Category Archives: Carl Schmitt

Salty Geographies

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

A recent post by Andy Davies over at the Antipode Foundation’s blog raises some interesting geographical questions, particularly around labor, in light of the recent Costa Concordia shipwreck. On this blog we’ve noted some of the tricky problems the sea … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Historical-Geographies, Law, Pirates, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, The Sea, The State | Comments Off on Salty Geographies

Arendt, Foucault, Benjamin: On Violence, State, Law

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

This post discusses some scattered points raised about violence  by Hannah Arendt’s On Violence, Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence,” and Michel Foucault’s Society Must be Defended. Arendt makes a worthwhile distinction between power and violence, while recognizing that the two rarely … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Critique, Illegality, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Geographies of the Outlaw

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

The word “outlaw”—outside of the law—implicitly articulates the intimate relationship between geography and the law. From the perspective of state-makers and capitalists, the groups of outlaws I’m collectively labeling “Motley Crews” (as a shorthand) pose a grave ideological and spatial … Continue reading →

Posted in Bandits, Carl Schmitt, Drugs, Elites, Forests, Frontiers, Gender, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Karl Marx, Land, Law, Michel Foucault, Networks, Pirates, Post-Colonial, Power, Primitive Accumulation, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Body, The Sea, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Geographies of the Outlaw

Spatiality & Power

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

“A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas… on the soft fibers of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Assemblages, Carl Schmitt, Dialectics, Everyday Life, Governmentality, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Illegality, Karl Marx, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

The Logic of Violence in Civil War

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Kalyvas, Stathis N. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In this massive study, Stathis Kalyvas argues that violence in civil war complies with a peculiar logic. It’s this logic that explains and fixes together … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Frontiers, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Michel Foucault, Sovereignty, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off on The Logic of Violence in Civil War

Lefebvre: State, Space, World

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Lefebvre, Henri. 2009. State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Edited by Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press. [Intro, Ch. 1, 2, 3, 11] So far, as this particular reading confirmed, no other thinker seems better equipped than … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Carl Schmitt, Critique, GWF Hegel, Henri Lefebvre, Historical Materialism, Historical-Geographies, Karl Marx, Law, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Power, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Violence | 3 Comments

Boundaries, Sovereignty, Necropolitics

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Mbembe, Achille. 2000. “At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa.” Public Culture 12(1): 259-284. ———. 2003. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15(1): 11-40. In these two articles, Achille Mbembe explores changing territorial arrangements and configurations of sovereignty. … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State, Violence | 2 Comments

State of Exception

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Agamben explores how the state of exception, building from Schmitt as the suspension of law for the preservation of the juridical order, produces and is indeed predicated on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Law, Power, Sovereignty, The State, Violence | 4 Comments

Political Theology

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Schmitt, Carl. 2005. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schmitt defines the essence of sovereignty as the decision over what is an exception and decide the measures taken to eliminate such an … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 3 Comments

Nomos of the Earth

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Schmitt, Carl. 2006. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. New York: Telos Press Publishing. Carl Schmitt’s Nomos of the Earth could be called legal genealogy of the territorial spatial ordering of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Power, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The Sea, The State, Violence | 3 Comments