The possibility of the theological-economic paradigm and destituent power in Giorgio Agamben against Carl Schmitt’s political theology and Hans Kelsen’s liberal democracy

Abstract

The purpose of this study is, first, to present the set of arguments exposed in the important and historical debate between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt regarding who should be the “guardian of the State Constitution” and, subsequently, to propose Giorgio Agamben’s oikonomic theology as a paradigm that sheds light on fundamental categories of modernity. This approach makes it possible to demonstrate the inconsistencies of Schmitt’s political theology and, at the same time, to recognize the State in its managerial rather than epistemic functioning—thus anarchic—when the theses of Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt are brought into relation.

Keywords: theology; oikonomia; politics; liberal democracy.