Machiavellian Democracy by John P McCormick
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2011.00873.x |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Grégoire C. N. Webber |
REVIEWS
John P M cCormick, Machiavellian Democracy,New York: C ambrid ge Un iversit y
Press, 2011, 252 pp, pb d18.99.
‘A crisis of political accountability besets contemporary democracy’ (vii). So
begins the invitation in Machiavellian Democracy to re-discover strategies for pre-
venting socio-economic inequality from translating into political inequality.
Drawing on Niccolo
ØMachiavelli’sThe Prince and Discourses,amongotherwrit-
ings, John P. McCormick invites his reader to re£ect upon a question central to
the life of pre-eighteenth-century republics but now near eclipsed from demo-
cratic thought, namely: ‘what institutions will prevent wealthy citizens from
dominating a government that is supposed to serve the entire citizenry’ (1). This
question, McCormick argues, has been obscured by the exaggerated faith placed
in electoral processesto maintain the responsivenessof public o⁄cials tothe many
ratherthan the privilegedfew. Such faithis misplaced: electionsare ‘elite-enabling’
and ‘produce virtually the same aristocratic e¡ect whether or not voters are for-
mally separated from an electable elite’ (107). By returning to Machiavelli’s study
of institutional arrangements designed along class lines, McCormick presents a
contrarian case for ‘institutionalized class con£ict’ as a gateway for a ‘healthy
domestic politics’ (viii).
The argument of the book is divided into three parts. Part I introduces the
readertoMachiavelli’sgreatworks^The Prince and the Discourses ^ and situates
the uninitiatedi nthe historical contextof Machiavelli’s Florence and Machiavelli’s
ideal polity, the Roman Republic.The reader is introduced to the two humours
said by Machiavelli to comprise every polity: the grandi ‘who wish to command
and dominate the people’ and the popolo ‘who desire only not to be commanded
or oppressed by the grandi’ (23). These two classes and their potential or actual
con£ict dominate Machiavelli’s writings as well as some of the lessons that
McCormick instructs us remain to be learned from the Florentine. After all,
Machiavelli participated in both worlds: whilst not himself amemberof the pri-
vileged and powerful, he held‘tenure in diplomatic, secretarial, and militaryposts
that were usually inaccessible to individuals of low social station’ (3). Machiavelli
was of one humour, but understood well the other humour.
McCormick’s study of Machiavelli’s writings keeps the latter’s interlocutors ^ all
superiors, nobles, grandi ^ in the foreground, allowing for a reading se nsitive to
Machiavelli’s rhetorical strategies. One discerns in McCormick’s reading of the
Discourses Machiavelli’s outmanoeuvring of his interlocutors, exacting concessions
for the popolo by playing up the grandi’s desire for domination in some (but not
all) quarters and by inviting them to reason prudentiallygiven the delicate stability
r2011The Authors.The Modern Law Review r2011The Modern Law Review Limited.
Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
(2011) 74(5) 811^816
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