tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/machiavelli-7465/articles
Machiavelli – The Conversation
2019-11-06T13:22:56Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126150
2019-11-06T13:22:56Z
2019-11-06T13:22:56Z
How Masisi outsmarted Khama to take the reins in Botswana
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300085/original/file-20191104-88428-77r7lj.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mokgweetsi Masisi being sworn in as the elected President of Botswana by Chief Justice Terrence Rannowane. With him is his wife Neo. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mmegi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mokgweetsi Masisi’s <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/botswanas-masisi-wins-hotly-contested-election-20191025">decisive victory</a> in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/25/world/africa/botswana-election-mokgweetsi-masisi.html">recent Botswana elections</a> over a coalition backed by his former boss, Ian Khama, is the culmination of an astonishing 10 year political career. </p>
<p>Morphing from an obscure first-time MP in 2009 to a <a href="http://www.weekendpost.co.bw/wp-column-details.php?col_id=22">surprise </a> vice presidential appointment in 2014, and then <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/botswana-mokgweetsi-masisi-takes-over-presidency-amid-opposition-resurgence/a-43206610">president in 2018</a>, the man affectionately known as “Sisiboy” (a play on his surname) has wrested control of Botswana from the powerful Khama family. This he has achieved using tireless campaigning and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheGazettebw/posts/10156960929272620">“the rebirth of the Botswana Democratic Party”</a> (BDP).</p>
<p>The Khama lineage has dominated Botswana’s politics since the 1870s, right through the modern presidencies of Sir Seretse Khama (1966-1980) and Ian Khama (2008-2018). But they are now a discredited, spent force with <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/08/05/newly-formed-bpf-party-endorsed-by-khama-confident-of-electoral-victory">Ian Khama’s new party</a> having won only 5% of the vote.</p>
<p>The prosecution of Khama’s security chief, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-01-18-botswana-arrests-ex-spy-boss">Isaac Kgosi</a>, and presidential secretary, <a href="https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=82492&dir=2019/september/03">Carter Morupisi</a>, following his assumption of power in 2018, showed that Masisi was no longer willing to tolerate <a href="https://www.zambianobserver.com/former-president-ian-khama-linked-to-billions-of-dollars-found-in-offshore-accounts-belonging-to-dis-agent-maswabi/">the widespread corruption</a> that flourished under his predecessor. Investigators continue to uncover allegations of <a href="https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=82441&dir=2019/august/30">shocking malfeasance</a>.</p>
<p>Masisi, 58, is on a mission to restore Botswana’s reputation as a beacon of clean governance on the continent, and is pouring resources and energy into that effort.</p>
<p>His ascent and success have surprised everybody. Even Khama <a href="https://inkjournalism.org/1904/turmoil-in-africas-model-democracy/">admitted</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have come to realise that I have maybe misjudged him. </p>
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<h2>The early days</h2>
<p>My own acquaintance with Masisi goes back to childhood, when we attended the same schools and played tennis at the same club. The last time I saw him was at a now defunct laundromat in northern Gaborone, in 1994. He was his usual friendly, well-mannered self, inquisitive and loquacious. Recently returned from completing his master’s degree in education at Florida State University, he was one of the co-owners of this faltering business. </p>
<p>Prior to going to Florida State, Masisi had worked on revamping Botswana’s social studies curriculum for its secondary schools, which he continued to do in the 1990s under the sponsorship of UNICEF. Knowing that the curriculum was a disaster (having no Botswana history at all and being full of outdated colonial and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/bantu-education-and-racist-compartmentalizing-education">Bantu Education</a> myths), I doubted he could make meaningful changes. Whether he ever did or not, his early career in pedagogy undoubtedly led him to confront government dysfunction head on.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/botswanas-governing-party-wins-tight-election-but-biggest-tests-are-yet-to-come-125666">Botswana’s governing party wins tight election. But biggest tests are yet to come</a>
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<p>Gaborone in the 1970s and 80s was a small, intimate place, and Masisi grew up there surrounded by the families of the Botswana bureaucratic and business elite. Despite this somewhat privileged milieu and education, nothing about him then suggested that he would go on to become such an influential national politician. </p>
<p>Although his father, <a href="http://www.dailynews.gov.bw/news-details.php?nid=25372">Edison</a>, was a senior cabinet member, Masisi did not display the charisma of a <a href="https://maps.prodafrica.com/places/botswana/south-east-district/gaborone/monument-1/sir-seretse-khama-statue-gaborone-botswana/">Sir Seretse Khama</a>, the first president of independent Botswana. Neither did he show the technocratic brilliance of a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/18/ketumile-masire-obituary">Quett Masire</a>, who succeeded Seretse Khama as president in 1980; nor the emotional oratory of a <a href="http://www.sundaystandard.info/tribute-dk-kwelagobe-he-leaves-position-bdp-secretary-general-after-27-years">Daniel Kwelagobe</a>, the BDP chairman. Although Masisi today compares favourably to any of these political legends, none of this seemed evident in his youth.</p>
<p>He has always been easy to underestimate. Although a prefect at Gaborone’s <a href="https://www.thornhillprimary.ac.bw/">Thornhill</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/maruapula/posts/">Maru A Pula</a> private schools, he was not a standout personality. Strong in humanities rather than the sciences, he was a middling student. Similar things could be said about his teenage sports career, during which he never showed the same tenacity and killer instinct on the tennis court that he has shown in politics. </p>
<h2>The ‘priest’</h2>
<p>Masisi’s greatest moment in his young life was when, at 20, he was cast as the <em>umfundisi</em> (priest) in a 1983 Gaborone theatrical adaptation of Alan Paton’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cry-the-Beloved-Country-novel-by-Paton">“Cry the Beloved Country”</a>. Playing a much older man with grey hair, a shuffling gait, and a quavering voice, Masisi turned in a powerful performance that brought him a standing ovation from <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/alan-stewart-paton">Paton</a> himself and President Masire.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299983/original/file-20191103-88394-1acw3ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299983/original/file-20191103-88394-1acw3ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299983/original/file-20191103-88394-1acw3ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299983/original/file-20191103-88394-1acw3ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299983/original/file-20191103-88394-1acw3ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299983/original/file-20191103-88394-1acw3ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299983/original/file-20191103-88394-1acw3ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The young Mokgweetsi Masisi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMasisi/photos/a.859647030770828/2432458980156284/?type=3&theater">Mokgweetsi Masisi FB page</a></span>
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<p>While his acting career ended after a role in a highly forgettable <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b88ceeb37">straight-to-video feature</a>, his portrayal of the priest nevertheless presaged key themes of his future political life.</p>
<p>After leaving UNICEF in 2003 Masisi entered politics, but failed to win his father’s old seat in Moshupa, the family home 41km northwest of Gaborone. He then endured a period of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMasisi/">“failure, illness, unemployment, being seen as unfit for certain things, scorn and ridicule”</a>. He relied on his <a href="https://yourbotswana.com/2018/11/04/president-masisi-clarifies-first-ladys-role/">newly-wed wife Neo’s</a> salary for a time. He nevertheless persevered and built up a following, while also welcoming the birth of his daughter, Atsile.</p>
<p>Masisi managed to win the governing BDP’s primary and general election, <a href="http://www.sundaystandard.info/family-affairs-within-botswana-parliament">landing in parliament in 2009</a>. Within two years he was in the cabinet. In 2014, President Ian Khama, <a href="https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=82441&dir=2019/august/30">looking for an inexperienced and pliable deputy</a>, appointed him vice-president.</p>
<p>Like the priest in Paton’s story who went to Johannesburg seeking his sister and son only to find a degraded and desperate situation, so Masisi found the central government and cabinet unrecognisable from the institutions that his late father had served so well in the past. With the BDP having been taken over by a coalition of Khama lackeys and “tenderpreneurs” – business people who enrich themselves, often dubiously, through government tenders – even the party’s founder, former President Masire, disowned it for <a href="https://www.academia.edu/33661982/President_Masires_Final_Message_to_Botswana">lacking the values and discipline of the original</a>. </p>
<p>Masisi’s role as vice-president was to serve as a short-term stopgap for Ian Khama’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/08/13/how-fredo-tragic-godfather-character-became-an-insult-wielded-by-trump/">Fredo-like</a> brother, Tshekedi. His looming appointment as Khama’s successor was highly unpopular inside and outside the party.</p>
<p>Ever since 1998, the BDP has transferred power from the president to the vice-president a year before the next general election. Masire did this for Mogae in 1998, who then did the same thing for Ian Khama in 2008.</p>
<h2>Outmanoeuvring the Khamas</h2>
<p>It is clear that former President Khama (66), like many others, underestimated his young vice-president. Masisi took advice in secret late-night sessions with former presidents Masire and Mogae as well as other veterans who despised “the New BDP” that Khama led.</p>
<p>Using their counsel, he attended party meetings across the entire country to build up his own constituency. Masisi <a href="https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=82441&dir=2019/august/30">described</a> his years as vice-president] as “brutal hell”, <a href="https://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=82441&dir=2019/august/30">adding that</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was the most abused vice-president.</p>
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<p>Once Khama handed power to Masisi in April 2018, “Sisiboy” moved quickly onto the attack, arresting the despised Isaac Kgosi and installing his own supporters in key positions. Once the Khama brothers <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2019/06/01/botswana-ex-president-slams-successor-after-quitting-ruling-party//">defected to the opposition</a> ahead of the 2019 election, they and their supporters were thoroughly outworked by Masisi’s relentless campaign organisation. </p>
<p>The full story of how the underling Masisi prosecuted his silent war with Khama is one we must wait for. Ultimately, it is his energetic campaigning and <a href="http://www.sundaystandard.info/masiresque-masisi">his desire to bring back </a>the forgotten ethos and policies of the early BDP – of Seretse Khama and Masire – that won over the voters despite the defection of the Khamas.</p>
<p>Masisi now vows to reinvigorate Botswana’s stalled economy. In this regard his supporters expect him to show no less stamina than he did in the election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Barry Morton receives funding from Sir Ketumile Masire Foundation </span></em></p>
The Khamas have dominated Botswana’s politics since the 1870s, but they are now a discredited, spent force.
Barry Morton, Research Fellow, African Studies, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120441
2019-07-17T10:34:14Z
2019-07-17T10:34:14Z
What Machiavelli can teach us about Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284299/original/file-20190716-173376-1ewy3kc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=768%2C38%2C4407%2C2933&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Media scrutiny of politicians’ personal virtues and vices is now more exacting than ever. Commentators have been hard pushed to find novel ways of illustrating the qualities and shortcomings (especially the shortcomings) of the two remaining candidates in the Conservative party leadership contest – Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson.</p>
<p>Journalists’ portraits are now very well worn. Johnson is popular, personable and optimistic; but also clumsy, somewhat comical and bad with details. Hunt is pragmatic, serious and intelligent; but also “managerial”, mercurial on policy, short on charisma and likely to protract Theresa May’s dithering Brexit strategy. In short, though both men embody classic Conservative tropes, they project very different political styles.</p>
<p>My colleague Philip Norton, a professor of government and Conservative peer, has proposed <a href="https://nortonview.wordpress.com/2019/06/04/effective-prime-ministerial-leadership/">a four-part typology of prime ministers</a>, which is much more insightful than the clichés preferred by journalists. According to his schema, there are “innovators”, “egoists”, “reformers” and “balancers”. He does not explicitly categorise Johnson or Hunt. But it seems fairly clear to me that Conservatives’ choice now is between an “egoist” (Johnson) and a “balancer” (Hunt).</p>
<p>I would not wish to reject the Norton view. But there is a much older typology that fits the contest just as well, and it comes from what is probably still the richest handbook for political rule in the Western canon: Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince (written between 1513 and 1516).</p>
<p>For Machiavelli, a successful ruler takes inspiration from both the lion and the fox. And he will have the wisdom to know when to imitate one, and when it is better to imitate the other:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For the lion does not know how to avoid traps, and the fox is easily overpowered by wolves.</p>
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<p>Exhibiting “lion” qualities – essentially the readiness to use force or open violence – enables rulers to dispatch “wolves”. But constant leonine behaviour will quickly get the ruler fatally snared. So a wise ruler must also, like a fox, be suspicious of traps, be able to conceal how crafty he is, and know “how to be a clever counterfeit and hypocrite”. Unlike the lion, whose thinking is based on simplistic notions of honour, he must not be afraid to break his promises when it is to his advantage to do so.</p>
<p>Machiavelli’s typology became a staple in Renaissance literature. Shakespeare was particularly fond of it, depicting in several plays (Othello, for example) the tragedy of a well-loved “lion” falling victim to the superior intelligence of a “fox”, whose cunning schemes he was too naïve to have suspected. The British artist and author Wyndham Lewis wrote his first political book, The Lion and the Fox (1927), about exactly this.</p>
<p>But it was another Italian, the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), who updated the lion and fox idea for the democratic age, explaining how (as he sees it) governing elites overthrow and replace each other by appealing to the public’s alternating, cyclical taste for leonine and vulpine qualities (<a href="https://archive.org/details/mindsocietytratt04pare/page/1514">The Mind and Society</a>).</p>
<p>Again, “lion” elites have force and the courage to use it, but they lack the skill required to exploit those advantages. “Fox” elites rely on intelligence, cunning and chicanery to govern, but they lack force and courage.</p>
<p>For Pareto, when the public grows sick of foxes, it begins to crave lions, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Furthermore, because each type of elite favours new recruits that are like themselves, there is a gradual build-up of the opposite character in the “subject class”. The lasting dominance of a “fox” elite produces a more leonine competitor group, which gets its opportunity when a skilled figure arrives to lead it. This can occur on the left of politics as well as on the right: neither has a monopoly over “force” or “cunning”. (Inflexible, rampant, and unpolishable, Jeremy Corbyn fits the “lion” type quite comfortably.)</p>
<p>Usually, Pareto explains, the new “lion” leader is not actually a true lion, but a skilled and disaffected fox – more leonine than the fox elite he has turned against, but still more vulpine than the lion class whose leadership he now assumes.</p>
<h2>An age of foxes</h2>
<p>The language used today by commentators, and also by his own campaign team, strongly suggests that Hunt is widely recognised as the “fox” candidate. The case for viewing Johnson as the “lion” is more equivocal. At times, he exhibits the intelligence and cunning associated with political foxes. But still, the lion likeness goes deeper than Johnson’s blonde mane. Consider the other characteristics that he projects: his apparently unrehearsed manner of speech, his brash optimism, his “belief in Britain”, and his apparent inability to conceal his transgressions (public and private).</p>
<p>Tellingly, most commentators see Johnson’s blunders and general foolhardiness as <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-boris-johnson-would-be-a-mistake-to-succeed-theresa-may-117671">obvious disqualifications</a>. But today’s commentariat are almost all of the “fox” class (I do not exclude myself from this diagnosis). Foxes naturally prize cleverness over force, and assume that it is the only possible criterion of success. They can recognise only with great difficulty that it is exactly these traits – being gaffe-prone and over-confident – that qualify Johnson for “lion” status among significant sections of the electorate. Presently, we prefer to diagnose the public appetite for lions as “populism” – snobbery that is only tolerated because it is shared.</p>
<p>Foxes are proud of their claimed immunity to charisma, and they are bred to expect <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/26f8bfe6-932a-11e9-aea1-2b1d33ac3271">tricks</a>. But they should try to avoid explaining away the reported preference for Johnson among <a href="https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/07/our-survey-next-tory-leader-johnson-72-per-cent-hunt-28-per-cent-77-per-cent-have-voted-on-these-figures-johnson-has-already-won.html">Conservative members</a> and voters as evidence of their having been captivated by his personal magnetism and tricked by his brash promises.</p>
<p>Instead, the perception that must be engaged (because it is no less true) is that the Brexit process has offered few opportunities for the exercise of cunning, and has instead exposed the usual weaknesses of vulpine rule: that same lack of force and the courage to use it which always makes foxes vulnerable to being “overpowered”.</p>
<p>The Conservative party’s members must now decide whether there are any opportunities left for political cunning, or whether the time has arrived to initiate a period of more leonine government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Fear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
One is a lion and the other a fox, but a successful leader must be both.
Christopher Fear, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Hull
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117369
2019-05-23T21:17:25Z
2019-05-23T21:17:25Z
Game of Thrones finale: The sexist treatment of the Mother of Dragons
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276128/original/file-20190523-187147-uv6n1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dany and Jon are seen right before he knifes her in the heart -- and the back, for that matter.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy HBO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This story contains spoilers for Season 8 of HBO’s Game of Thrones.</em></p>
<p><em>Game of Thrones</em> has ended, and all is well — especially with the long-suffering Starks of Winterfell. </p>
<p>Arya has forsaken revenge and is off to explore new lands, Jon Snow is back in the true north with his faithful direwolf, Ghost, Sansa is the Queen in the North for a newly independent realm and Bran the Broken is the near-omniscient ruler of the Six Kingdoms. Westeros is truly the land where dreams come true.</p>
<p>Of course, there is the small matter of why Jon is back with the Night’s Watch — he murdered his lover, queen and aunt, Daenerys “Dany” Targaryen, the self-proclaimed Mother of Dragons who had finally just reconquered her family’s ancestral throne. </p>
<p>This incident <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/daenerys-targaryen-jon-snow_n_5ce20f81e4b09e0578069355">(so traumatic to Dany’s fans)</a> was justified in the show when Tyrion convinced Jon that Dany was now a crazed dragon-riding tyrant (apparently inheriting this touch of insanity from her father, the Mad King), who needed to be assassinated after she burned much of King’s Landing to ashes in the penultimate episode. </p>
<p>And really, the writers didn’t need Tyrion’s speech to make this point, given they’d just depicted Dany as a Disney villain <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5275125/maleficent-mistress-of-evil-teaser-trailer/">(<em>Maleficent</em>)</a> by framing her in front of her dragon’s outstretched wings while giving a <a href="http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/kfortmueller/clips/triumph-of-the-will-1935-youth-rally/view"><em>Triumph of the Will</em>-style</a> pep talk to her troops. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276203/original/file-20190523-187147-1yizyiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276203/original/file-20190523-187147-1yizyiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276203/original/file-20190523-187147-1yizyiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276203/original/file-20190523-187147-1yizyiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276203/original/file-20190523-187147-1yizyiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276203/original/file-20190523-187147-1yizyiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276203/original/file-20190523-187147-1yizyiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Angelina Jolie in Maleficent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney</span></span>
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<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1130284301411504129"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s tempting to go along with this notion of Dany as Mad Queen, and accept the good feelings that accompany the triumph of the righteous Starks. But what if, instead, Dany is the real heroine of the series, and Jon is the real heel?</p>
<p>Much of the case against Dany depends on the supposed insanity that fuelled her destruction of a city, but I offer another perspective — drawn from Renaissance political thinker <a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-can-you-learn-machiavelli">Niccolo Machiavelli</a> — to explain why Dany is not “mad” at all, but rather an avatar of cold-blooded <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/07/18/realpolitik-in-a-fantasy-world/">realpolitik</a>. </p>
<h2>Hardly a ‘crazy lady’</h2>
<p>This may be disturbing, depending on your view of power politics, but it isn’t unearned (her development had been long signalled), nor is it a sexist reduction of one of the greatest female characters ever to an emotional, irrational, “crazy lady.” </p>
<p>Dany is making the tragic choices that all political leaders face when it comes to using violence to achieve their goals. What’s disturbing, however, is that show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss chose to depict her acts as irrational, tyrannical or insane. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276130/original/file-20190523-187189-1npu2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276130/original/file-20190523-187189-1npu2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276130/original/file-20190523-187189-1npu2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276130/original/file-20190523-187189-1npu2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276130/original/file-20190523-187189-1npu2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276130/original/file-20190523-187189-1npu2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276130/original/file-20190523-187189-1npu2pi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dany with her dragons in the first season of Game of Thrones.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of HBO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even her fans were upset that instead of bringing liberation from the cycle of rich oppressing poor (“breaking the wheel” as Dany phrased it), she used her dragon to immolate most of the capital, even after the symbolic tolling of bells that indicates surrender. </p>
<p>And since she does this in the wake of losing two of her dragon “children,” her two best friends (Jorah and Missandei), and then being rejected romantically by Jon Snow (who is really a Targaryen and also her nephew), many saw her fiery actions as a response to psychological trauma, and the writers seemed to confirm this in the final episode. </p>
<p>Critics pointed out that yet again, we see a powerful woman who simply can’t handle her emotions, and who becomes the “Mad Queen” in a clichéd turn to villainy that can only be <a href="https://www.theringer.com/game-of-thrones/2019/5/13/18617389/game-of-thrones-daenerys-targaryen-season-8-episode-5-mad-queen">explained by her losing her mind</a>. But is destroying a city the act of a crazy woman? Not necessarily, says Machiavelli. While it may be evil, there is a calculated reason for Dany’s decision to rain fire from the sky. </p>
<h2>New princes, old problems</h2>
<p>Dany confesses her dilemma to Jon privately in terms that echo <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/531158/the-prince-by-niccolo-machiavelli/9780140449150/readers-guide/">Machiavelli’s 1513 <em>The Prince</em></a>, when he discusses the problems a “new prince” faces when conquering a country. </p>
<p>She says: “I don’t have love here. I have only fear,” referring to the affection that the people of Westeros hold for Jon Snow (who is actually the true heir to the throne, but who doesn’t want to rule). And after Jon rejects her romantic advance, and by implication the possibility that they could marry and unite the realm using both love (of the people for him) and fear (of her army and dragon), she says simply: “Let it be fear.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276134/original/file-20190523-187169-zt3us4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276134/original/file-20190523-187169-zt3us4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276134/original/file-20190523-187169-zt3us4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276134/original/file-20190523-187169-zt3us4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276134/original/file-20190523-187169-zt3us4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276134/original/file-20190523-187169-zt3us4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276134/original/file-20190523-187169-zt3us4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sansa on the throne as Queen in the North in the Game of Thrones finale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HBO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Machiavelli saw the basic problem of ruling in exactly these terms. In Chapter 17 of <em>The Prince</em> he asks whether love or fear is more important to a ruler, and concedes that while having both is best, at the end of the day, fear is the option to depend upon:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Because men love according to their own will and fear according to the will of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in the control of others.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But why destroy a city that had already surrendered? Because Jon is her real problem, going forward. Since she would soon face a challenge from those who would prefer him and his more legitimate claim to the throne, only through an overwhelming spectacle of terror can she instil the requisite fear she will need to govern.</p>
<p>And so King’s Landing perished. </p>
<h2>Well-used cruelty</h2>
<p>This falls under the rubric of what Machiavelli calls cruelty “well-used,” by which he describes a number of brutal rulers — Cesare Borgia, Agathocles, Hannibal — who maintained power despite committing barbaric acts.</p>
<p>Machiavelli gives Dany further cover when he urges a conqueror to do all their evil deeds at the beginning of the conquest, in Chapter 8 of <em>The Prince</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Hence, in seizing a state, the attacker ought to examine closely all those injuries which are necessary, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have to repeat them daily. Thus by not continually upsetting the people, he will be able to make them feel more secure, and win them over by benefits.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is destroying the city really necessary? It looks reasonable given her growing problem with Jon. But Machiavelli argues that wicked deeds can be the foundation of a stable political order if a wise ruler follows the cruelty with mercy.</p>
<p>There is a feminist upshot to the finale. It is this: the fault for King’s Landing is Jon’s, more so than Dany’s. </p>
<p>You read that right, Team Jon.</p>
<h2>Jon’s claim to the throne</h2>
<p>Because the secret of his legitimate claim is now widely known, his position (to support her queenship) is so unrealistic as to be utopian. He cannot hide from those who will push him to throne, but he thinks he can … and Dany sees just how hollow his profession of good faith will be. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276129/original/file-20190523-187147-brorjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276129/original/file-20190523-187147-brorjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276129/original/file-20190523-187147-brorjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276129/original/file-20190523-187147-brorjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276129/original/file-20190523-187147-brorjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276129/original/file-20190523-187147-brorjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276129/original/file-20190523-187147-brorjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dany looks out over her troops after destroying King’s Landing in the Game of Thrones series finale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of HBO</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She has little choice but to double down on fear, because she doesn’t have the privilege of counting on the love of a patriarchal populace (queens have little legitimacy, in this world) as does he. </p>
<p>Jon’s choice, which seems on its face the noble one (being honest with Dany about his claim but also keeping his loyalty to her), is actually a naivete born of privilege. He’s not the hero here. He’s a fool who pushes the woman he supposedly loves into a fateful choice without recognizing what he is doing, turning into an accidental heel just as he bungled every other decision he made over the seasons. </p>
<p>His murder of her in the final episode is simply the icing on the cake he had already baked (no, Hot Pie was not involved in this baking).</p>
<p>Perhaps the wholesale destruction of the city would not have secured her rule, and it was certainly an evil act to burn innocents. But in this world, a woman like Dany is acting rationally when she decides to use terror to gain obedience.</p>
<h2>A killer queen</h2>
<p>Crucially, we know that earlier male Targaryen and Lannister rulers used similar brutality to maintain control, but no one accused them of madness simply because they killed thousands (Dany’s father Aerys II gained this label, true, but his violence was sadistic and/or paranoid, and had no discernible rational purpose).</p>
<p>Dany may have helped beat the Night King and ridden a fire-breathing dragon, but she was the one with ice in her veins. If you want to rule in Westeros as a woman, a foreigner and an exile, you don’t have any other options (once your nephew turns you down). The Mother of Dragons knew these cold truths. </p>
<p>Why were we as an audience so reluctant to see them too? Why did we need to see Jon kill her, and the Starks go on their merry way? Dany defeated Cersei and helped wipe out the Night King, and the Starks didn’t get their happy ending without her.</p>
<p>But for her crime of clear-headed violence, the show could not allow Dany to live on. A woman who knows that to succeed in politics you need to crush your enemies? Madness, sheer madness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117369/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Dolgert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It’s tempting to go along with the notion of Daenerys as Mad Queen in Game of Thrones, but what if, instead Dany was the real heroine of the series, and Jon Snow the real heel?
Stefan Dolgert, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brock University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117696
2019-05-23T14:27:28Z
2019-05-23T14:27:28Z
Game of Thrones: what Machiavelli might have made of the politics in Westeros
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276110/original/file-20190523-187143-p030a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C11%2C3710%2C2084&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons, megalomaniac? Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Game of Thrones © 2019 Home Box Office, Inc. </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Warning: this contains spoilers for Game of Thrones, series eight</strong>.</p>
<p>Alongside many other aspects of the final series of Game of Thrones, the “hand-break turn” performed by Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, received heavy criticism. As the defending armies of Kings Landing surrendered in the penultimate episode, there was a pregnant pause while she pondered whether to accept peace, or raze the city. She decided to burn down Kings Landing and kill thousands of innocent people. </p>
<p>The final episode begins with the queen overlooking her forces, with a flag raised in the chilled air, in a scene reminiscent of 1940s fascism. This was a far cry from her self-proclaimed title of Breaker of Chains, who was supposed to be marching around the kingdoms liberating enslaved citizens. </p>
<p>But the Targaryen queen’s character had been long in development – her thirst for power was brewing, and examples of her willingness to enact violent revenge on those in her path had been seen many times in the narrative.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1127924649038417926"}"></div></p>
<p>A key moment, however, came in the penultimate episode when Daenerys reveals her strategic dilemma in taking the Iron Throne. As it becomes clear that the forces from the North that had joined her against the White Walker zombie army had accepted her rule out of convenience rather than love – and that Jon Snow’s claim to the throne is clearly greater, she decides: “If not love, then fear.”</p>
<h2>Power games</h2>
<p>This choice directly echoed the puzzle that Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli considered in advising the 16th-century statesman Lorenzo de’ Medici in his infamous book The Prince. When deciding whether it is better to be loved than feared, Machiavelli warned that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is much safer to be feared than loved because … love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, political leadership theory has a lot of advice for the would-be rulers of Westeros – but also for the audience. Daenerys’s story follows a universal challenge for political leaders contemporary and old. Leaders may want to achieve goals for morally good reasons – but there are difficult and dangerous compromises that have to be made in keeping them in power, which might cause them to deviate from this path. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276115/original/file-20190523-187179-sx3vmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276115/original/file-20190523-187179-sx3vmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276115/original/file-20190523-187179-sx3vmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276115/original/file-20190523-187179-sx3vmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276115/original/file-20190523-187179-sx3vmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276115/original/file-20190523-187179-sx3vmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276115/original/file-20190523-187179-sx3vmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Cersei: wicked and flawed – we’ve seen a few of these leaders in the real world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Game of Thrones © 2019 Home Box Office, Inc.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Three types of leader</h2>
<p>In my recent work <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/British-Labour-Leaders/dp/1849548161">assessing contemporary leaders</a>, I suggest that we need to distinguish between three types of leadership. There is the leader who is successfully led by their conscience – where their aims, chosen methods and outcomes that are principled and morally good. One leader who is commonly thought of in this way, because he did genuinely bring about the breaking of chains by ending apartheid in South Africa, was Nelson Mandela. </p>
<p>Of course, Mandela aside, we may disagree on what constitutes the morally good. And, in Game of Thrones, there are plenty of alternative visions from the leaders of kingdoms.</p>
<p>But then there is cunning leadership – the task of being successful in winning power, office and influence, which is often called <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1369148118778961">statecraft</a>. We might think of this as being less important than leadership led by conscience. Leaders to have demonstrated elements of cunning leadership might include Hitler – whose methods and aims were violent and morally repugnant, but for some time at least, effective in bringing him power.</p>
<p>Cunning leadership is important, however, because all other goals for a leader might be dependent on it. Without power, people can’t be freed or policies enacted. The ideal leader is the complete leader, who will need to achieve both cunning and conscious leadership (see figure 1 below). Few fit into this category – but perhaps Mandela did. Leading the struggle to end apartheid brought him the presidency of South Africa too – and enabled him to oversee national reconciliation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276085/original/file-20190523-187189-15kafxk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The three theories of leadership: cunning, conscious and complete.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Toby James</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The series is rich with some cunning leaders, who we would not deem skilled in conscience leadership. The powerful Lannister dynasty produced a succession of rulers who were effective at governing through repressive means. Political opponents such as the Tyrells were eventually ruthlessly eliminated by Cersei Lannister. </p>
<p>And then there are some leaders who seem to have the moral vision, but not the political cunning. Anyone who watched the series will have their own views on who fits where.</p>
<p>Disappointment in the series might come from the fact that Jon Snow – who seemed an earthly, modest and conscience-led leader – ended up being arrested and sentenced back to relative obscurity and powerlessness with the Night’s Watch. With this we are denied a potentially complete leader – and are left speculating what type of ruler the enigmatic Bran the Broken might be. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, political leadership and history shows us that complete leaders are rare – especially in non-democratic times. Game of Thrones therefore provided about as happy an ending as was possible by ending a system of hereditary rule where “everytime a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin”. Henceforth, we learn, new leaders will be chosen by a small group of elites. It makes future leaders a bit more accountable. But only a bit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby’s research has been externally funded by the British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, AHRC, ESRC, Nuffield Foundation and the McDougall Trust.
</span></em></p>
Some lessons from leadership theory for anyone aspiring to sit on the Iron Throne.
Toby James, Senior Lecturer in British & Comparative Politics, University of East Anglia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/84480
2017-09-22T09:11:47Z
2017-09-22T09:11:47Z
Theresa May in Florence: what advice would Machiavelli have for Brexit?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187084/original/file-20170921-7480-ek06gx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some light reading before an important speech.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Cox</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The choice of Santa Maria Novella in Florence as the location for Theresa May’s second set-piece speech on Brexit is <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-florence-is-the-perfect-setting-for-theresa-mays-big-brexit-speech-84245">symbolic</a>, we have been told. Less than a mile away, in the Basilica of Santa Croce, is buried Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), author of The Prince, the handbook for ruling that has guided princes and prime ministers since the Renaissance.</p>
<p>Machiavelli would have understood the bind in which May finds herself over Brexit. As he wrote in 1513:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes in a state’s constitution. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet all is not lost. Were the prime minister to seek counsel from Machiavelli in The Prince, she would find the following advice on how to negotiate the UK’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/eu-referendum-2016">exit from the European Union</a>.</p>
<h2>Be realistic, not idealistic</h2>
<p>Machiavelli strove to represent things as they were in a “real truth, rather than as they are imagined”. In an ideal world, the UK would be able to leave the European Union swiftly and painlessly. This will probably not be the case, so the prime minister must be realistic in both her approach to, and presentation of, Brexit. If a transitional deal has to be struck to facilitate the UK’s eventual exit, then the prime minister should accept this and make the EU a serious offer. She cannot expect to receive the whole cake while offering to pay for only a slice of it.</p>
<h2>Do not try to win favour through gifts of money</h2>
<p>For Machiavelli, the most dangerous threat to a prince’s power was the hatred of the people. It is better to be feared than loved, but best of all not to be hated. Generosity, in the form of gifts of money, leads to a prince being both despised and hated. </p>
<p>Machiavelli’s logic was clear: a prince’s funds are soon exhausted, which forces him to take from others to sustain his generosity, thereby earning their hatred. Even the friendship the prince buys is worthless, for “it does not last and it yields nothing”. In other words, do not try to win the people over with <a href="https://fullfact.org/europe/350-million-week-boris-johnson-statistics-authority-misuse/">promises of financial bounties</a> after Brexit.</p>
<h2>Be flexible, especially in negotiations</h2>
<p>Machiavelli declared that “a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage,” and especially “when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist”. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187096/original/file-20170921-17987-1kzomuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Niccolo Machiavelli’s got your back.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He was not advocating that the ends always justify the means; rather, his experience as the Florentine envoy to courts across Europe had taught him that “men are wretched creatures” who break their word when it suits them, and so a prince should not feel duty-bound to keep promises. He might therefore counsel the prime minister against intransigently remaining within certain negotiating red lines, because events will often render them invalid. Pledges made before the EU referendum need no longer apply.</p>
<h2>Do not prioritise appearances over results</h2>
<p>Even though Machiavelli acknowledged that appearances are arguably more important than actions, because “everyone sees what you appear to be,” but “few experience what you really are,” in the end “the common people are always impressed by appearances and results”. The concrete outcome of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-negotiations-heres-where-were-at-so-far-84189">negotiations</a> will matter more than any posturing before or during them.</p>
<h2>Take counsel but make the final decision yourself</h2>
<p>May should surround herself with <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-negotiations-the-key-players-75196">wise advisers</a>, in both the Cabinet and her private office, who will speak the truth to her when asked for their opinion. Once she has consulted with them over an issue, however, she should “put the policy agreed upon into effect straight away … and adhere to it rigidly,” ignoring all other opinions. This way, she will not be deceived by flatterers or tempted to change her mind repeatedly, both of which will lose her the respect of the people.</p>
<p>If this advice proves difficult to follow, the prime minister should not lose heart, because Machiavelli conceded that fortune plays just as important a part in political careers as free will. Events may change the backdrop, and even foreground, of the Brexit negotiations between now and the 2019 deadline. </p>
<p>The best defence against the vagaries of fortune is to study history and imitate the outstanding leaders of the past, for even if a prince’s “own prowess fails to compare with theirs, at least it has an air of greatness about it”.</p>
<p>The prime minister should also read the accounts of previous successes and failures, to see where others went wrong. Machiavelli’s The Prince would be a good place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Campbell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Pearls of wisdom for a prince will serve a prime minister, too.
Andrew Campbell, Teaching Fellow, School of European Languages, Culture & Society, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/55942
2016-03-10T03:25:35Z
2016-03-10T03:25:35Z
Emotionally intelligent employees may come with a dark side – manipulation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114396/original/image-20160309-22143-g3y956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Employees who chose to be emotionally manipulative may also have high emotional intelligence.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">From www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Employees who may seem emotionally intelligent and an asset to the workplace may also be emotionally manipulative and this may be detrimental to workplaces in the long run, preliminary findings of a survey show. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297538481_Uncovering_the_Construct_and_Predictors_of_Emotional_Manipulation_in_the_Workplace">The study</a> has surveyed 351 people so far from different organisations, 81 who were managers.</p>
<p>Employees in <a href="https://surveys.utas.edu.au/index.php/195918?lang=en">the survey</a> admitted to using either malicious techniques such as making a colleague feel guilty or anxious or they turned on fake charm, for example giving compliments, to get what they want.</p>
<p>Some research shows that people who have the ability to be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886910000966">emotionally manipulative</a>, have high levels of emotional intelligence, which can be seen as a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Natasha_Loi/publication/261716540_Connections_between_emotional_intelligence_and_workplace_flourishing/links/0c960535ee6ab79a64000000.pdf">positive asset to the workplace</a>.</p>
<p>Emotional manipulation <a href="http://teamvdf.free.fr/TER%20M1/Emotional%20intelligence%20does%20EI%20have%20a%20dark%20side.pdf">is defined as</a> the act of influencing another person’s feelings and behaviours for one’s own interest. People who are good at emotional manipulation also show signs of what is called the ‘<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260914241_Able_and_willing_Refining_the_measurement_of_emotional_manipulation">dark triad</a>’ which includes psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism.</p>
<p>People who are labelled as psychopaths tend to lack empathy, just as narcissists have a strong sense of entitlement <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/spc3.12018/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=">and Machiavellians manipulate others.</a></p>
<p>In the study people who admitted to manipulating others maliciously scored higher on measurements of Machiavellianism and narcissism. People who admitted to faking things to get what they want, scored higher on measurements of Machiavellianism, narcissism and emotional intelligence. </p>
<p>Lots of people can figure out ways to manipulate others, but whether or not they choose to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260914241_Able_and_willing_Refining_the_measurement_of_emotional_manipulation">depends on kind of person they are</a>. For example, if you are not as sensitive towards others, as is the case for narcissists, you will probably would find it quite easy to manipulate others at work.</p>
<p>Some of the traits of those within the 'dark triad’ can seem desirable in the workplace- at least at first. For example, it can be difficult to spot a narcissist because they can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167208324101">seem agreeable and appear well adjusted</a>. </p>
<p>These people also tend to desire (and feel entitled to) leadership positions, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167208324101">and come across as good leaders</a>. Employees with these personalities usually are very confident and their ability to remain cool under pressure tends <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1943">to make people feel more secure</a>. </p>
<p>However, in the workplace, the performance of people who focus on themselves a lot <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.4.762">is generally poor</a> and they are usually <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0021-9010.87.2.390">not as committed to the organisation</a>. Interestingly these people are also not likely to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.4.762">recognise that they may be a problem in the workplace</a>.</p>
<p>Being fake may seem less harmful than being malicious. However, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297538486_Effects_of_emotional_manipulation_on_employees_in_the_workplace">the study</a> found that employees are distressed by the thought of being manipulated. In the survey five to 14% of people report feeling manipulated in a malicious way on a weekly basis, and 13-15% in a fake way. </p>
<p>Employees could be just perceiving that they are being manipulated, without actually being manipulated. The study tried to achieve a more objective view by asking participants if they believed their co-workers were being manipulated the same way. </p>
<p>Surveyed employees thought that both they and their co-workers were being manipulated in a similar way. This does suggest that behaviour is probably real, and that manipulators may target more than one person at work. </p>
<p>The research presents a challenge for organisations to consider how necessary excellent emotional and social skills are when recruiting or promoting individuals, because it is possible that these people are also manipulative. </p>
<p>Fair Work trade commissioner, Anna Lee Crib, said that in 2014, of the 701 applications made to the commission, 241 cases were withdrawn and not one case of <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/workplace-bullying-violence-harassment-and-bullying-fact-sheet">bullying</a> was found. In her opinion some people may be confusing bullying with “personality conflicts”.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, targets of workplace bullying <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0030987">can react emotionally</a>. Because of this, it may seem like two people just butting heads. This, coupled with the fact that manipulation is very subtle, means that when people report the behaviour there is a high chance of it being put down to a personality conflict when in fact it could be defined as bullying. </p>
<p>This is something very important for organisations to be aware of because interventions that do not acknowledge or address the behaviours of the instigator will not be effective, and could harm employees even more.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55942/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Employees who admitted to being emotionally manipulative in a survey may also be perceived as being emotionally intelligent in their workplaces, a study has found.
Jane Hyde, PhD in Clinical Psychology Candidate and Psychologist, University of Tasmania
Rachel Grieve, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Tasmania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/49765
2016-02-04T16:02:30Z
2016-02-04T16:02:30Z
Why there’s a case for bringing private armies in from the cold
<p>Libya is a country on the brink of total chaos. Two rival groups both claim to be the legitimate government, and between them seem incapable of achieving stability. In the resulting security vacuum, one of the two sides has resorted to hiring private militias to try and keep control.</p>
<p>Among these is the Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG), a private military organisation that directly participates in combat on behalf of the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/long-awaited-breakthrough-libya-political-deadlock-151206035646203.html">Tripoli-based faction</a>, the General National Congress. PFG has become known for its <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19744533">recent clashes with Islamic State</a> (IS), and for <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/The-rogue-private-army-that-handed-an-oil-field-to-ISIS-on-a-plate/articleshow/50732503.cms">both failing to protect and misappropriating</a> the nation’s oil.</p>
<p>It’s cases like this that give private military forces a bad name. A similar furore blew up in 2015 when reports surfaced that South African mercenaries were on the ground in Nigeria <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/uk-nigeria-violence-mercenaries-idUKKBN0M80VT20150312">fighting Boko Haram</a>. Given that the Nigerian military had <a href="http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/2015/10/military-denies-using-mercenaries-to-fight-boko-haram/">already denied</a> that it had received any assistance from hired outside forces, the government was quick to shoot the stories down. </p>
<p>Private military companies and mercenaries are still stigmatised as irretrievably immoral and untrustworthy, and therefore as liabilities. Clearly there are plenty of cases where their activities have caused grave trouble and civilian casualties – think of the 2007 incident where Blackwater guards <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/22/us-jury-convicts-blackwater-security-guards-iraq">killed 17 civilians in Baghdad</a> – but it’s not as if armies and official standing forces don’t have innocent blood on their hands.</p>
<p>Still, there’s a deeply embedded feeling that fighting for money outside an army is profoundly perverse. And as far as Western thought on the ethics of war goes, that revulsion dates back to the Renaissance.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109710/original/image-20160129-3901-1ja97z2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109710/original/image-20160129-3901-1ja97z2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109710/original/image-20160129-3901-1ja97z2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109710/original/image-20160129-3901-1ja97z2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109710/original/image-20160129-3901-1ja97z2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109710/original/image-20160129-3901-1ja97z2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109710/original/image-20160129-3901-1ja97z2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Niccolo Machiavelli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Niccolo Machiavelli, the 16th-century Florentine republican whose writings on power and strategy form the basis for much modern thought on war and state power, was one of the most significant opponents of mercenaries in history. He denounced the trade of military force across borders and deemed soldiers-for-hire an immoral liability. As he saw it, they lack the strong commitments that would make them faithful and devoted to a state and its subjects. </p>
<p>That said, Machiavelli’s perspective was inflected with his own republican vision and passion for voluntary citizen militia, as opposed to hired guns. He overlooked Florence’s debt to <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Hawkwood">Sir John Hawkwood</a>, an English-born mercenary whose devoted service earned him a marble fresco in the Duomo cathedral.</p>
<p>That his objections to hired mercenaries ring so true today shows how ahead of his time he was. In the 16th century, monarchs were quite reluctant to arm civilians for fear of popular uprisings; many took pains to demilitarise the nobility in efforts to subordinate rivals and centralise their power.</p>
<p>Similarly, one of the most common contemporary objections to the individuals involved with private force is that they have an inappropriate motive. Even though most states now offer a salary in exchange for citizen military service, the organised standing civilian army is still held up as the “right” way to defend the state.</p>
<p>But over the last century, the practical and moral grounds on which this idea is based have shifted markedly.</p>
<p>Mercenary activity persisted throughout the 20th century and is alive and well in the 21st. Along with the sort of actions witnessed throughout decolonisation in Africa (the intervention in the Belgian Congo by <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qPe-cfAumzMC&pg=PA17&dq=jacques+schramme&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=jacques%20schramme&f=false">“Black-Jacques” Schramme</a>, say, or the work of <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/988029">“Mad Mike” Hoare</a>), we’ve begun to see far more of these forces cropping up in response to domestic or regional conflicts. Many of them are disenfranchised and dispossessed people seeking to defend the only lifestyle they know – rather challenging the view that money is the only driver for mercenary activity.</p>
<p>That calls into question the norm against the use of mercenaries. Does it specifically apply to those whose incentives are entirely financial? And can we really dismiss private military companies based on inconsistent assumptions about their loyalties and motives? And does the law actually rule them out at all?</p>
<h2>Reality check</h2>
<p>Clearly, the law is doing little to curb this practice. But nonetheless, major powers such as the US have enthusiastically employed them over the past couple decades. And now we’re starting to see a more geographically diverse clientele for their services, with countries such as <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-mercenaries-m16-and-ready-meals-evidence-of-western-involvement-or-something-far-less-9322948.html">Ukraine</a> and <a href="https://www.naij.com/385393-boko-haram-nigeria-hires-sa-mercenaries-illegally.html">Nigeria</a> getting in on the act.</p>
<p>It’s not even clear whether these entities are illegal or not when it comes to international law. The <a href="https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/icrc_002_0996.pdf">Montreux Document</a>, which is meant to guide states on how to use private forces, has no binding authority and doesn’t apply to non-state actors who might hire them (<a href="http://www.economist.com/news/international/21566625-business-private-armies-not-only-growing-changing-shape-bullets-hire">corporations</a>, for instance). This is a big failing – especially in the 21st century, when wars hardly ever take place between two sovereign states. </p>
<p>Worse still, the consequences of closing our minds on this subject are all too easy to underestimate. At the outbreak of the Rwandan atrocities in 1994, the noted South African private security firm Executive Outcomes <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/dogs-peace-135697?rm=eu">reportedly approached</a> the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to offer its services. The UN was firmly set against using a private military company to address the crisis, but the world then proved unable to mobilise public forces in a timely manner. The inaction allowed the genocide to continue, resulting in over 800,000 casualties.</p>
<p>So instead of focusing narrowly on ethical problems that are just as applicable to national armies as they are to mercenaries, we need to think about how private forces can be brought into the international legal system. </p>
<p>If they were only properly regulated, monitored and legislated for, the increasingly arbitrary moral objections that stand in their way might start to change. Ignoring them is neither sensible nor productive, and they will always naturally find room to exist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katerina Galai receives funding from Modern Law Review. </span></em></p>
Mercenaries and private armies have always been controversial – but are they really any worse than regular armies?
Katerina Galai, International Law & Security PhD Candidate, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/46859
2015-09-21T20:12:48Z
2015-09-21T20:12:48Z
What is this thing called reform?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93469/original/image-20150901-25774-15tu5cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C87%2C1244%2C690&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Niccolo Machiavelli recognised the absolute importance of dealing with necessity – what we know today as 'reform'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Santi di Tito</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reform is one of the buzzwords of contemporary politics. It is assumed that all governments, of whatever political type, should engage in this thing called reform. Reform is assumed to be a constant, always needing to be done, and the worst thing a government can do is to slow down – or even halt – reform. </p>
<p>Hence, in August there was a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/in-depth/national-reform-summit-live-coverage/story-fnwjr2ka-1227499161885">National Reform Summit</a> held in Sydney to discuss how to provide more impetus for increasing the tempo of reform. With the elevation of Malcolm Turnbull to the prime ministership since, there is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/we-have-to-be-competitive-cormann/story-fn3dxiwe-1227535463016">fresh hope</a> that he can break the reform “deadlock”.</p>
<p>But what exactly is reform?</p>
<h2>The evolution of a ‘reform’</h2>
<p>The first master of the modern study of politics, Niccolò Machiavelli, never discussed reform as part of the art of politics, but he did recognise the absolute importance of dealing with necessity.</p>
<p>Any political order has to deal with the problems raised by Fortuna, or what we would probably refer to as circumstances which threaten that order. Good politics, for Machiavelli, is doing what is necessary so that when ill fortune blows one’s way, one is able to deal with it in order to survive and prosper.</p>
<p>Is not reform then little more than an acceptance of the need to do what is necessary, to master and overcome fortune, and to ensure that a country remains prosperous and strong?</p>
<p>This is a very old imperative. In the Bible, Joseph <a href="http://www.feastsofthelord.net/id140.html">learns</a> that there will be seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of dearth. Hence he lays up enough food to ensure that Egypt will not starve when the good times run out. He did what was necessary – we could say that he implemented a major reform.</p>
<p>Surely, then, in our modern age, reform means essentially mastering necessity – taking what steps are necessary to ensure that one’s country survives and prospers. This, more than anything else, should define what is required of those who we have placed in charge of the ship of state.</p>
<p>Any careful reading of Machiavelli will reveal that this is his true message – even when those in charge engage in morally questionable actions, this can only be justified if those actions benefit the common good.</p>
<h2>Reform in an Australian context</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, Australian politicians in recent times have sought to play what might be termed pseudo-Machiavellian games, thinking that politics is really about engaging in some of the more questionable activities described by Machiavelli, in order to achieve their own personal political goals. </p>
<p>In other words, they have become entranced by the game. But the necessity that they follow is dictated by their own personal career objectives, not the good of the country.</p>
<p>In such circumstances, reform – or necessary political action – is being held hostage to the desire of individual politicians to win and hold office. It is as if Joseph had decided to make the most of the seven years of prosperity and to hell with the future. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, it appears to be the case that to follow the path of necessity may not win much support in the court of public opinion. Sir Robert Menzies, perhaps Australia’s greatest prime minister, understood that good leadership meant that sometimes a government needed to take unpopular decisions. </p>
<p>To be a good democratic leader, in terms of the public good, one needed occasionally to take what Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister called <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/a-very-courageous-decision-the-inside-story-of-yes-minister-by-graham-mccann/2017873.article">“courageous” decisions</a>. Hence, in 1963, with a wafer-thin majority in the House of Representatives, Menzies went to an election with a policy of some government support for non-government schools even though he knew that this could be very unpopular in certain quarters.</p>
<p>If one looks to the Australian past one can see that good political leaders took necessary decisions because they knew that they had to be taken. To give a couple of examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>In the mid-1980s the Hawke government took reform measures including <a href="http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/319/">deregulating</a> the financial system and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-27/jericho-floating-the-dollar-was-worth-the-pain/5118028">floating the dollar</a>. Again, these were controversial measures and were widely criticised at the time. They did little to improve the electoral standing of the government; in Sir Humphrey-speak they were courageous measures. It was the necessity of the situation that drove them – as Bob Hawke said at the time of the floating of the dollar, “little Australia” could not afford to ignore what the rest of the world was doing.</p></li>
<li><p>In 1998 John Howard went to an election promising to <a href="http://electionspeeches.moadoph.gov.au/speeches/1998-john-howard">bring in a GST</a> if his government was returned. It almost resulted in Howard leading a one-term government. Again, it was a courageous decision, driven by the necessity of solving the problems raised by the High Court having determined that the Constitution did not allow the states to raise sales taxes.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These were controversial decisions; one may disagree with them. But it is clear that they were not motivated by a desire to pander to public opinion or to score political points against one’s political opponents. They were motivated by a desire to do what is in the public interest.</p>
<p>Australia faces real problems in the future. Australians, and their government, need to take stock of what necessary steps must be taken if Australia is to survive as a strong and prosperous country. This can happen only if the leaders of our political parties accept that there is more to leadership than the next poll and waging a political war against one’s opponents. </p>
<p>Democratic leadership, as all good leaders in the past understood, means working for the public good and sometimes taking decisions which are unpopular.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Melleuish receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is affiliated with the Menzies Research Centre as an Academic Adviser.</span></em></p>
In our modern age, reform means essentially mastering necessity – taking what steps are necessary to ensure that one’s country survives and prospers.
Gregory Melleuish, Associate Professor, School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/18730
2013-10-28T19:21:52Z
2013-10-28T19:21:52Z
The great governmental challenge of climate change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32684/original/86czk52n-1381279901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Partisanship aside, extreme weather events linked to climate change pose an enormous threat to the Western, legal-political system of government.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Steve Pope</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently released <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/">fifth report</a> of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stresses the connection between climate change and severe weather events around the world, including <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-20/bushfires-state-of-emergency-declared-in-nsw/5034212">devastating bushfires</a> in places such as Australia. But what does this actually mean for governments? </p>
<p>In the first decade of the 21st century many governments around the world unofficially competed with one another to show how serious they were about dealing with the threat of climate change. Perhaps the pithiest entry in this competition was this <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqZvpRjGtGM">newsworthy slogan</a> offered in 2007 by the soon-to-be Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd.</p>
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<p>Climate change is the great moral challenge of our generation. </p>
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<p>While these words undoubtedly had and still have wide appeal, they are somewhat misleading. Climate change is not primarily a moral challenge, or an economic challenge, or a social challenge. The threat of climate change is primarily a governmental challenge, a challenge which the legal-political system of government is very much attempting to meet. </p>
<p>This system of government is marked by a tense but productive relationship between law and politics, such that each tries to hold the upper hand but each needs the other to survive. The system is used in many parts of the world.</p>
<p>In this spirit, we prefer to turn away from the slogans of politicians and towards Machiavelli’s advice, first published in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince">The Prince</a> in 1532, about what a wise ruler should do to prepare for the vicissitudes of fortune - or nature, as it is often called today.</p>
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<p>I judge it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one half of our actions, but that she still leaves the control of the other half, or almost that, to us. </p>
<p>And I compare her to one of those ruinous rivers that, when they become enraged, flood the plains, tear down the trees and buildings, taking up earth from one spot and placing it upon another; everyone flees from them, everyone yields to their onslaught, unable to oppose them in any way. </p>
<p>And although they are of such a nature, it does not follow that when the weather is calm we cannot take precautions with embankments and dikes, so that when they rise up again either the waters will be channeled off or their impetus will not be either so disastrous or so damaging. </p>
<p>The same thing happens where Fortune is concerned: she shows her force where there is no organized strength to resist her; and she directs her impact there where she knows that dikes and embankments are not constructed to hold her.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1122&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32686/original/mh75tnk6-1381280663.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Machiavelli’s advice in The Prince over 500 years ago still remains relevant for governments today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frieda</span></span>
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<p>In other words, climate change is undoubtedly a big challenge for the legal-political system of government. However, it is nonetheless a challenge within the scope of this system’s one norm: maintaining the widest possible appreciable spread of peace, security, well-being, and prosperity among the humans within the territories being governed. </p>
<p>So, in the face of the threat of climate change, legal-political governments around the world - as well as those parts of the United Nations and other international bodies which operate along legal-political lines - will act in the manner of Machiavelli’s wise ruler. That is, they will act so as to ensure - to the best of their abilities - that the “impetus” of these calamities “will not be either so disastrous or so damaging” as they would be were the governments not as experienced and well-equipped as they are.</p>
<p>The British government deals with the threat of houses on unstable cliffs <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2337012/Cliff-cul-sac-Britains-dangerous-street--home-collapsed-sea-evacuated-safety-fears.html">sliding into the sea</a> without letting morality trample over the interests of law, politics, sovereignty, the state, the economy, aesthetics, and science. The Australian government does the same in dealing with the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-20/bushfires-state-of-emergency-declared-in-nsw/5034212">threat of bushfires</a>. The US government does it in dealing with the threat of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/04/us/nebraska-tornado-western-storms/">tornadoes</a> and hurricanes, while the Japanese government acts on the threat of earthquakes and tsunamis. All other legal-political governments deal with whatever slings and arrows climate change fires at their territories. </p>
<p>In this way, legal-political governments use all of the governmental resources and tactics they have developed over several hundred years. They also deploy their capacity for “trial and error” learning in a bid to find replacements for those governmental resources and tactics which prove inadequate.</p>
<p>Of course, in including the Japanese government’s response to earthquakes and tsunamis and the US government’s response to hurricanes, we are reminded that these two governments did not - by the best practice standards of legal-political government - do very well in helping those affected by the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/17/japan-crisis-language-hierarchy-emperor">2011 earthquake and tsunami</a> in northern Japan and by <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/81957.html">Hurricane Katrina</a> in New Orleans respectively. Legal-political government fails on many occasions. This is a reality softened - though only slightly - by the government usually admitting to its failures and doing what it can to fix them and/or not repeat them (which is not always enough).</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32689/original/zngg9j69-1381281401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32689/original/zngg9j69-1381281401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32689/original/zngg9j69-1381281401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32689/original/zngg9j69-1381281401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32689/original/zngg9j69-1381281401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32689/original/zngg9j69-1381281401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32689/original/zngg9j69-1381281401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Japanese government’s response to the 2011 earthquake was criticised in some quarters, proving the legal-political system of government isn’t always infallible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kimimasa Mayama</span></span>
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<p>Some extreme activists may wish to turn the challenge into an eschatological event. For them, climate change - because they regard its primary cause to be human involvement - is an opportunity to judge humans and to find them wanting. This is not - in and of itself - a concern for legal-political governments.</p>
<p>Such governments will not seek to prevent people from thinking that the anthropogenic component of climate change issues makes climate change into “the great moral challenge of our generation”. Of course, if any people holding more extreme views than this should threaten civil peace by any actions born of their moral convictions, legal-political governments will become more than concerned about them. </p>
<p>Just as such governments have always done when private moral or religious convictions boil over in any particular law-and-politics country to the point that they threaten large-scale civil violence, the government of that country will act decisively to quell the threat. To <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=orUW217nkngC&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=the+uttermost+evil+to+be+avoided+at+all+costs+stephen+holmes&source=bl&ots=VNBVzXpLpB&sig=xcQ7T6N-SJa0VIZmwJLJNEIkyJ4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KaZUUq7jL8X_iAfT-IH4BA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20uttermost%20evil%20to%20be%20avoided%20at%20all%20costs%20stephen%20holmes&f=false">borrow a point</a> from American political scientist Stephen Holmes, the threat of civil war is the “<em>summum malum</em>” for this type of government.</p>
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<p>[It is] the uttermost evil to be avoided at all costs. </p>
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<p>Climate change is a large and growing concern for legal-political governments around the world, but it is nowhere near the <em>summum malum</em> for any of them. This does not, nor should it, lessen their concern about (for example) the devastating impact of rising sea levels and/or tidal inundation in Kiribati and Bangladesh, where thousands of people have <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/10348945/Man-from-Pacific-island-of-Kiribati-claims-he-is-refugee-from-climate-change.html">been displaced</a>.</p>
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<p><em>This is an edited extract from Legal and Political Challenges of Governing the Environment and Climate Change: Ruling Nature by Gary Wickham and Jo-Ann Goodie to be published by Routledge, UK, later this year.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The recently released fifth report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stresses the connection between climate change and severe weather events around the world, including devastating…
Gary Wickham, Professor of Sociology, Murdoch University
Jo Goodie, Senior Lecturer in Law, Murdoch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.