The Machiavellian Budgeter

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew T. Cowart

Some political theorists maintain that Niccolò Machiavelli was a rather immoral sort. His exhortations to guile, perfidy, deception and opportunism were numerous, his scruples few. Others, in a more revisionist vein, suggest that his preferred tactics were only meant for the common good. Yet, whether Machiavelli was a scientist, a descriptivist, a technician, a moralist or an immoralist is immaterial from one standpoint: he taught us something about the nature of human interaction in the State. Machiavellian interpretations of human events underlie many of our personal impressions of political life. We speak of strategy, tactics, morality, honesty as if the locations of political leaders along those dimensions determine what governments do for us or to us.

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 60-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clint Le Bruyns

Abstract The quality of our democratic life is intimately bound up with the quality of our church-state relations. The aim of this article is to direct attention to the contribution that churches and other faith communities can possibly offer towards the nurturing of a responsible citizenship in political life together. It recognizes and applauds the role of the state itself in advancing the common good, but resists the tendency among many who confine this role to the state alone. Church-state relations are typically discussed simply with reference to church and state, with a blind spot for the people comprising our political community. Responsible citizenship affirms the meaningful and constructive role which ordinary people in their personal and professional capacities can fulfill towards the common good. It consequently discusses the notions of hope, power and grace as some of the concrete ways through which a more participatory democracy or active citizenship might be envisaged, embodied and practiced by the people as part and parcel of their political responsibility together. Each of these aspects bear implications for the contribution churches can provide in public life as they nurture as well as exercise this sense of responsible citizenship.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-127
Author(s):  
Abdoulaye Sounaye

Unexpectedly, one of the marking features of democratization in Niger has been the rise of a variety of Islamic discourses. They focus on the separation between religion and the state and, more precisely, the way it is manifested through the French model of laïcité, which democratization has adopted in Niger. For many Muslim actors, laïcité amounts to a marginalization of Islamic values and a negation of Islam. This article present three voices: the Collaborators, the Moderates, and the Despisers. Each represents a trend that seeks to influence the state’s political and ideological makeup. Although the ulama in general remain critical vis-à-vis the state’s political and institutional transformation, not all of them reject the principle of the separation between religion and state. The Collaborators suggest cooperation between the religious authority and the political one, the Moderates insist on the necessity for governance to accommodate the people’s will and visions, and the Despisers reject the underpinning liberalism that voids religious authority and demand a total re-Islamization. I argue that what is at stake here is less the separation between state and religion than the modality of this separation and its impact on religious authority. The targets, tones, and justifications of the discourses I explore are evidence of the limitations of a democratization project grounded in laïcité. Thus in place of a secular democratization, they propose a conservative democracy based on Islam and its demands for the realization of the common good.


Author(s):  
Jorge Núñez Grijalva

In all areas of the legal world there are higher aspirations, which represent legal values to be protected, like the justice, the common good and legal security stand out. The present work was proposed to analyze if the Ecuadorian Legislator, in its process of construction and promulgation of the criminal law regulating against the unfair competition, incorporated these three values into it. Regrettably, the results show an apparent absence of the three legal values in criminal law, leaving legal operators at a disadvantage in view of the need to control this type of crime and society, awaiting compliance. Through an exercise of legal hermeneutics, the study starts from a real problem in the Ecuadorian legal system of the criminal law against of the unfair competition, which demands to be discussed in the search for the State to take the necessary measures to solve this problem.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-127
Author(s):  
Abdoulaye Sounaye

Unexpectedly, one of the marking features of democratization in Niger has been the rise of a variety of Islamic discourses. They focus on the separation between religion and the state and, more precisely, the way it is manifested through the French model of laïcité, which democratization has adopted in Niger. For many Muslim actors, laïcité amounts to a marginalization of Islamic values and a negation of Islam. This article present three voices: the Collaborators, the Moderates, and the Despisers. Each represents a trend that seeks to influence the state’s political and ideological makeup. Although the ulama in general remain critical vis-à-vis the state’s political and institutional transformation, not all of them reject the principle of the separation between religion and state. The Collaborators suggest cooperation between the religious authority and the political one, the Moderates insist on the necessity for governance to accommodate the people’s will and visions, and the Despisers reject the underpinning liberalism that voids religious authority and demand a total re-Islamization. I argue that what is at stake here is less the separation between state and religion than the modality of this separation and its impact on religious authority. The targets, tones, and justifications of the discourses I explore are evidence of the limitations of a democratization project grounded in laïcité. Thus in place of a secular democratization, they propose a conservative democracy based on Islam and its demands for the realization of the common good.


Author(s):  
N. W. Barber

The point of the separation of powers is examined, and it is argued that accounts of the principle that identify liberty as the guiding purpose of the principle are flawed, the products of an unattractive account of the state. A richer understanding of the state produces a richer understanding of the principle. The second and third parts of the chapter outline such an account, reflecting on the institutional framework required by the separation of powers: the divisions and connections that the principle demands. Different state institutions are well-placed to identify different aspects of the common good and, through their differing skills and instruments, well-suited to modify the policies of the state in light of these assessments. The constitution then combines these decisions into a single state action. The chapter then considers apparent exceptions to the separation of powers.


1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Haldane

Let me begin with what should be a reassuring thought, and one that may serve as a corrective to presumptions that sometimes characterize political philosophy. The possibility, which Aquinas and Madison are both concerned with, of wise and virtuous political deliberation resulting in beneficial and stable civil order, no more depends upon possession of aphilosophical theory of the state and of the virtues proper to it, than does the possibility of making good paintings depend upon possession of an aesthetic theory of the nature and value of art.


2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
René Kuppe

AbstractIndigenous peoples experience three levels of injustice: they are the trans-generational victims of historic colonisation; they are politically disenfranchised and their cultural diversity is not officially recognized. Indigenous peoples struggle for the recognition of their specific rights in order to overcome the injustice they are currently experiencing. This article explains how the recognition of these rights conflicts with some of the basic principles of modern constitutional democracy: the declared equality of all citizens; the legitimization of the state for the common good of all and the legal fiction of one homogenous people making up the state.


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