‘Iustitiam non includo’: Carl Schmitt, Hugo Grotius and the Ius Publicum Europaeum

Through a discussion of Hugo Grotius’ conception of just war, this essay shows that within his critique of liberalism, Schmitt clashed with the very intellectual tradition he claimed to represent. Both historically and philosophically Schmitt's concept of the Ius Publicum Europaeum was a mirage. Indeed, his concept of the political was a rejection of the moral and civil philosophy that sees politics as the world of active citizens and commonwealths arguing with each other about fundamental questions of justice and equity.     

Political Theology,Democracy, and the Exception in the Egyptian Revolution

As the sixth anniversary of the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square passes, those uprisings and the events that followed continue pose important challenges not only for students of Middle Eastern and North African politics, but also for students of political theory and political theology. While scholars debate the extent to which the “Arab Spring” has amounted to a truly revolutionary turn of events, it is commonly accepted that the protests that swept the region were exceptional in their unanticipated and profound disruption of ordinary affairs. Under the influence of Carl Schmitt's theory of sovereignty, “the exception” has become a key figure in contemporary reflections on political theology, but attention to events in Egypt suggests that the familiar figure of the exception has not yet been mined for all of its implications for democratic practice. Slipping below grand articulations of the exception as a moment of sovereign decision, or as the suspension of the law, this essay turns its attention to the minor, everyday, background patterns of exceptionality that accompany the emergence of democratic practices outside the purview of the sovereign state. I argue that there is an intimate connection between the forms of exceptionality produced by longstanding practices of Egyptian secularism, the forms of exceptionality peculiar to the 2011 uprisings and their aftermath, and the forms of exceptionality that both make and unmake democratic practices. My argument has three parts: first Egyptian secularism is a process that manages and transforms authorized forms of Islamic practice, while at the same time producing exceptional formations, of which the Muslim Brotherhood is a key example; second that revolutionary politics can be understood as a matter of opening and sustaining the kind of exceptional circumstances that attended the 2011 uprisings, and that this can be usefully framed as an open-ended process of conversion; third that democratic practice requires courting both kinds of exception, despite their challenges, ambivalences, and potential dangers.     

17世纪英国革命期间共和派对古典民主与共和制度的运用

17世纪英国社会与文化具有浓厚的古典氛围,基础教育和大学教育的古典特色,上层社会的古典修养,以及近代资源的缺乏,让共和派思想家们大量借用古典民主与共和传统,抨击君主专制,积极阐述共和政治的优点,并以古代雅典、斯巴达和罗马的共和制为基础,构想近代国家的制度与体系。在某些情况下,古典传统可能直接激励了英国人的革命行动。霍布斯对古代自由和永恒战争状态的抨击,从反面体现了古典共和传统的积极作用。但英国革命毕竟是近代的产物,革命进程主要由17世纪英国的社会基础决定,而且共和派只是当时思想潮流的一个分支,其理论基础也主要来自近代的契约理论与天赋人权。古典共和传统主要是给他们已有的信念和行动增加权威的一种手段。     

16-18世纪英国宪制和宪制思想演进

英国16-18世纪宪制的演变比较曲折。内战前混合宪制已形成多年,其相应思想长期流行并影响后世。17世纪中期共和国的兴衰和分权制有名无实,给后人留下经验和教训。贵族寡头权力垄断和内阁制的形成发展,增强了18世纪英国混合制的特色。     

Qualified Toleration: Bermuda and the English Revolution

Central to both the causes and development of the English revolution was the demand for reformation of the Church of England. The question of what shape this reform should take, however, divided English men and women. Debates over the further reformation of the Church of England were also complicated by the emergence of increasingly vocal and powerfully‐placed calls for freedom of religion, ranging from a limited toleration for a certain few to a broader liberty of conscience for all. This article looks at the debate surrounding liberty of conscience during the English revolution in 1644–5, but from a fresh angle: examining the context and rationale for the parliamentary ordered religious settlement of the English Atlantic colony of Bermuda in October of 1645. Integrating the fortunes of this Atlantic colony into the history of the English revolution reconfigures our understanding and analysis of revolutionary religion and politics.