The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. Series Editor's Foreword vii A Note on the Text and Translation ix Introduction: Carl Schmitt's Parlamentarismus in Its Historical Context xiii Ellen Kennedy Preface to the Second Edition (1962): On the Contradiction between Parliamentarism and Democracy 1(17) Introduction to the First Edition (1923) 18(4) Democracy and Parliamentarism (Standard conceptions of identity in democratic thought and the identities that have replaced them in political reality) 22(11) The Principles of Parliamentarism (Openness and discussions; division and balance of powers; the concept of law in true parliamentarism; the relative rationalism of parliamentary theory) 33(18) Dictatorship in Marxist Thought (Dictatorship and dialectics; the metaphysical proof of marxism; rationalism and irrationalism in the dictatorship of the proletariat) 51(14) Irrationalist Theories of the Direct Use Force (George Sorel's theory of myth; the mythical image of the bourgeois; class struggle and national myths in Bolshevism and Fascism) 65(12) Appendix: On the Ideology of Parliamentarism (1925) 77(8) Richard thoma Notes 85(26) Bibliography to the 1926 Edition 111(8) Bibliographical Note 119(4) Index 123