Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


case1301688653.pdf (15.64 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

A Peculiar Type of Democratic Unity: Carl J. Friedrich's Strange Schmittian Turn 0r How Friedrich Stopped Worrying and Learned to Decide on the Exception

Schotter, Geoffrey
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1301688653

Abstract Details

2011, Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, History.
Professor Joseph Bendersky claims that Harvard Political Scientist and German emigre Carl J. Freidrich's Weimar-era constitutional ideas were "Schmittian to their core" but that Friedrich's experience as a naturalized U.S. citizen led him to embrace American liberalism. This thesis argues to the contrary that Friedrich's Weimar-era thought lacked two essential axioms of Schmitt's philosophy: that democracy requires a people who are substantively homogeneous and that sovereignty even in a democracy can only genuinely be exercised by a single individual. Friedrich, however, played a crucial role in the New Deal reconfiguration of American liberalism by leading a movement among American social scientists during the 1930s and 40s toward playing a more direct role in policymaking. ironically, the liberal ideas of Friedrich's that emerged out of this reconfiguration and would persist for decades after World War II contained strong elements of both "core" Schmittian axioms.
Kenneth Ledford, PhD (Committee Chair)
Theodore Steinberg, PhD (Committee Member)
Jonathan Entin, PhD (Committee Member)
64 p.
American History; American Studies; Behavioral Psychology; European History; European Studies; History; Law; Legal Studies; Modern History; Philosophy; Political Science; Public Administration; Sociology; World History
constitutionalism; the Weimar Republic; the New Deal; World War II; totalitarianism; comparative government; sovereignty; democracy; dictatorship; Carl Schmitt; Carl J. Friedrich

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Schotter, G. (2011). A Peculiar Type of Democratic Unity: Carl J. Friedrich's Strange Schmittian Turn 0r How Friedrich Stopped Worrying and Learned to Decide on the Exception [Master's thesis, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1301688653

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Schotter, Geoffrey. A Peculiar Type of Democratic Unity: Carl J. Friedrich's Strange Schmittian Turn 0r How Friedrich Stopped Worrying and Learned to Decide on the Exception. 2011. Case Western Reserve University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1301688653.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Schotter, Geoffrey. "A Peculiar Type of Democratic Unity: Carl J. Friedrich's Strange Schmittian Turn 0r How Friedrich Stopped Worrying and Learned to Decide on the Exception." Master's thesis, Case Western Reserve University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1301688653

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1301688653
302
© 2011, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.