Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar by David Dyzenhaus (review)

514 LETTERS IN CANADA 1997 museum practice in the early part of the twentieth century. A list of the complete collection is provided in a concordance. In addition to the catalogue, which includes short descriptions and photographs of each object, the book is augmented by several other useful appendices, including a list of Methodist missionaries in Bella BeUa between 188o and 1914, a chronology of Large's life, a list of contributors to the collection, and the prices paid. Many of the objects in Large's collection were new when he purchased them, and his collection thus provides a window into a specific period of Heiltsuk culture and art history. Large also recorded the names of the contributors to his collection. This has enabled Black to use other ethnohistoric sources and the techniques of art history to discuss the work and lives . of five Bella Bella carvers, Chief Robert Belt Captain Carpenter, Enoch, General Dick, and Daniel Houstie. While the discussion focuses on the works in the Large collection, Black makes reference to related works in other collections. This is the core of the book, and will nndoubtedly become a touchstone for analyses of Heiltsuk art outside the Large collection. Bella Bella: A Season ofHeiltsuk Art is a neatly focused scholarly treahnent of a topic which has long been neglected. The analysis is balanced~ and the text is lucid. The book is beautifully designed, with photographs in both black and white and colour, and excellent maps. Accessible to all who are interested in Northwest Coast history and art~ this is a fine contribution to Heiltsuk history, the history and art history of British Columbia First Nations, and to museum studies. (ANDREA LAFORET) David Dyzenhaus. Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Hermann Heller in Weimar Clarendon Press. xiv, 248. $112.00 The title of this important book tells only half of the story. The book brilliantly stakes out the opposing philosophical and political positions defended by Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, and Hermann Heller during the Weimar republic, but its ultimate aim is more ambitious. David Dyzenhaus attempts to link the travails of the Weimar republic to contemporary AngloAmerican legal and constitutional debate. His bridge is the 'fascinating para11el' he discerns between Kelsen's Pure Theory oflaw and John Rawls's account of publlc reason. The problem these thinkers share is how to account for the tension that can be discerned between legitimacy and legality. Anglo-American liberalism, according to Dyzenhaus, appears to have changed its primary focus after the fall of communism. Emphasis has shifted from a defence of individual rights to securing a stable liberal society in the face of pluralism. Liberalism not only defends pluralism, but HUMANITIES 515 creates the institutions that ensure its expansion. Dyzenhaus acknowledges that we live 'in the era of nation states where political conflict no longer is confined to external affairs, but characterizes internal politics, where groups with conflicting understandings of the good life struggle for power.' Because pluralism, according to Rawls, does not describe only the reasonable conceptions of the good held by private individuals, but extends to unreasonable challenges against the liberal order, it generates an 'irreconcilable latent conflict.' This conflict is exacerbated by the tension between legitimacy and legality, which mirrors the tension exploited by Schmitt between democracy and liberalism. On the one hand, political democracy opens an unrestricted avenue of public expression to an tmreduced plurality of 'unreasonable and irrational, and even mad, comprehensive doctrines.' This puts a strain on liberal legality and the ideal of toleration it presupposes. On the other hand, democratic legitimacy requires forms of social homogeneity which impinge on the unrestricted pluralism demanded by liberalism. The opposition between Rawls and communitarian republicans like Michael Sandel is mediated, according to Dyzenhaus, by Ji.irgen Habermas, who eases the tension between liberalism and democracy by postulating that 'legality can produce legitimacy.' What this means is that the rule of law demanded by liberalism ought not to be detached from democratic ideals. It also means that democracy will be diluted if a commitment to openness1 public discussion, separation of powers, and other liberal demands is forsaken. Dyzenhaus claims that, in attaining this synthesis, Habermas has 're-invented...