Leo Strauss’s Machiavelli and the Querelle between the Few and the Many

2018 ◽  
pp. 144-175
Author(s):  
John P. McCormick

This chapter analyzes Leo Strauss' engagement with the democratic elements of Niccolò Machiavelli's political thought; specifically, Machiavelli's self-avowed departure from the ancients in favoring the political judgment and participation of the many over the few, and in recommending the people, rather than the nobles, as the ultimate foundation for political authority. It identifies several of Strauss' misinterpretations of Machiavelli's democratic, anti-elitist republicanism and explores tensions and discrepancies within Strauss' reconstruction of Machiavelli's political-philosophical project. Furthermore, Strauss exaggerates Machiavelli's criticisms of peoples and underplays his criticisms of the nobilities within republics. Strauss marshals instances of elite-popular interactions in the Discourses that purportedly demonstrate Machiavelli's preference for elite intervention and manipulation over popular participation and judgment.

2018 ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
John P. McCormick

This concluding chapter entertains the idea of Niccolò Machiavelli possibly dismissing Leo Strauss, J.G.A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and even Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in much the same manner that he disdained “the writers” who comprised the Western tradition of ancient and medieval political thought—all of whom he considered pusillanimous propagandists for the enduring power of wealthy elites. Machiavelli often exposed the powerful forces operating throughout intellectual history that disparaged the political judgment of the people, hence prompting his own defiant, often uproarious, distancing of himself from that tradition. In this sense, the book's efforts to contest the influential interpretations of Machiavelli offered by Rousseau, the Straussian school, and the Cambridge School were intended to serve as a Machiavellian critique of Machiavelli scholarship itself.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Malik Mufti

This articles argues (a) that democratic discourse has already become hegemonic among mainstream Islamist movements in Turkey and the Arab world; (b) that while this development originated in tactical calculations, it constitutes a consequential transformation in Islamist political thought; and (c) that this transformation, in turn, raises critical questions about the interaction of religion and democracy with which contemporary Islamists have not yet grappled adequately but which were anticipated by medieval philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd. The argument is laid out through an analysis (based on textual sources and interviews) of key decisions on electoral participation made by Turkey’s AK Party and the Muslim Brotherhoods in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Particular attention is focused on these movements’ gradual embrace of three key democratic principles: pluralism, the people as the source of political authority, and the legitimacy of such procedural mechanisms as multiple parties and regular elections.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Malik Mufti

This articles argues (a) that democratic discourse has already become hegemonic among mainstream Islamist movements in Turkey and the Arab world; (b) that while this development originated in tactical calculations, it constitutes a consequential transformation in Islamist political thought; and (c) that this transformation, in turn, raises critical questions about the interaction of religion and democracy with which contemporary Islamists have not yet grappled adequately but which were anticipated by medieval philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd. The argument is laid out through an analysis (based on textual sources and interviews) of key decisions on electoral participation made by Turkey’s AK Party and the Muslim Brotherhoods in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Particular attention is focused on these movements’ gradual embrace of three key democratic principles: pluralism, the people as the source of political authority, and the legitimacy of such procedural mechanisms as multiple parties and regular elections.


2021 ◽  

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.


Author(s):  
Ryan Balot

This chapter evaluates the arguments and intentions of Leo Strauss’s most ambitious political text, Natural Right and History. Strauss’s stated purpose is to rehabilitate the ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of “natural right”—a term of art by which he referred to the justice inherent in the rational order of nature. His express motivation was to rebut the relativism and historicism that, in his view, characterized twentieth-century political thought. This chapter contends that the book’s core lies in its implicit presentation of philosophical inquiry as the highest human vocation. This idea is presented less through systematic argument than through Strauss’s own engagement with canonical political texts—an engagement designed to illustrate both the excitement and the fulfillment of philosophical dialogue. The political virtues, while defended on the surface of the text, remain as unsettled by the end as they were in the introduction.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude Jones

The religious temperature of post-Reformation early modern England was constantly over-heating. Given that Protestant belief was frequently challenged by residual dissent, religious identity of whatever kind was crucial to both individual and parochial cosmological understanding. Hence, the many spatial, sensory, material and performative changes which were visited on parish churches over this period were designed to shape and redirect belief, but could also act to confuse believers. In order to penetrate this mass of religious reaction and response, I employ Assemblage Theory, particularly that of the political theorist, Jane Bennett, whose thinking is currently strongly influential amongst archaeologists. Using her work on the vitality of matter and the importance of the assemblage as a phenomenon containing material, non-material and human components, I apply a selection of her ideas to diagnostic elements of being and belief visible in the religious activities and materiality of the early modern parish church. While I refrain from discussing particular human individuals or groups, my chosen examples are intended to foreground the ontology of early modern parishioners, their perception of their hierarchical status within Anglican cosmology, their territorial conceptions of religious space and the workings of time as seen through the sequential assemblages of monumental tombs. Following Bennett, but departing from the current archaeological concentration on the primacy of materiality, this essay is designed to plug some of the people-shaped holes which are sometimes left unfilled by their surrounding material networks.


Matatu ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 373-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammed Inuwa Umar–Buratai

The discourses of nationhood and nation-building in the developed Western world have been facilitated by the prevalent cultures of writing and documentation. The situation in the developing world has remained largely fragmented because of the absence of such coherent, broadcast, and comprehensive forums for a discourse on 'nationhood'. Different societies articulate their perception of the priorities of nationhood in a range of forms – manifest in ritual visual displays, entertainment and formal rhetoric such as poetry, religious sayings and quotations – which were not dependent on literacy, including the ceremony of durbar. The ordinary people construe the durbar as a spectacle, perhaps because it encompasses a wide range of performance artists drawn from the many groupings within society. However, durbar functions, through its display of martial strength, to reinforce the political and religious power of the ruling elite: durbar within society. The focus in this essay is to examine political undertones of durbar, specifically the ways in which localized participation in the reinforcing ritual of relationships of power provides the people with an opportunity for the public exhibition of individual skills and for the elites an avenue for containing any nascent – or potential – articulation of resistance in society.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Randy Pradityo

Penyelesaian perkara pada jalur litigasi yang cenderung lambat ditambah dengan penumpukan perkara, didukung dengan banyaknya celah atau kekurangan pada undang-undang partai politik, khususnya terkait penyelesaian perselisihan internal partai. Banyaknya permasalahan tersebut mengharuskan setiap individu yang terlibat untuk mengambil tindakan progresif dengan melampaui peraturan tersebut. Tindakan progresif yang dimaksud salah satunya melalui jalur non-litigasi yakni mediasi. Mediasi dilaksanakan dengan musyawarah mufakat, dengan melibatkan rakyat didalamnya, atau lebih tepatnya tokoh masyarakat yang dirasa netral. Terlepas hal itu merupakan sengketa internal partai, namun rakyatlah yang memiliki andil di dalam setiap roda kehidupan partai politik di dalam sistem demokrasi. Kemudian ada beberapa cara yang bisa ditempuh dalam rangka penyelesaian perselisihan internal partai politik, selain mediasi tadi, ada tiga sistem penunjang untuk mencegah potensi buruk yang ditimbulkan akibat gejolak internal partai. Pertama, melalui mekanisme internal yang menjamin demokratisasi melalui partisipasi anggota partai politik tersebut dalam proses pengambilan keputusan. Kedua, melalui mekanisme transparansi partai melalui rakyat di luar partai yang dapat ikut-serta berpartisipasi dalam penentuan kebijakan yang hendak diperjuangkan melalui dan oleh partai politik. Ketiga, menjamin kebebasan berpikir, berpendapat dan berekspresi, serta kebebasan untuk berkumpul dan berorganisasi secara damai.The settlement of cases in litigation pathways that tend to be slow coupled with the accumulation of cases, supported by the many gaps or shortcomings in the laws of political parties, especially related to the settlement of internal party disputes. The number of these problems requires every individual involved to take progressive action by exceeding these regulations. The progressive actions that are meant by one of them through non-litigation means mediation. Mediation is carried out through consensus deliberations, involving the people in it, or more precisely the community leaders who are perceived as neutral. Apart from that it is an internal party dispute, but it is the people who have a share in every wheel of the life of a political party in a democratic system. Then there are several ways that can be pursued in order to resolve internal political party disputes, in addition to the mediation, there are three support systems to prevent the bad potential arising from internal party turmoil. First, through an internal mechanism that guarantees democratization through the participation of members of the political party in the decision making process. Second, through the mechanism of party transparency through people outside the party who can participate in the determination of policies that are to be fought for through and by political parties. Third, guarantee the freedom of thought, opinion and expression, as well as the freedom to gather and organize peacefully.


Author(s):  
Ishaq Rahman ◽  
Elyta Elyta

ABSTRACT A country that implements the system as mentioned earlier is more towards an authoritarian system of government which aims to dominate and dominate the power of the state towards the people. Democracy cannot survive from such a closed state. In a basic concept of democracy, there is a fundamental principle, namely the principle of sovereignty of the people who run the government.Political communication is one of the many roles played by political parties in various available arrangements. The political party is required to communicate knowledge, issues and political thoughts.Constitutionally, the Government adopts a Presidential System in which the ministers in the cabinet are responsible to the president. But in practice the SBY-JK administration is more of a Parliamentary System. Keywords: political parties, democracy, SBY government


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-432
Author(s):  
Maria do Carmo Ferrão Santos

RESUMO Este artigo tem o objetivo de narrar todo o processo de organização para se conquistar a emancipação do município de Tamandaré, para tanto, aborda sobre: - as razões que estimularam os habitantes dos distritos de Tamandaré e Saué (situados no litoral sul de Pernambuco), a lutarem pela independência em relação a Rio Formoso (município-mãe); - a campanha em prol da realização do plebiscito; - a promulgação da emancipação político-administrativa do município de Tamandaré. Para tanto, buscou-se informações junto ao TER-PE, Assembleia Legislativa-PE, Prefeitura do Rio Formoso, e em diversos eventos com a presença constante da autora desta obra. Os resultados apontam que a emancipação foi um fato histórico muito importante para a liberdade do povo que nele vive e dele depende para sobreviver.   Palavras-chaves: plebiscito, emancipação, Tamandaré, Saué.   THE POPULAR PARTICIPATION IN THE POLITICAL-ADMINISTRATIVE ENANCY OF TAMANDARÉ - PERNAMBUCO.   ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to narrate the whole organization process to gain the emancipation of the municipality of Tamandaré, for this purpose, it addresses: - the reasons that stimulated the inhabitants of the districts of Tamandaré and Saué (located on the southern coast of Pernambuco) to fight for independence in relation to Rio Formoso (mother-city); - the campaign for the holding of the plebiscite; - the promulgation of the political-administrative emancipation of the municipality of Tamandaré. For this purpose, information was sought from the TER-PE, Legislative Assembly-PE, Rio Formoso City Hall, and in several events with the constant presence of the author of this work. The results point out that emancipation was a very important historical fact for the freedom of the people who live in it and depends on it to survive. Key words: Plebiscite. Emancipation. Tamandaré. Saué.


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