Professor of Politics Ewa Atanassow contributes essay "Carl Schmitt's Moment?" to NYU's Jean Monnet Center Working Paper series

Professor of Politics Ewa Atanassow contributes an essay titled "Carl Schmitt's Moment?" to a collection published as part of NYU's Jean Monnet Center Working Paper series. Atanassow's essay and the collection as a whole explore Schmitt's relevance to constitutional theory and contemporary public law.

A German jurist whose long life spanned four regimes and two world wars, Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) developed his political vision amid existential crisis. Written during interwar Germany, his most influential works offer a sharp analysis of democracy and the dilemmas of modern public law.

As Atanassow contends, Schmitt should be seen not only as a perceptive diagnostician of constitutional crises, past and present, but also as an ideological catalyst for these crises. And she urges that engaging with his ideas is essential to confronting today’s challenges to the liberal order.

The essay and the collection can be read from the Jean Monnet Centre here.

Post Date: 03-13-2026