Machiavelli and the Politics of Democratic Innovation

Machiavelli and the Politics of Democratic Innovation PDF Author: Christopher Holman
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487519109
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Presenting a detailed reinterpretation and reconstruction of the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli, Machiavelli and the Politics of Democratic Innovation uses original readings of Machiavelli’s texts to develop a new theoretical model of democratic practice. The book critically and creatively juxtaposes certain concepts drawn from Machiavelli’s work in order to produce new political insights. Christopher Holman identifies two unique ideas in Machiavelli through his rearrangement of Machiavellian concepts. The first, drawn primarily from The Prince, is an image of the individual human being as a creative subject that seeks the exteriorization of desire via political creation. The second, drawn primarily from The Discourses on Livy, is an image of the democratic republic as a form of regime in which this desire for creative self-expression is universalized, all citizens being able to affirm their psychic orientation toward innovation through their equal access to political institutions and orders. Such institutions and orders, to the extent that they function as media for the expression of a fundamental human creativity, must be arranged so that they are capable of continual interrogation and refinement. In the final instance, a new ethical ground for the normative defense of democratic life is constructed, one grounded in the orientation of individual beings toward novelty and innovation.

Machiavelli and the Politics of Democratic Innovation

Machiavelli and the Politics of Democratic Innovation PDF Author: Christopher Holman
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487519109
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book

Book Description
Presenting a detailed reinterpretation and reconstruction of the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli, Machiavelli and the Politics of Democratic Innovation uses original readings of Machiavelli’s texts to develop a new theoretical model of democratic practice. The book critically and creatively juxtaposes certain concepts drawn from Machiavelli’s work in order to produce new political insights. Christopher Holman identifies two unique ideas in Machiavelli through his rearrangement of Machiavellian concepts. The first, drawn primarily from The Prince, is an image of the individual human being as a creative subject that seeks the exteriorization of desire via political creation. The second, drawn primarily from The Discourses on Livy, is an image of the democratic republic as a form of regime in which this desire for creative self-expression is universalized, all citizens being able to affirm their psychic orientation toward innovation through their equal access to political institutions and orders. Such institutions and orders, to the extent that they function as media for the expression of a fundamental human creativity, must be arranged so that they are capable of continual interrogation and refinement. In the final instance, a new ethical ground for the normative defense of democratic life is constructed, one grounded in the orientation of individual beings toward novelty and innovation.

Machiavellian Democracy

Machiavellian Democracy PDF Author: John P. McCormick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139494961
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Intensifying economic and political inequality poses a dangerous threat to the liberty of democratic citizens. Mounting evidence suggests that economic power, not popular will, determines public policy, and that elections consistently fail to keep public officials accountable to the people. McCormick confronts this dire situation through a dramatic reinterpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli's political thought. Highlighting previously neglected democratic strains in Machiavelli's major writings, McCormick excavates institutions through which the common people of ancient, medieval and Renaissance republics constrained the power of wealthy citizens and public magistrates, and he imagines how such institutions might be revived today. It reassesses one of the central figures in the Western political canon and decisively intervenes into current debates over institutional design and democratic reform. McCormick proposes a citizen body that excludes socioeconomic and political elites and grants randomly selected common people significant veto, legislative and censure authority within government and over public officials.

Machiavelli and the Orders of Violence

Machiavelli and the Orders of Violence PDF Author: Yves Winter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108580718
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Niccolò Machiavelli is the most prominent and notorious theorist of violence in the history of European political thought - prominent, because he is the first to candidly discuss the role of violence in politics; and notorious, because he treats violence as virtue rather than as vice. In this original interpretation, Yves Winter reconstructs Machiavelli's theory of violence and shows how it challenges moral and metaphysical ideas. Winter attributes two central theses to Machiavelli: first, violence is not a generic technology of government but a strategy that tends to correlate with inequality and class conflict; and second, violence is best understood not in terms of conventional notions of law enforcement, coercion, or the proverbial 'last resort', but as performance. Most political violence is effective not because it physically compels another agent who is thus coerced; rather, it produces political effects by appealing to an audience. As such, this book shows how in Machiavelli's world, violence is designed to be perceived, experienced, remembered, and narrated.

Reading Machiavelli

Reading Machiavelli PDF Author: John P. McCormick
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069121154X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A new reading of Machiavelli’s major works that demonstrates how he has been previously misread To what extent was Niccolò Machiavelli a “Machiavellian”? Was he an amoral adviser of tyranny or a stalwart partisan of liberty? A neutral technician of power politics or a devout Italian patriot? A reviver of pagan virtue or initiator of modern nihilism? Reading Machiavelli answers these questions through original interpretations of Machiavelli’s three major political works—The Prince, Discourses, and Florentine Histories—and demonstrates that a radically democratic populism seeded the Florentine’s scandalous writings. John McCormick challenges the misguided understandings of Machiavelli set forth by prominent thinkers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and representatives of the Straussian and Cambridge schools, and he emphasizes the fundamental, often unacknowledged elements of a vibrant Machiavellian politics. Advancing fresh readings of Machiavelli’s work, this book presents a new outlook on how politics should be conceptualized and practiced.

Politics and Vision

Politics and Vision PDF Author: Sheldon S. Wolin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400883539
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 792

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Book Description
Politics and Vision is a landmark work by one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. Substantially expanded for republication in 2004, it is both a sweeping survey of Western political thought and a powerful account of contemporary predicaments of power and democracy. In lucid and compelling prose, Sheldon Wolin offers original, subtle, and often surprising interpretations of political theorists from Plato to Rawls. Situating them historically while sounding their depths, he critically engages their diverse accounts of politics, theory, power, justice, citizenship, and institutions. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin’s remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, "inverted totalitarianism,“ in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant. In this expanded edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come. Wolin originally wrote Politics and Vision to challenge the idea that political analysis should consist simply of the neutral observation of objective reality. He argues that political thinkers must also rely on creative vision. Wolin shows that great theorists have been driven to shape politics to some vision of the Good that lies outside the existing political order. As he tells it, the history of theory is thus, in part, the story of changing assumptions about the Good. Acclaimed as a tour de force when it was first published, and a major scholarly event when the expanded edition appeared, Politics and Vision will instruct, inspire, and provoke for generations to come.

From Politics to Reason of State

From Politics to Reason of State PDF Author: Maurizio Viroli
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521414937
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This study fills a notable gap in the history of political thought.

The Prince

The Prince PDF Author: Niccolò Machiavelli
Publisher: Xist Publishing
ISBN: 1681959038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli from Coterie Classics All Coterie Classics have been formatted for ereaders and devices and include a bonus link to the free audio book. “The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.” ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince Machiavelli's The Prince was a battle for obtaining and maintaining power in 14th century Italy but it is surprisingly relevant to the understanding of business, politics and the nature of society.

Machiavelli in Tumult

Machiavelli in Tumult PDF Author: Gabriele Pedullà
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107177278
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Reconstructs the origins of the idea that social conflict, and not concord, makes political communities powerful.

Machiavelliana

Machiavelliana PDF Author: Michael Jackson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004365516
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
Machiavelliana is the first comprehensive study of the uses and abuses made of Niccolò Machiavelli’s name in management, primatology, leadership, power, as well as in novels, plays, commercial enterprises, television dramas, operas, rap music, children’s books, and more.

Why Machiavelli Matters

Why Machiavelli Matters PDF Author: John Bernard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0275998770
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
Machiavelli (1469-1527) is the seminal figure in early modern intellectual history for those living, or wishing to live, in a functional democracy. What Machiavelli is primarily about, and what makes him indispensable to those of us living in and struggling to preserve democracy in America, is the sum of individual and collective qualities required of a citizen, or what he termed virtu: a host of traits ranging from manliness to boldness, ingenuity, excellence, self-esteem, and even stoic resignation. In a narrative spanning Machiavelli's life and work as one of the world's most fascinating philosophers, Bernard illuminates for the modern reader just how relevant his insights are to our own evolving debate on the appropriate relations between religion and politics, church and state. Besides offering a detailed sketch of Machiavelli as a chancellor in the Italian Soderini Republic (1498-1512), this book examines the man's political philosophy, particularly his complex view of republics and principalities, in The Prince, the Discourses, and the Florentine Histories. It also establishes the importance of Machiavelli's writing as it evolved during his exile, especially in the reflexive passages of his plays Mandragola and Clizia. The book concludes with the potential uses of Machiavellism in 21st-century mass democracies, as well as presenting ways in which his legacy lives on in our own activities as citizens in a democracy.