All’ombra dello Stato? Aspetti della costituzione del ‘politico’ in Miglio e Schmitt

The critical engagement that Gianfranco Miglio entertained with the hypotheses on the ‘political’ elaborated by Carl Schmitt represents a crucial aspect not only for the evolution in the thought of the Lombard scholar, but also for questioning the meaning and possibilities of politics beyond the state, challenging us also in today’s debate. In the scientific reception of Schmitt’s work, Miglio’s ambition corresponds likewise to going beyond Schmitt. The present paper focuses on the intellectual dialogue between the two authors, in particular in the light of the in so far unpublished integral transcription of the audio recording of the speech that Gianfranco Miglio gave on the occasion of the Paduan conference ‘Politics beyond the state: the Carl Schmitt problem’ in 1980. The paper intends to underline some innovations that mark Miglio’s detachment from the theories of the German jurist in order to overcome his nostalgia for the linearity of the State-form and the crystalline categories of jus publicum europaeum. At the same time, the paper discusses some unresolved issues of Miglio’s attempt to think politics ‘beyond the State’, related to the themes of temporality inherent in the distinction between political obligation and private contract, and of federalism in its political dimension.