Acceso usuarios
Emanuele Cornetta
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the conceptual pair of political conflict-social homogeneity, starting from the theorizations of Carl Schmitt and Hermann Heller. In particular, the paper highlights how, even if they share the same historical perspective (the Weimar Germany), the two authors develop two different concepts of “homogeneity”, so that the relationship between their theories and the theme of “political conflict” appears significantly dissimilar. If, for Schmitt, the obsession for order results in the impossibility of understanding the democratic and pluralistic conflict in an orderly sense, for Heller, instead, democratic conflict and order can coexist. Indeed, he does not consider political homogeneity in opposition to the intrinsically conflictual dimension of the “social”, but in relation to it. Hence, by pointing out the importance of the Hellerian attempt to combine social antagonism with the necessary formation of a unitary democratic will, the paper weaves a relationship between Heller’s theoretical perspective and Chantal Mouffe’s theory of “agonistic pluralism”. Finally, it highlights the limits that this concept can come across if it is not preserved in a constitutionally oriented dimension.
