Subtopic Deep Dive
Political Theology of Sovereignty
Research Guide
What is Political Theology of Sovereignty?
Political Theology of Sovereignty examines Carl Schmitt's theory linking sovereignty to divine decisionism, tracing theological motifs in modern legal and state theories.
Schmitt's 1988 'Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty' (3617 citations) defines sovereignty as the power to decide the exception. Contemporary works extend this to populism (Corrias 2016, 144 citations; Blokker 2018, 97 citations) and states of exception (Humphreys 2006, 128 citations; Scheppele 2004, 74 citations). Over 20 papers in the list analyze these intersections.
Why It Matters
Schmitt's framework (1988) explains religious undercurrents in secular authority, influencing analyses of emergency powers post-9/11 (Scheppele 2004). It informs populist challenges to constitutional identity (Corrias 2016; Blokker 2018) and depoliticization in governance (Flinders and Wood 2014). Applications include refugee biopolitics (Mavelli 2017) and Eurozone sovereignty debates (Streeck 2015).
Key Research Challenges
Secularizing Theological Concepts
Translating divine decisionism into secular politics risks anachronism (Schmitt 1988). Humphreys (2006) critiques Agamben's state of exception for blurring theological and legal boundaries. Over 10 papers grapple with this translation.
Populism and Constituent Power
Populism invokes popular sovereignty against constitutional limits (Corrias 2016; Blokker 2018). Vatter (2011) highlights antinomies between plebeian politics and republicanism. This tension appears in 5+ papers.
Emergency and Depoliticization
States of exception enable technocratic governance (Scheppele 2004; Flinders and Wood 2014). Mavelli (2017) links this to biopolitical racism in refugee crises. Papers identify persistent democratic erosion.
Essential Papers
Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty
Carl Schmitt · 1988 · 3.6K citations
Written in the intense and intellectual ferment of the early years of the Weimar Republic, Political Theology develops the distinctive theory of sovereignty that marks Carl Schmitt as one of the m...
Populism in a Constitutional Key: Constituent Power, Popular Sovereignty and Constitutional Identity
Luigi Corrias · 2016 · European Constitutional Law Review · 144 citations
Populism – Constitutional Theory – Paradox of Constituent Power – Popular Sovereignty – Representation – Constitutional Identity – Democracy
Depoliticisation, governance and the state
Matthew Flinders, Matthew J. A. Wood · 2014 · Policy & Politics · 140 citations
Depoliticisation refers to the narrowing of the boundaries of democratic politics. It is therefore intertwined with concerns about ‘the end of politics’ and the emergence of technocratic postdemocr...
Legalizing Lawlessness: On Giorgio Agamben's State of Exception
Stephen Humphreys · 2006 · European Journal of International Law · 128 citations
This review essay examines in some detail Giorgio Agamben’s recent State of Exception, his third in a series of books that reconstruct sovereignty using a range of interdisciplinary and critical to...
Populist constitutionalism
Paul Blokker · 2018 · 97 citations
In recent decades, constitutional reform appears to be gaining momentum (see Ginsburg and Melton 2015: 4). One might argue that we are experiencing times of ‘constitutional acceleration’ (Palermo 2...
Governing populations through the humanitarian government of refugees: Biopolitical care and racism in the European refugee crisis
Luca Mavelli · 2017 · Review of International Studies · 95 citations
Abstract The notion of humanitarian government has been increasingly employed to describe the simultaneous and conflicting deployment of humanitarianism and security in the government of ‘precariou...
Self-Determination: How a German Enlightenment Idea Became the Slogan of National Liberation and a Human Right
Eric Weitz · 2015 · The American Historical Review · 76 citations
NO PHRASE HAS HAD GREATER political resonance in the last one hundred years than "self-determination."No concept is as murky as self-determination.Even legal scholars, from whom one hopes to find s...
Reading Guide
Foundational Papers
Start with Schmitt (1988, 3617 citations) for core decisionism theory; then Scheppele (2004) and Humphreys (2006) for exception applications.
Recent Advances
Study Corrias (2016, 144 citations) on populism, Blokker (2018, 97 citations) on constitutionalism, and Mavelli (2017) on biopolitics.
Core Methods
Conceptual reconstruction (Schmitt 1988), biopolitical analysis (Mavelli 2017), and historical genealogy (Weitz 2015).
How PapersFlow Helps You Research Political Theology of Sovereignty
Discover & Search
Research Agent uses citationGraph on Schmitt (1988, 3617 citations) to map 20+ extensions to Agamben and populism, then exaSearch for 'Schmitt sovereignty populism' yielding Corrias (2016) and Blokker (2018). findSimilarPapers on Humphreys (2006) uncovers state of exception clusters.
Analyze & Verify
Analysis Agent applies readPaperContent to Schmitt (1988) abstracts, verifyResponse (CoVe) to check decisionism claims against Scheppele (2004), and runPythonAnalysis for citation network stats via pandas on Flinders and Wood (2014) influences. GRADE grading scores theological-secular links as high-evidence.
Synthesize & Write
Synthesis Agent detects gaps in populist theology applications via contradiction flagging between Vatter (2011) and Corrias (2016); Writing Agent uses latexEditText, latexSyncCitations for Schmitt-focused review, and latexCompile for publication-ready output with exportMermaid diagrams of sovereignty flows.
Use Cases
"Extract citation networks from Schmitt 1988 and compute centrality of Agamben-related papers."
Research Agent → citationGraph (Schmitt 1988) → Analysis Agent → runPythonAnalysis (NetworkX centrality on 20 papers) → researcher gets CSV of top influencers like Humphreys (2006).
"Draft LaTeX section comparing Schmitt sovereignty to post-9/11 exceptions."
Synthesis Agent → gap detection (Scheppele 2004 vs Schmitt 1988) → Writing Agent → latexEditText + latexSyncCitations + latexCompile → researcher gets compiled PDF with cited bibliography.
"Find GitHub repos analyzing Schmitt's decisionism in code."
Research Agent → searchPapers ('Schmitt decisionism simulation') → paperExtractUrls → paperFindGithubRepo → githubRepoInspect → researcher gets repo summaries with agent-based sovereignty models.
Automated Workflows
Deep Research workflow scans 50+ papers via searchPapers on 'political theology sovereignty', chains citationGraph to Schmitt (1988), and outputs structured report with GRADE scores. DeepScan applies 7-step CoVe to verify populist claims in Corrias (2016) against Vatter (2011). Theorizer generates theory linking depoliticization (Flinders and Wood 2014) to theological motifs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What defines Political Theology of Sovereignty?
It centers on Schmitt's (1988) view of sovereignty as deciding the exception, rooted in theological decisionism applied to secular politics.
What are key methods in this subtopic?
Methods include conceptual analysis of states of exception (Humphreys 2006; Scheppele 2004) and historical tracing of self-determination (Weitz 2015).
What are foundational papers?
Schmitt (1988, 3617 citations) is primary; followed by Scheppele (2004, 74 citations) and Humphreys (2006, 128 citations) on exceptions.
What open problems exist?
Unresolved: reconciling populism's constituent power (Corrias 2016; Blokker 2018) with republican limits (Vatter 2011) amid depoliticization (Flinders and Wood 2014).
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