In this first in-depth critical appraisal in English of the writings of Carl Schmitt, John McCormick has furnished philosophers, historians, and political theorists with the most comprehensive account of Schmitt's critique of liberalism available. He examines why technology becomes a rallying cry for both right- and left-wing intellectuals at times when liberalism appears anachronistic, and shows the continuities between Weimar's ideological debates and those of our own age.

With a groundbreaking, interdisciplinary approach to German political and social theory, "Confronting Mass Democracy and Industrial Technology" provides fresh insight into the thought of many of the most influential intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Its essays detail the manner in which a wide range of German intellectuals grappled with the ramifications and implications of democracy, technology, knowledge, and control from the late Kaisserreich to the Weimar Republic, from the Third Reich and the Federal Republic through recently unified Germany.
Scholars representing the...

Carl Schmitt ranks among the most original and controversial political thinkers of the twentieth century. His incisive criticisms of Enlightenment political thought and liberal political practice remain as shocking and significant today as when they first appeared in Weimar Germany. Unavailable in English until now, "Legality and Legitimacy" was composed in 1932, in the midst of the crisis that would lead to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and only a matter of months before Schmitt's collaboration with the Nazis. In this important work, Schmitt questions the political viability of liberal...

This book draws on the writings of Max Weber and Jurgen Habermas to trace the relationship of law and democracy in three configurations of the European state: the liberal state (or Rechtsstaat), the welfare state (Sozialstaat), and the emerging supranational polity represented by the European Union. John P. McCormick exposes the tendency of social and political theorists to reach back unreflectively to the past and outlines a new, more appropriate normative-empirical model, the supranational Sektoralstaat, for evaluating prospects for constitutional and social democracy in the EU."

This book draws on the writings of Max Weber and Jurgen Habermas to trace the relationship of law and democracy in three configurations of the European state: the liberal state (or Rechtsstaat), the welfare state (Sozialstaat), and the emerging supranational polity represented by the European Union. John P. McCormick exposes the tendency of social and political theorists to reach back unreflectively to the past and outlines a new, more appropriate normative-empirical model, the supranational Sektoralstaat, for evaluating prospects for constitutional and social democracy in the EU."