumstances do not perform the same redemptive function.