Depoliticisation, governance and the state

Depoliticisation refers to the narrowing of the boundaries of democratic politics. It is therefore intertwined with concerns about 'the end of politics' and the emergence of technocratic post-democratic forms of governance. This article provides a broad theoretical and conceptual canvas upon which the various contributions to this special edition can be located and their interrelationships exposed. It achieves this by exploring the relevance of Carl Schmitt's concept of 'the political', and particularly his analysis of 'the age of neutralisations and depoliticisations', to contemporary debates concerning depoliticisation, (re)politicisation and even hyper-depoliticisation.