• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site
  • HSE University
  • Student Theses
  • Law, Sovereignty and the Constitution Guarantor: a Political and Legal Discussion of Carl Schmitt and Hans Kelsen in 1920-1930

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

Student: Ukhanov Anton

Supervisor: Bulat Nazmutdinov

Faculty: Faculty of Law

Educational Programme: Legal History, Theory and Philosophy of Law (Master)

Year of Graduation: 2019

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.

Student Theses at HSE must be completed in accordance with the University Rules and regulations specified by each educational programme.

Summaries of all theses must be published and made freely available on the HSE website.

The full text of a thesis can be published in open access on the HSE website only if the authoring student (copyright holder) agrees, or, if the thesis was written by a team of students, if all the co-authors (copyright holders) agree. After a thesis is published on the HSE website, it obtains the status of an online publication.

Student theses are objects of copyright and their use is subject to limitations in accordance with the Russian Federation’s law on intellectual property.

In the event that a thesis is quoted or otherwise used, reference to the author’s name and the source of quotation is required.

Search all student theses