The Many and the Few: On Machiavelli's “Democratic Moment”

2012 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 559-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Balot ◽  
Stephen Trochimchuk
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
Mixed Regime ◽  
The Many ◽  
Discourses On Livy ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Cambridge School

AbstractThrough an extended critical engagement with John P. McCormick'sMachiavellian Democracy, this paper aims to shed light on Machiavelli's account of relations among the many and the few in theDiscourses on Livy. While we agree with McCormick that Machiavelli should not be too quickly subsumed within the republican tradition, as interpreted by the “Cambridge School,” we reject the idea that Machiavelli's central thrust is prodemocratic. By focusing on the structure and logic of Machiavelli's arguments, we show that Machiavelli was critical of the capacities of ordinary citizens to govern themselves. As a result, Machiavelli emphasized and endorsed continuous elite intervention in the political life of the mixed regime, even as he paid due attention to the people's participation in a political regime with appropriate laws and institutions. Machiavelli's political theory, as embodied in theDiscourses on Livy, challenges the transparency and equality that contemporary egalitarians and democrats embrace.

Representation, Bicameralism, Political Equality, and Sortition: Reconstituting the Second Chamber as a Randomly Selected Assembly

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arash Abizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Many ◽  
Treat All ◽  
Legislative Review ◽  
Political Turn

The two traditional justifications for bicameralism are that a second legislative chamber serves a legislative-review function (enhancing the quality of legislation) and a balancing function (checking concentrated power and protecting minorities). I furnish here a third justification for bicameralism, with one elected chamber and the second selected by lot, as an institutional compromise between contradictory imperatives facing representative democracy: elections are a mechanism of people’s political agency and of accountability, but run counter to political equality and impartiality, and are insufficient for satisfactory responsiveness; sortition is a mechanism for equality and impartiality, and of enhancing responsiveness, but not of people’s political agency or of holding representatives accountable. Whereas the two traditional justifications initially grew out of anti-egalitarian premises (about the need for elite wisdom and to protect the elite few against the many), the justification advanced here is grounded in egalitarian premises about the need to protect state institutions from capture by the powerful few and to treat all subjects as political equals. Reflecting the “political” turn in political theory, I embed this general argument within the institutional context of Canadian parliamentary federalism, arguing that Canada’s Senate ought to be reconstituted as a randomly selected citizen assembly.

Political Theory and Political Economy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Elkin
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Core ◽  
Democratic Societies

This article describes the connection between political theory and political economy. It argues that political theorists need to take account of political economy in theorizing about the contemporary world because capitalism is the most powerful force at work in shaping the modern sociopolitical world. It also explains that economic questions concerning economic growth, the distribution of wealth and income, and role of markets are at the core of the political life in democratic societies.

scholarly journals The ethnopolitical movement as a vehicle for nationalism institutionalisation in modern Latvia

Baltic Region ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-69
Author(s):  
E. Е. Urazbaev ◽  
E. N. Yamalova
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Independence ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
Resident Population ◽  
Democratic Principles ◽  
Political Scene ◽  
Group Inequality

This article investigates the Popular Front of Latvia, a public ethnopolitical movement that substantially contributed to the independence of the modern Republic of Latvia. The study aims to identify how much the movement influenced the development of ethnic nationalism, which has become essential to statehood and the identification of politics. It continues to reinforce group inequality in this multiethnic country. The article describes the background and main landmarks of the movement. Content analysis of manifestos has been carried out to trace changes in the Popular Front’s ideological vision. It is shown that the shift in priorities that took place during the 1988—1991 struggle for Latvia’s political and economic independence led to a non-democratic political regime. Particular attention is paid to the movement’s proposals concerning the principles of statehood restoration and citizenship acquisition as well as to approaches to solving ethnic problems. The focus is on why and under what circumstances the Popular Front dissolved itself and the supra-ethnic opposition, its main rivals, left the political scene. It is argued that the Popular Front of Latvia created conditions both for the titular nation taking precedence over other ethnic groups and for the exclusion of one-third of the country’s resident population from political life. It is concluded that, as the movement transformed and gradually abandoned its democratic principles, it became the main vehicle for the institutionalisation of ethnic nationalism in Latvia.

scholarly journals PUBLIC - POLITICAL LIFE OF THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC

2021 ◽  
pp. 4-6
Author(s):  
A. Arzymatova
Keyword(s):  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Kyrgyz Republic ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Difficult Condition ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Media ◽  
Political Economic

1991year entered world history as the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of new independent states on its wreckage. In August 31, 1991, Kyrgyzstan adopted the Declaration on State independence. The transition to democratization began in difficult condition. The political, economic, social crisis set the stage for new reforms in the country. Changes in the political system of society were enshrined in the adopted first Constitution of 1993. The principle of separation of powers was enshrined: legislative, executive and judicial bodies were defined as independent branches of government. The political life of society depends on the type of political regime, public opinion, the influence of ideology and religion, as well as the decency of the media. Constitutional, political and economic reforms in Kyrgyzstan upset the balance government. The instability of democratic institutions and the establishment of authoritarian rule led to the March events of 2005. 

scholarly journals Architecture as a tool for aesthetic and political thought

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-404
Author(s):  
Thomas Symeonidis
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Scale Type ◽  
Type Form ◽  
Shed Light

Despite the usual approach of architecture in terms of conception, design and construction of the built environment in our paper we will argue that architecture can be used as a tool for aesthetic and political thought. To this end we will rely on definitions of architecture emphasising either its aspects of principle (arché) or construction either its relational character. In this regard, architecture will be used as a means for conceptualising and thinking issues at the intersection of the two pivotal notions of political theory - equality and justice. Our main hypothesis will be that in the contemporary aesthetic regime the thought of aesthetics is indissosiable from politics endorsing in that way the main aspects of Jacques Rancière's relevant contributions. In our analysis, we will first show the affinity between the political and aesthetic thought and then elaborate on aspects of architecture such as scale, type, form, diagram, history and hierarchy in order to show the functioning of architecture as a tool of thought. To this end we will provide a solid scheme and definitions of thought drawing from contemporary philosophy. By establishing analogies between the process of thought and the processes of architecture we will eventually attempt to show that architecture can be used in an inverted manner so as to shed light on matters of aesthetic and political theory and practice.

The Political Theory of Classical Greece

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Frank
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Classical Greece

This article explores the conception of political theory in classical Greece. It discusses the works of classical political theorists Homer, Plato, and Aristotle and suggests that their works provide the best answers to the fundamental questions of politics. Modern and contemporary political theorists, like the Greeks, are also concerned with the possibilities, responsibilities, and the limitations of a political life. However, while modern theorists orient their analyses of the political to one particular axis of inquiry, the Greeks theorized politics by drawing all of these axes together.

INSOMNIA AND OTHER CONSTITUTIONAL PATHOLOGIES

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-308
Author(s):  
JEFFREY LENOWITZ ◽  
MELISSA SCHWARTZBERG
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cambridge School

The publication of Richard Tuck's 2012 Seeley Lectures constituted an important event in intellectual history and political theory. The Sleeping Sovereign reflects the depth of Tuck's nearly forty years of historical inquiry into the concepts of rights, reason of state, and freedom, beginning with Natural Rights Theories. The leading member of the “Cambridge school” of the study of the history of political thought in the United States, and the Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government at Harvard University, Tuck combines a contextualist, and often intertextualist, approach to the interpretation of canonical works with a theorist's attention to the value these works retain for contemporary political life.

Is architecture relevant for political theory?

2021 ◽  
pp. 147488512110636
Author(s):  
Bart van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Built Environment ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Common ◽  
Build Environment

Is architecture relevant for political theory? That is the key question that structures this excellent collection Political Theory and Architecture, although a number of essays fit a broader formulated theme better, namely, concerning the political relevance of the organization and design of our built environment more generally, including architecture but also spatial planning and urban design. The collection demonstrates that our build environment is not merely a passive backdrop to a political community, but actively shapes aspects of our common political life. This constitutive nature of our built environment figures in many different guises throughout this volume. In this review article, I discuss some of these and conclude that concerns about the ‘common good’ and hence about the discipline of political theory should take reflections on urban design, planning, and architecture into account.

Anglican Orders and Orthodox Politics

2006 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-300
Author(s):  
BRYN GEFFERT
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Church ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Shed Light

This essay examines the political and religious impetus behind Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis's recognition of Anglican orders in 1922. The furore surrounding recognition, the events that led up to it and the fall-out that followed shed light on the many difficulties faced by religious leaders in the post-war Orthodox world, difficulties that led to fierce jockeying among Orthodox clerics as they tried to establish themselves in relation to their coreligionists and to the larger Christian world. The controversy also offers insight into the problems inherent when a ‘comprehensive’ Church such as the Church of England enters into discussions with a more uniformly dogmatic confession such as Orthodoxy.

Therapeutic Politics: Rawls's Respect for Rousseau

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
John M. Warner ◽  
James R. Zink
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
Fundamental Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Search For Self

AbstractFor nearly half a century democratic citizens have been preoccupied with the search for self-respect. Though classical liberalism places this question outside its purview and many commentators see in such a concern evidence of a “thin-skinned” political culture, John Rawls has recently provided serious arguments for the political relevance of self-respect. These arguments, we claim, are deeply indebted to the social and political theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose deep albeit underexamined influence on Rawls shows itself both in Rawls's conception of the social problem as well as in his solution to it. Rawls's belief that the provision of self-respect can solve the social problem is uniquely Rousseauan not only because of its emphasis on equality but also because it suggests political life can and must reconcile the conflicts between self and society at a fundamental level.

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