Selected passages from the following two articles appear in various chapters of the book in modified form: William Rasch, “Political theology and political form: power, contingency, authority, belief,” Journal for Cultural Research, 2016, vol. 20, no. 3, 217–234; William Rasch, “Carl Schmitt’s Defense of Democracy,” The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt, ed. Jens Meierhenrich and Oliver Simons, 2016, 312–337.
I wish to thank Luke Rylander and Anna Spafford for early work on compiling the works cited section of the volume. Above all, I am indebted to Colin Grant for the meticulous and precise job of formatting the book and conducting a thorough and careful copyediting of the text. I am equally indebted to all those who worked on producing the volume, especially Sarah Campbell, her successor Frankie Mace, as well as Rebecca Anastasi, Lisa Whittington, Brianna Westervelt, and Andrew Unger.
Over the years there have been many who, rather unexpectedly, have responded positively to my work and supported me in numerous ways. I will always be grateful to Chantal Mouffe, Costas Douzinas, and Joe Bendersky. My colleague and friend, Bill Scheuerman, has never failed to encourage me and provide invaluable intellectual and institutional help, despite (or perhaps because of) our different attitudes about controversial figures like Carl Schmitt. He is a fierce critic but generous friend, and the knowledge and commitment he brings to our conversations always enrich the way I look at the political and the discipline tasked with studying it. I am an amateur in the field of political theory, but he has never held that against me, for which I hope he will never be faulted.
I dedicate this book to my twin granddaughters, Madelyn Grace and Riley Ann. Born in 2018, they are fated to live in the world we have made, or at least have been unable to hinder. May they be allowed to make of it something better than we have been able to do.