BEYOND CARL SCHMITT (AND GIORGIO AGAMBEN). THE DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF MIGUEL VATTER

This article provides a review of Miguel Vatter's book Divine Democracy. . Vatter's book is an erudite analysis of the democratic credentials of post-Schmittian political theology, a subject which has received relatively little attention in the Anglophone scholarly literature. Divine Democracy covers a vast array of different thinkers across different traditions and shows an impressive erudition and a thorough knowledge of authors (for example Eric Voegelin and Ernst Kantorowicz) who have not been widely read by political theorists. The book also forces us to reconsider some mainstream ideas about the relationship between secularization and modernity. This article raises some questions on three themes that are examined in Vatter's book: 1) The significance and definition of political theology, 2) Vatter's interpretation of Carl Schmitt, and 3) the maning of representation.