Political Theology: Demystifying the Universal (Encounters in Law and Philosophy) (Encounters in Law & Philosophy)

This book provides a genealogical mapping of the universalisation/secularisation thesis that is both widely saluted and mistrusted as master narrative of modern political and normative history. While accepting that foundational issues of religions weigh heavier than political philosophy's aspirations, the authors question the outdated suggestions of Carl Schmitt's political theology, building instead upon a refined version of Giorgio Agamben's close-reading of Christian government as management. The book identifies Western-Christian tensions within jurisprudence and concludes that the West's secular universality is passing off as politics or law what is really the management of its own dwindling primacy. POLITICAL THEOLOGY Copyright Contents 1 Premises and Arguments Part I: Religions R Us 2 From Sovereignty to Negeschatology 3 Social Systems On The Cross 4 The Religion of Progress 5 Political Theology beyond Schmitt Part II: Historicised Political Theology 6 From Jerusalem to Rome via Constantinople 7 The Transition from Secularism to Post-Secularism 8 Deeds without Words Notes Index