Abstract

This study aims to address a double problem. On the one hand, it attempts to identify the place in Carl Schmitt’s writings that the issue of secularisation takes, as well as the way this concept can generate the scenario of a political theology. On the other hand, it aims to outline a reply to a more general question: in what way can modernity construe the relation between theology and politics so as to avoid the trap of the theocracy/laicism alternative. In other words, the scenario of the political theology ends up, in late modernity, being rewritten beyond the state-church dichotomy, as a tense relation inside the public space. In fact, it is about taking into account Carl Schmitt’s view that the modern equation politics=the state is no longer valid. A redefinition of politics – or, we may say, the deconstruction of the modern concept of politics – results in the second term of the equation being deemed as secondary or, more than that, as casting a shade over the fundamental political act. Rediscovering the political under the appearance of the public space therefore becomes one of the main preoccupations behind this enterprise.