Law, Sovereignty and the Constitution Guarantor: a Political and Legal Discussion of Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen in 1920-1930

The present work is devoted to separate episodes of political and legal polemics of Karl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen in 1920-1930. It was a discussion of sovereignty and a dispute over the guarantor of the constitution. The object of the study is the German political-legal thought of 1920-1930, and the subject of the ideological-theoretical and historical interrelation of Karl Schmitt's decisiónism and the pure doctrine of Hans Kelsen's law from the point of view of the problems of sovereignty and the guarantor of the constitution. The aim is to establish the extent and role of the mutual ideological-theoretical and historical influence of the pure doctrine of Hans Kelsen's law and Karl Schmitt's decisionalism on sovereignty and constitutional guarantor issues. However, before moving on to the places of concrete ideological and theoretical clashes, the author turns to the legal teachings of Schmitt and Kelsen in general. For this purpose, the historical and biographical context of the formation of the teachings is considered and their general characteristics are given in order to return to the general picture at a new level after the analysis of the discussions. As a methodological approach, the author uses the developments of the Cambridge School of Intellectual History, applying, in accordance with its general provisions, formal-legal, comparative, biographical, historical-genetic and historical-systemic methods. The main conclusion is as follows: the ideological and theoretical contradictions around the problems of sovereignty and the guarantor of the constitution testify that the discussion of Karl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen is a clash of two different legal projects, which are characterized as "radical", i.e. occupying a special place in the system of established types of legal understanding.