Content
1. Absolute Concept of the Constitution (The Constitution as Unified. Whole)
2. Relative Concept of the Constitution (The Constitution as a Multitude
of Individual Laws)
3. The Positive Concept of the Constitution (The Constitution as the Complete Decision over the Type and Form of the Political Unity)
4. Ideal Concept of the Constitution ("Constitution" in an exemplary sense, thus named because of a certain content) $
5. The Meanings of the Term "Basic Law," Basic Norm or Lex Fundamentalis (Summarizing Overview)
6. Origin of the Constitution
7. The Constitution as Contract (The Genuine Constitutional Con-tract)
8. The Constitution-Making Power
9. Legitimacy of a Constitution
10. Consequences of the Theory of the Constitution-Making Power, of the People's Constitution-Making Power in Particular
11. Concepts Derived from the Concept of the Constitution (Constitutional Change, Statutory Violation of the Constitution, Constitutional Sus-
pension, Constitutional Dispute, High Treason)
12. The Principles of the Bourgeois Rechtsstaat
13. The Rechtsstaat Concept of Law
14. The Basic Rights
15. Separation (So-Called Division) of Powers § 16. Bourgeois Rechtsstaat and Political Form
17-1. The Theory of Democracy, Fundamental Concepts
18. The People and the Democratic Constitution
19. Consequences of the Political Principle of Democracy
20. Application of the Political Principle of Democracy to Individual Areas of State Life
21. Boundaries of Democracy
22-2. The Theory of Monarchy 308
23-3. Aristocratic Elements in Modern Bourgeois-Rechtsstaat Constitutions
24-4. The Parliamentary System
25. Historical Overview of the Development of the Parliamentary System
526. Overview of the Possibilities for the Formation of the Parliamentary
27. The Parliamentary System of the Weimar Constitution
28. Dissolution of Parliament
29. Fundamental Concepts of a Constitutional Theory of the Federation
30. Consequences of the Fundamental Concepts of the Constitutional Theory of the Federation Appendix: The Weimar Constitution
Notes
Biographical Notes
Index

Carl Schmitt’s magnum opus, Constitutional Theory, was originally published in 1928 and has been in print in German ever since. This volume makes Schmitt’s masterpiece of comparative constitutionalism available to English-language readers for the first time. Schmitt is considered by many to be one of the most original—and, because of his collaboration with the Nazi party, controversial—political thinkers of the twentieth century. In Constitutional Theory, Schmitt provides a highly distinctive and provocative interpretation of the Weimar Constitution. At the center of this interpretation lies his famous argument that the legitimacy of a constitution depends on a sovereign decision of the people. In addition to being subject to long-standing debate among legal and political theorists in Western Europe and the United States, this theory of constitution-making as decision has profoundly influenced constitutional theorists and designers in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
Constitutional Theory is a significant departure from Schmitt’s more polemical Weimar-era works not just in terms of its moderate tone. Through a comparative history of constitutional government in Europe and the United States, Schmitt develops an understanding of liberal constitutionalism that makes room for a strong, independent state. This edition includes an introduction by Jeffrey Seitzer and Christopher Thornhill outlining the cultural, intellectual, and political contexts in which Schmitt wrote Constitutional Theory; they point out what is distinctive about the work, examine its reception in the postwar era, and consider its larger theoretical ramifications. This volume also contains extensive editorial notes and a translation of the Weimar Constitution.---provided by publisher