Carl Schmitt is known for his concept of the political (das Politische), but little has been said about the relation between the political and violence. The main premise of this article is that violence lurks behind considerations on the political. While Weber wrote about the state as a monopoly of violence, Schmitt develops a concept of state as a monopoly of the political. Weber’s theory is rooted in the shaky and revolutionary times of transition from the Wilhelmine monarchy to the Weimar democracy. Schmitt’s concept of the political reflects the crisis of the Weimar monopoly of the political, when the existence of the state (its constitution in the Schmittian sense) became endangered by the highly political and ideologically driven groups striving for power. The weaker the executive power, the greater the risk of minority groups seizing power in a legal way. Politically, neutral law is not able to contain them, as it would see such law lose its neutrality. In this, Schmitt sees the possibility for legal revolution that can take place without violence. Weber did not foresee this risk in his concept of state. The main lesson on the part of Schmitt is therefore: what was suffi cient for containing revolution in the past (the monopoly of violence) may not be adequate in contemporary Weimar and therefore, the monopoly of the political is crucial.
