Can a free liberal democracy hold itself together? In this essay, set up as a fictional conversation between Carl Schmitt and Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Cor van Beuningen investigates a classic but extremely current tension: between freedom and order, trust and control, risk and security.
On the basis of Böckenförde's famous operative part on the The challenge of freedom and Schmitt's emphasis on sovereignty and friend/enemy-thinking, the article links political philosophy to the contemporary crisis of democracy, polarization and the appeal of authoritarian solutions. The epilogue explicitly places the reader in the question of what is needed today to actually carry freedom.
Wonder what risk of freedom really means - and what that requires of us? Read the full article here
The house of Carl Schmitt in the village of Plettenberg