PapersFlow Research Brief
Political Theology and Sovereignty
Research Guide
What is Political Theology and Sovereignty?
Political Theology and Sovereignty is the scholarly examination of sovereignty, power dynamics, and governance through theological concepts, biopolitics, states of exception, and human rights, as theorized by thinkers including Carl Schmitt, Giorgio Agamben, and Michel Foucault.
This field encompasses 20,642 works exploring intersections of biopolitics, state of exception, sovereignty, and human rights. Key texts include Schmitt's "Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty" (1988, 3617 citations) and Agamben's "Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life" (1999, 8035 citations). Growth data over the past five years is not available.
Topic Hierarchy
Research Sub-Topics
Biopolitics and Sovereign Power
This sub-topic analyzes how biopolitical mechanisms regulate populations under sovereign authority, drawing from Foucault's frameworks. Researchers examine modern state practices in health, surveillance, and control.
State of Exception Theory
Exploring Agamben's concept, this area studies legal suspensions and emergency powers in governance. Studies trace historical and contemporary applications in crises like terrorism and pandemics.
Political Theology of Sovereignty
Researchers investigate Schmitt's ideas linking sovereignty to divine decisionism in secular politics. This includes analyses of theological motifs in legal and state theories.
Globalization and Human Rights Regimes
This sub-topic probes how globalization reshapes sovereignty through international human rights frameworks. Studies assess tensions between national power and supranational norms.
Power Dynamics in Political Theology
Focusing on intersections of theology and power, researchers dissect how theological concepts underpin modern power structures. Analyses span Foucault, Agamben, and Schmitt's influences.
Why It Matters
Political Theology and Sovereignty provides frameworks for analyzing modern governance crises, such as indefinite detentions post-9/11, as examined in Agamben's "THE STATE OF EXCEPTION" (2005, 1772 citations), where the Bush administration authorized military commissions for suspected terrorists. Schmitt's "Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty" (1988, 3617 citations) informs understandings of sovereignty decisions in emergencies during the Weimar Republic. Lemke's "'The birth of bio-politics': Michel Foucault's lecture at the Collège de France on neo-liberal governmentality" (2001, 1983 citations) traces neo-liberal shifts in German post-war liberalism and Chicago School economics, impacting analyses of contemporary state power over populations.
Reading Guide
Where to Start
"Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty" by Carl Schmitt (1988) serves as the starting point because it introduces the foundational concept of sovereignty as the decision on the exception in concise chapters.
Key Papers Explained
Schmitt's "Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty" (1988, 3617 citations) establishes sovereignty via theological-political analogy, which Agamben extends in "Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life" (1999, 8035 citations) to biopolitics and bare life, and further in "THE STATE OF EXCEPTION" (2005, 1772 citations) and "Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive" (1999, 1983 citations) applying it to modern emergencies and testimony. Foucault's biopolitics, via Lemke's "'The birth of bio-politics': Michel Foucault's lecture at the Collège de France on neo-liberal governmentality" (2001, 1983 citations), critiques Schmittian sovereignty, while Habermas's "Between Facts and Norms" (1996, 4119 citations) offers a counter-model of communicative legitimacy.
Paper Timeline
Most-cited paper highlighted in red. Papers ordered chronologically.
Advanced Directions
Recent preprints and news coverage on this topic are unavailable, leaving frontiers tied to extending Agamben-Schmitt debates to digital surveillance and global migration governance using established texts like "Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life".
Papers at a Glance
| # | Paper | Year | Venue | Citations | Open Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life | 1999 | Choice Reviews Online | 8.0K | ✕ |
| 2 | Between Facts and Norms | 1996 | The MIT Press eBooks | 4.1K | ✕ |
| 3 | Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty | 1988 | — | 3.6K | ✕ |
| 4 | The body in pain | 1985 | Medical Entomology and... | 3.3K | ✕ |
| 5 | Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy | 1999 | Political Studies | 2.3K | ✕ |
| 6 | Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive | 1999 | — | 2.0K | ✕ |
| 7 | 'The birth of bio-politics': Michel Foucault's lecture at the ... | 2001 | Economy and Society | 2.0K | ✕ |
| 8 | THE STATE OF EXCEPTION | 2005 | — | 1.8K | ✕ |
| 9 | 45. The Concept of the Political | 2007 | — | 1.5K | ✕ |
| 10 | Political Theology | 2005 | — | 1.5K | ✕ |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core argument in Agamben's Homo Sacer?
Agamben's "Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life" (1999, 8035 citations) argues that sovereign power operates through the production of bare life, exemplified by the figure of homo sacer, whose killing is not a crime but whose sacrifice is not ritually sanctioned. The text traces this from ancient Roman law to modern biopolitics, linking sovereignty's paradox to potentiality and law.
How does Schmitt define sovereignty?
In "Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty" (1988, 3617 citations), Carl Schmitt defines sovereignty as the ability to decide on the exception, distinguishing it from normative legal orders. This decision suspends law in crises, marking the sovereign as outside yet foundational to the legal system.
What is Foucault's concept of biopolitics?
Foucault's biopolitics, as analyzed in Lemke's "'The birth of bio-politics': Michel Foucault's lecture at the Collège de France on neo-liberal governmentality" (2001, 1983 citations), refers to governmental practices managing populations through health, security, and economic rationality. It contrasts with sovereign power over individual bodies by focusing on species-level regulation in neo-liberal contexts.
What role does the state of exception play in this field?
Agamben's "THE STATE OF EXCEPTION" (2005, 1772 citations) describes the state of exception as a suspension of law enabling indefinite detentions, as in post-9/11 U.S. policies against noncitizens. It blurs distinctions between juridical norms and political decisions, normalizing sovereign power over bare life.
How does Habermas address sovereignty in legal terms?
Habermas's "Between Facts and Norms" (1996, 4119 citations) reconciles factual power with normative legitimacy through deliberative democracy and constitutional law. It extends his communicative action theory to argue for popular sovereignty realized in legal procedures rather than exceptional decisions.
Open Research Questions
- ? How does the state of exception become normalized in contemporary democracies beyond post-9/11 cases?
- ? In what ways do biopolitical mechanisms extend Schmitt's sovereign exception into everyday governance?
- ? Can Habermas's deliberative model reconcile Agamben's bare life with human rights protections?
- ? What distinguishes neo-liberal governmentality from classical sovereign power in globalized contexts?
- ? How do survivor testimonies, as in Agamben's Remnants of Auschwitz, challenge sovereign archives of power?
Recent Trends
The field maintains 20,642 works with no specified five-year growth rate.
Citation leaders remain Agamben's "Homo sacer: sovereign power and bare life" (1999, 8035 citations) and Schmitt's "Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty" (1988, 3617 citations), with no recent preprints or news in the last 12 months indicating steady reliance on canonical analyses of sovereignty and biopolitics.
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