Carl Schmitt's Thought and the Problem of Reactive Identities in Contemporary Political Geography

Carl Schmitt, a prominent German philosopher and jurist who had always been accused of supporting the Third Reich throughout his life, was acquitted at the Nuremberg Trials and lived in general isolation until 1985. But Schmitt's isolation never prevented him from writing and disseminating his ideas throughout the twentieth century. Schmitt is one of the great thinkers whose views and thoughts have influenced various thinkers over the past decades, such as Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, and Giorgio Agamben. When Schmitt wrote the book Empress, he made it clear that politics must be defined in terms of the distinction between friend and foe. Today, neoliberalism, which firmly believes in downsizing government and market forces to regulate social relations and land management, has led to major social conflicts within and geopolitical conflicts outside the borders of countries. Neoliberal policies, along with the post-Fordist economy, have created a situation in recent years that has widened social divisions within countries as well as on a global scale. The increase in these gaps in the social strata has caused internal crises in countries and on the other hand has involved many countries in widespread social protests. According to great thinkers such as Fukuyama, such social conflicts have led to the formation of reactive identities within countries. Many of the works and writings of political geographers today show the attention of prominent thinkers such as Claudio Minka and Anaji Scor who focused on Schmitt's political philosophy, and the formation of reactive identities in relation to politics and the distinction between friend and foe. They search for globalization and post-Fordist economics. The main question of the article is why Schmitt's political philosophy and especially the political category in relation to reactive identities are at the center of the world's political geographical discourses?