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The intellectual relationship between Carl Schmitt and Max Weber has been a point of controversy for at least half a century. At the 1964 convention of the German Sociological Association, in honor of Weber's centenary, Schmitt was famously referred to as Weber's ''legitimate student.'' This article uses the chapter Schmitt specifically wrote for an edited volume in Weber's memory, published in 1923, as the starting point for juxtaposing the two scholars, and then expands the analysis to encompass a range of sources and commentaries. The comparison focuses on the approach of each of the two scholars to methodology and didactics, theory and conceptual use, as well as to the society/social science nexus. The article concludes by arguing that Schmitt performed a double rhetorical move: while styling himself as Weber's student, he then drew on that authority to assault Weber's liberalism and concept of scientific integrity.

Multilateral negotiations to reach a universal, binding international agreement on measures that curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have repeatedly failed since a scientific consensus on global warming formed in the late 1970s. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was famously never ratified by the United States, the biggest emitter, and the 2009 Copenhagen conference only produced a narrow deal between the USA, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Numerous attempts to involve international financial institutions or the G7/G8 have also been unsuccessful. Given the present crisis of multilateralism it can be argued that the time is ripe to engage fully in minilateral climate diplomacy, conferring ownership of the process to the main stakeholders. An informally orchestrated, minilateral diplomacy based on rationalist insights from conventional game and negotiation theory would then sway polluters to press ahead with measures that mitigate and adapt to the anticipated repercussions of climate change. Only after a political deal has been struck between major stakeholders may opportunities arise for ex post authorization and agenda control mechanisms involving the wider international community.

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