Title: Common Good Constitutionalism and Schmittian Dictatorship – From Legal Pacification to Social Homogenization
By Lars Vinx (Cambridge University, Law)
Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
Time: 1730-1900
Room: Library Art Gallery
Abstract: This paper offers a novel analysis of Carl Schmitt’s theory of dictatorship, as developed in Schmitt’s 1921 monograph Die Diktatur. It describes the generic characteristics Schmitt attributes to the institution of dictatorship, and it explains the difference between commissarial and sovereign dictatorship as well as the distinction between dictatorship and sovereignty. The analysis shows that Schmitt’s conception of dictatorship is trapped in an ambiguity: Schmitt understands dictatorship both as creating the conditions for the realization of the rule of law, conceived as a context-transcendent ideal, and as laying the political ground for a constitution that expresses the values associated with a particular political community. The tension between these two conceptions of the purpose of dictatorship is resolved, in later work, in favour of the expressive conception, but this move makes it impossible to uphold the claim that dictatorship can be justified by appeal to its role in the realization of an ideal of legality.
The results of this novel account of Schmitt’s conception of dictatorship is employed to identify crucial tensions in Adrian Vermeule’s ‘Common Good Constitutionalism’
About the speaker: Lars Vinx is Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Cambridge. His research is situated at the intersection of legal and political philosophy, constitutional theory, and the history of modern legal thought. Vinx’s work focuses on the normative foundations of constitutionalism and the rule of law, exploring their indispensable role in legitimating political power. His current research investigates whether robust constitutional constraints on legislative and executive authority can be justified by appeal to the ideal of popular sovereignty. Vinx has a particular interest in the constitutional theory of the Weimar Republic and the writings of Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt. He is the author of Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law: Legality and Legitimacy (Oxford University Press, 2007), a widely cited study of Kelsen’s legal philosophy. His editorial and translation work includes The Guardian of the Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on the Limits of Constitutional Law (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and, most recently, Carl Schmitt’s Early Legal Theoretical Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2021), co-edited with Samuel Garrett Zeitlin. Before joining Cambridge, Vinx was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and taught philosophy at Bilkent University in Ankara. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto and an MA in history, philosophy, and political science from the University of Heidelberg.
