Early liberal parliamentarism presupposed an elite excluding universal suffrage

Evidence

Schmitt treats discussion, for Habermas a necessary feature of rationality, as distinctive to the liberal bourgeoisie, which ‘shares the class characteristic of wanting to evade the decision. A class that shifts all political activity onto the play of conversation in the press and in the parliament is no match for social conflict.’ — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 450

Categorization

• XREF: Schmitt’s friend-enemy conception of the political is a direct counterpoint to Habermas’s consensus model and to Jameson’s claims about the Left needing to reclaim decisionist politics. — connects to: Liberal democracies are not direct-access societies but elite-mediated ones — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 26; Liberal universalism has long coexisted with justifying empire; Liberal autonomy is class-stratified and state-regulated rather than universal (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Defines Schmitt’s decisionism — sovereign is he who decides the exception — and his friend/enemy definition of the political.

Broader Connections

• Liberal democracies are not direct-access societies but elite-mediated ones #corroborates (0.92) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 26
• Liberal autonomy is class-stratified and state-regulated rather than universal #expands (0.88)
• Liberal universalism has long coexisted with justifying empire #expands (0.82)
• Liberal rights discourse has historically justified rather than opposed empire #expands (0.82) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 72
• The British understood freedom only by contrast with those excluded from it #expands (0.80) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 413