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Rethinking Franz Neumann’s route to Behemoth

Duncan Kelly

in The State of the Political: Conceptions of Politics and the State in the Thought of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann

This chapter discusses the thought of Franz Neumann, up to and including the publication of his famous work Behemoth in 1942. It shows how Neumann's legal and constitutional ideas developed largely ... More

This chapter discusses the thought of Franz Neumann, up to and including the publication of his famous work Behemoth in 1942. It shows how Neumann's legal and constitutional ideas developed largely from Schmitt's terms of reference, and how his account of rationality and the modern state drew upon Weber. This cross-fertilization of conceptual ideas, coupled with his own political sympathy for a socialist state under a fully democratized Weimar Constitution, offers an intriguing context within which to explore his route to Behemoth. This chapter also presents a detailed assessment of his analysis of National Socialism.Less

Should Nation‐building be Federalized? Should Nation‐building be Federalized? Reconsidering the Role of Federalism in Normative Political Theory

Wayne Norman

in Negotiating Nationalism: Nation-Building, Federalism, and Secession in the Multinational State

It is not possible for every community that considers itself to be a nation to have a state of its own. This is not even the preferred option for most national minorities themselves. Rather, most ... More

It is not possible for every community that considers itself to be a nation to have a state of its own. This is not even the preferred option for most national minorities themselves. Rather, most seek autonomy and freedom to carry out nation-building projects within a federal state. This chapter introduces the potential federalist solution to the problems of multinational states. It considers the history of political philosophizing about federalism, particularly whether the neglect and even rejection of federalism by liberal theorists throughout much of the 20th century was justified.Less

Introduction—from Staatsrechtslehre to Behemoth

Duncan Kelly

in The State of the Political: Conceptions of Politics and the State in the Thought of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann

This is a book about how conceptions of the modern state, politics and the political were understood, developed and modified by Max Weber (1864–1920), Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) and Franz Neumann ... More

This is a book about how conceptions of the modern state, politics and the political were understood, developed and modified by Max Weber (1864–1920), Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) and Franz Neumann (1900–1954) during the period 1890 to 1945 in Germany. It is an attempt to outline their criticisms and modifications of a broad, peculiarly German tradition of Staatsrechtslehre, or state-legal theorizing. The predominantly legalistic nature of this type of thinking forms both the background to, and the bases of, the understandings of the modern state and politics found in their writings. Yet, all three writers argued that such thinking could not adequately adapt to the problems raised by an era of mass-based politics. Tracing the reasoning behind their movement away from this broad tradition of Staatsrechtslehre therefore provides an overarching context for this work.Less

Introduction

Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, Otto Kircheimer, and Raymond Geuss

Raffaele Laudani (ed.)

in Secret Reports on Nazi Germany: The Frankfurt School Contribution to the War Effort

This introduction discusses the Frankfurt School's contribution to the United States' World War II effort. In particular, it examines the role played by three German scholars and prominent members of ... More

This introduction discusses the Frankfurt School's contribution to the United States' World War II effort. In particular, it examines the role played by three German scholars and prominent members of the Frankfurt School: Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer. As political analysts at the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the first American intelligence agency, Neumann, Marcuse, and Kirchheimer prepared intelligence reports on Nazi Germany. The chapter considers how, by adapting Critical Theory to the American cultural and bureaucratic machine, the Frankfurt group was rapidly able to impose their own “intellectual guidance” on the Central European Section, a Research and Analysis Branch subdivision charged with analyzing and studying Nazi Germany (as well as Austria and the other Central European countries).Less

Behemoth and Beyond

Jens Meierhenrich

in The Remnants of the Rechtsstaat: An Ethnography of Nazi Law

Few issues in the historiography of the “Third Reich” have provoked as much acrimony in the academy as the debate over the nature of the Nazi state. To enable readers to appreciate Fraenkel’s ... More

Few issues in the historiography of the “Third Reich” have provoked as much acrimony in the academy as the debate over the nature of the Nazi state. To enable readers to appreciate Fraenkel’s contribution to this debate, this chapter provides a critical review of contending theories of the Nazi state, with particular reference to Franz Neumann’s Behemoth, first published in 1942, and in an enlarged edition in 1944, which has inspired much scholarship on the racial state. The rise of Behemoth corresponded directly with the decline of The Dual State in the final war and early postwar years. Neumann’s Behemoth, which has never gone out of print, exemplifies major shortcomings—theoretical, empirical, methodological—in early studies of Nazi rule. I argue that it gave rise in the 1950s and 1960s to an intellectual trajectory in scholarship on the Third Reich that has done a fair amount to obscure—rather than illuminate—the logic of Nazi dictatorship, including law’s role in it.Less

Conclusion—Rousseau’s paradox

Duncan Kelly

in The State of the Political: Conceptions of Politics and the State in the Thought of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Franz Neumann

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a ... More

This chapter binds the book together, recapitulating its general argument, and offering pointers as to how the study relates to some contemporary questions of political theory. It suggests that a classification that distinguishes between Weber the ‘liberal’, Schmitt the ‘conservative’ and Neumann the ‘social democrat’, cannot provide an adequate understanding of this episode in the history of political thought. Nor indeed can it do so for other periods. In this book, one part of the development of their ideas has focused on the relationship between state and politics. By learning from their examples, people continue their own search for an acceptable balance between the freedom of the individual and the claims of the political community.Less

The Visibility of the Holocaust: Franz Neumann and the Nuremburg Trials

Michael Salter

in Social Theory after the Holocaust

This chapter contains an essay by Michael Salter that discusses the new-found interest in the significance of the work of Franz Neuman and his group of research analysts regarding the Nuremberg ... More

This chapter contains an essay by Michael Salter that discusses the new-found interest in the significance of the work of Franz Neuman and his group of research analysts regarding the Nuremberg Trials. It outlines the hurdles that the present study presents to the claims that Neumann's group of research analysts failed to carry out their official and moral responsibilities to the prosecution's preparation, which resulted in the undermined place which the Holocaust took within the case of the prosecution. The essay also analyses Neumann's theory on anti-semitism and his assumptions, concluding with a lesson: Neumann's activism and issues led to the notion that theories are not about theories, but rather a continuous process which moulds underlying processes and relationships.Less

Defending Legality in the Age of Empire’s Law

Amy Bartholomew

in Legality and Legitimacy in Global Affairs

Amy Bartholomew argues the ‘global war on terror’ has generated rightlessness but not lawlessness. Rule by law threatens to produce a constitutive undoing of the post World War II international legal ... More

Amy Bartholomew argues the ‘global war on terror’ has generated rightlessness but not lawlessness. Rule by law threatens to produce a constitutive undoing of the post World War II international legal architecture, or ‘law’s empire’. The current threat to human rights and the future of legality may be understood as ‘empire’s law,’ a development that arms neoliberal globalization with a neoconservative political order of global rule by an American empire. To analyze these developments a critical analysis of international law that can conceptualize the universalist core of legitimate legality which authors like Franz Neumann and, above all, Jürgen Habermas provide is necessary. Both ‘egalitarian universalism’ as key to legality’s internal legitimacy and democratic legitimation as a necessary but still far off condition for external legitimacy are important ideas to further develop in our political theory of legitimate legality and to defend in our struggles to resist empire’s law, a form of rule that threatens humanity’s future.Less

Social Foundations of the Rule of Law: Franz Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer

Roger Cotterrell

in Law's Community: Legal Theory in Sociological Perspective

The theme of historical transformations of legal rationality can be further developed through an examination of the changing social foundations of the idea of the Rule of Law, illuminated by Franz ... More

The theme of historical transformations of legal rationality can be further developed through an examination of the changing social foundations of the idea of the Rule of Law, illuminated by Franz Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer. Neumann's view that the Rule of Law reconciles, in specific historical conditions, the contradictory elements of law as sovereign power or will (voluntas)and as reason or principle (ratio) is important to the arguments in Part III of this book. The idea of the Rule of Law recognises centralised political power as the immediate origin of modern law while emphasising certain values that may be asserted against government. But what does that formulation entail in contemporary conditions? Historical evidence suggests why an appropriate reconciliation of ratio and voluntas may be hard to maintain. This chapter discusses the legal invisibility of change, the Rule of Law of competitive society, the ‘England problem’ and the Rule of Law, and the experience of Weimar Germany.Less

The Nature of the Nazi State and the Responsibility of Corporate Officials at Nuremberg

Doreen Lustig

in Veiled Power: International Law and the Private Corporation 1886-1981

Chapter 4 explores how various conceptions of the Nazi totalitarian state influenced the findings and prosecutions of the Industrialist Trials at Nuremberg conducted against key officials in the ... More

Chapter 4 explores how various conceptions of the Nazi totalitarian state influenced the findings and prosecutions of the Industrialist Trials at Nuremberg conducted against key officials in the Flick, Krupp, and I.G. Farben companies. The chapter considers the influence of the Frankfurt School and Franz Neumann’s theory of the Nazi state as Behemoth on the prosecution’s innovative theory of the Nazi regime. The tribunals’ legal reasoning rejected Neumann’s theory of Behemoth and insisted instead on a link being established with state authority, influence, or control as a basis for the responsibility of corporate officials. The chapter analyses the shortcomings of the tribunals’ approach in meeting the normative challenge of the Industrialist Trials, namely to develop principles for establishing responsibilities among businesspersons operating as such. Furthermore, it reveals how the tribunals’ conceptions of the corporate veil of the state, the company, and the relation between them served as a shield against individual responsibility.Less

The Decline of a Classic: Explaining the Reception of The Dual State, 1941–present

Jens Meierhenrich

in The Remnants of the Rechtsstaat: An Ethnography of Nazi Law

This chapter explores the uneven reception of Fraenkel’s classic across space and time, with particular reference to the book’s very different fortunes in the United States and postwar Germany. I ... More

This chapter explores the uneven reception of Fraenkel’s classic across space and time, with particular reference to the book’s very different fortunes in the United States and postwar Germany. I account in detail for the international recognition bestowed on Fraenkel in the early 1940s, and its subsequent status as an obligatory footnote—a marginalized classic that few had read and even fewer understood. I also explain why The Dual State failed to make inroads in Germany until the early 1970s, when the first German edition was published. I weave into the analysis elements of an intellectual biography, charting Fraenkel’s career, inter alia, in the U.S. Foreign Economic Administration, which operated under the auspices of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS); as a U.S. legal adviser in the international territorial administration of Korea; and as reluctant doyen of political science in postwar Germany.Less

Epilogue: Social Implications of the “Age of Anxiety”

Bettina Bergo

in Anxiety: A Philosophical History

Opening to further reflection, the epilogue recalls Franz Neumann’s 1954 arguments that anxiety arises in response to economic and cultural threats to identity and status, often paralyzing political ... More

Opening to further reflection, the epilogue recalls Franz Neumann’s 1954 arguments that anxiety arises in response to economic and cultural threats to identity and status, often paralyzing political participation. In times of disillusionment and social unrest, anxiety precipitates unreflective responses, including adherence to “caesaristic movements,” grounded on “false concreteness” or social prejudices. Another great observer of the rise of authoritarian movements, Hermann Broch, ties anxiety to our embodied ego’s existence in its world, to its self-enhancement, and to responses to perceived threats. When confronted with dangers to its self-expansion, anxiety, panic, and compensatory behaviors aiming at sadistic “over-satisfactions” (Superbefriedigungen) ensue. These responses can be seen in individuals and in the groups and movements they form. Together, these authors strongly support the book’s argument for abiding with anxiety and approaching it with a certain existential knowledge—of oneself and one’s circumstances.Less