SCHMITT’S REALIST APPROACH TO LAW AND THE PIVOTAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NOTION OF LEGITIMACY FOR AN ORDER OF LAW

Focusing on certain of Carl Schmitt’s arguments employed in his books The Nomos of the Earth, On the Three Types of the Juristic Thought, and Legality and Legitimacy, this article analyzes Schmitt’s general approach to the idea of law. The basic suggestion to be elaborated is that Carl Schmitt provides a realist perspective according to which law is foremost a “concrete order” integrating elements of decisions and norms. Besides other substantial insights concerning the nature of law, this article contends that the most fundamental upshot arousing out of Schmitt’s approach is an original conception of the notion of legitimacy as fundamental (supra-legal) decisions concerning the basic form and ends of a state, and his attribution of a pivotal significance to this notion for the establishment and maintenance of a political-legal order.