Ricerc@Sapienza

This contribution is intended to provide an answer to a controversial question: Why does Carl Schmitt – perhaps the firmest advocate of the state unity – not only mention and praise Santi Romano’s book on the legal order – a work that can be rightfully considered an uncompromising defence of legal pluralism – but even list him among his inspirers?

In the last two decades, much has been written – for and against – about the relevance of Carl Schmitt’s thought for a better understanding of the present-day situation of both global politics and Western democracies. This revival has led to new translations and reissues of Schmitt’s works, including his less famous writings. Yet, little attention has been paid to his early works, and in particular to his prewar writings from 1910 to 1914.

This articles centres on the persistent intercourse between social order and its undoing.
By exploring three types of legal institutionalism which will be dubbed “compositional”
(Santi Romano), “performative” (Carl Schmitt) and “generative” (Widar Cesarini Sforza),
we will debate the proposals these types advocate on how to make order out of the innate
pluralism of the social and its inherent tendency to overproduce forms of normativity.
While we will mainly be concerned with the differences between these versions of legal

This article outlines the virtues of a usually unturned stone in the field of institutional theories, i.e. a political institutionalism.