Abstract

Until today, Carl Schmitt has been notorious for what he called "decisionism" ("Dezisionismus"). This article investigates Carl Schmitt’s decisionism by making some annotations to the current understanding of this concept. Often it is held that the concept has the same meaning in both the legal and political context, yet this is not the case. At the same time, it is debated whether Carl Schmitt’s decisionism is a form of legal positivism or rather a supra-positivism. The article argues that Carl Schmitt’s decisionism has both a legal and a political dimension. It points out that it cannot clearly be classified as positivistic or suprapositivistic. In this context the article draws parallels to other principles that are significant for Carl Schmitt’s theory, i.e. to the friend-foe principle ("Freund-Feind-Unterscheidung") and to the principle of concrete rules ("Konkretes Ordnungsdenken"). The article seeks to show that Carl Schmitt’s decisionism neither provides convincing solutions for legal and political questions nor improves the quality of law and politics.