1. Carl Schmitt and political institutions
The essence of democracy: definition
What political regime: Liberal parliamentarism?
What political regime: Dictatorship?

2. Democracy
Definition: “for its definition, one has a string of identities. It belongs to the essence of democracy that every and all decisions which are taken are only valid for those who themselves decide”, 25

3. Democratic identities
Identity between law and people’s will
Identity between ruler and ruled
But also: governing-governed,
Sovereign-subject,
Subject-object of state authority,
People-representatives,
Quantitative (majority)-qualitative (justice of the law)

4. Equality
“The democratic concept of equality is a political concept and, like every genuine political concept, includes the possibility of a distinction. Political democracy, therefore, cannot rest on the inability to distinguish among persons, but rather only on the quality of belonging to a particular people”, Constitutional Theory, 258.

5. Schmitt’s Democracy requires representation
For democracy to be achieved, representation is necessary: ‘Even where the attempt is made to realise unconditionally an absolute identity, elements and methods of representation remain unavoidable, as on the contrary no representation without images of identity is possible’, Constitutional Theory,

6. What regime for the democratic principle?
The underlying rationale is that the will of the people has to be the exclusive criterion of law-making. However, this is not self-evidently accessible
Traditionally, this entailed parliamentarism and was opposed to dictatorship, however:
“(A) Democracy can exist without what one today calls parliamentarism and parliamentarism without democracy: and (B) dictatorship is just as little the definitive antithesis of democracy as democracy is of dictatorship”, 32

7. A. Parliamentarism and democracy
It was not created as a committee of the people because it is independent from them, most of the time
Also, it was not created for expediency (as in that the people cannot themselves decide) because then Caesarism would be better
“The ratio of Parliament rests … in a ‘dynamic dialectic’ that is, in a process of confrontation of differences and opinions from which the real political will results. The essence of parliament is therefore public deliberation of argument and counterargument, public debate and public discussion” 34

8. A. Implications for democracy
“It is essential that liberalism be understood as a consistent, comprehensive metaphysical system … truth becomes a mere function of the eternal competition of opinions. In contrast to the truth, it means renouncing a definite result”, 35.
Is this regime consistent with the democratic principle?

9. A. Assessing Parliamentarism
Open discussion vs. decision
Freedom of opinion vs. public sphere
Secret ballot vs. public acclamation
Separation of power vs. identity
Majority decision vs. national will
Aggregate of individuals vs. people
Individual in his private sphere: Liberty is the key value, not equality

10. What regime for democratic principle?
If parliamentarism is not consistent with democracy, how can it be realised institutionally?
Schmitt’s answer is: through REAL REPRESENTATION:
Representation that is not instrumental but existential
It creates a ‘type of being that is higher, further enhanced, and more intense in comparison to the natural existence of some human grouping living together’. CT, 243.

11. Dictatorship
This can only be achieved by a single representative: “The absolute prince is also the sole representative of the political unity of the people”, Ct, 247 Hobbes’ Leviathan: “Dictatorial and Caesaristic methods not only can produce the acclamation of the people but can also be a direct expression of democratic substance and power” CT, 16

12. Why a Leviathan?
Will of the people is ‘objective ambiguity’: a formless will that can never be grasped in its ultimate substance (Sieyes).
Delegates, in order to represent the nation, ‘should not be messengers delivering an already existing will: rather they have to ‘shape’ it first”, On Dictatorship, 124.
For this to be possible, the representative ‘must be persons who say, L’Etat c’est nous’, Constitutional theory, p. 241.

13. Dictatorship and democracy
‘A democracy must not permit the inevitable factual difference between governing and being governed to become a qualitative distinction and to distance governing persons from those governed’
‘Those who govern are rendered distinct by the people, not from the people’ (266).
“Democracy is designated as the rule of public opinion … Public opinion is the modern type of acclamation” (275).

14. Assessing Dictatorship
“A dictatorship in particular is possible only on a democratic foundation” :
Distinguishes between who is equal and who is not
Creates and maintains the unity of the nation
Shapes the will of the nation
It does so publicly
Secures the string of identities: ruled must be rulers
Ultimately, it preserves the unity of the nation