Fifty years after the Nuremberg tribunals, Germany is once again caught up in a series of controversial trials involving former dictators. This time, officials of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) sit in the docks. Some observers have criticized these proceedings, maintaining that they will result in the imposition of an arbitrary form of “victor's justice.” Others have claimed, in contrast, that the cumbersome German Rechtsstaat (“state under the law”) will prove incapable of responding to public demands for retribution. In this article, the author maintains that Germany's courts have not been at a loss in answering these complaints. By grounding their judgments in preexisting East German law, the courts have managed to bring some of the GDR's former leaders to justice while at the same time guaranteeing most defendants the full protection of the rule of law. In the process, the courts have even conveyed an important message about the terms under which both German populations will be brought back together again.

Machiavelli's Prince circulated widely in manuscript form in Italy way before its publication in 1532. Its reception was mixed from the start: some readers found in it a frank, sometimes ironic, description for the benefit of the people of the evil means used by bad rulers; others read in it evil recommendations to tyrants to help them maintain their power. The history of the reception of the Prince in Italy discloses a book with many facets: the impious and amoral Machiavelli of the Jesuits; the republican champion of the people, who unveiled the evil practices of tyrants, of the Enlightenment and Romantic readers; the citizen and patriot who fought for the liberation of Italy of the “Risorgimento”; the nationalist author who realized the limits of popular sovereignty and the necessity of force during the Fascist era; and many more Machiavellis and Princes present in Italy in the past five hundred years.

According to Hegel, universal history is the realization of the Idea of Reason in a succession of National Spirits. These are manifested in the deeds of heroes, or world-historical individuals, such as Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Napoleon. However, the Idea of Reason does not work itself out in history in a manner which would seem reasonable on the surface. It is not actualized in this or that of its stages as a consequence of men consciously adopting it as their ideal and striving to translate it into reality through their mode of life and conduct. It is not, as it were, through the imitation of Reason that Reason is realized in history. How, then, does this take place?

Hegel's answer to this question is contained in his doctrine of the Cunning of Reason. Briefly, he holds that history fulfills its ulterior rational designs in an indirect and sly manner. It does so by calling into play the irrational element in human nature, the passions. So Hegel writes: “Two elements, therefore, enter into our investigation: first, the Idea, secondly, the complex of human passions; the one the warp, the other the woof of the vast tapestry of world history.” By “passion” he means those all-consuming emotions of the individual person which are self-regarding in nature. In discussing the question, he writes: “I mean here nothing more than human activity resulting from private interest, from special or, if you will, self-seeking designs—with this qualification: that the whole energy of will and character is devoted to the attainment of one aim and that other interests or possible aims, indeed everything else, is sacrificed to this aim.”

In the nineteenth century, when many people were optimistic in their views of human nature, and confident that the course of progress was going to be continued into an indefinite future, there were one or two prophets who feared and foretold that the twentieth century would see great wars of peoples, popular military dictatorships and the harnessing of the machines of industry to the science of warfare. It is interesting to note that, without knowing whether one country or another was going to emerge as the chief offender, and without basing his prediction upon any view that Germany was likely to present a special problem to the European continent, a writer could still feel assured, a generation beforehand, that this age of terrible warfare was coming. He could see, in other words, that, apart from the emergence of a special criminal, the developments in the situation itself were driving mankind into an era of conflict. In the midst of battle, while we are all of us in fighting mood, we see only the sins of the enemy and fail to reflect on those predicaments and dilemmas which so often develop and which underlie the great conflicts between masses of human beings. And though these conflicts could hardly have taken place if all men were perfect saints, we often forget that many of the inhuman struggles that have divided the human race would hardly have occurred if the situation had been one of completely righteous men confronted by undiluted and unmitigated crime. Given the ordinary amount of cupidity and wilfulness in human beings, unmanageable situations are likely to develop and some of them may almost be guaranteed to end in terrible conflict. While there is battle and hatred men have eyes for nothing save the fact that the enemy is the cause of all the troubles; but long, long afterwards, when all passion has been spent, the historian often sees that it was a conflict between one half-right that was perhaps too wilful, and another half-right that was perhaps too proud; and behind even this he discerns that it was a terrible predicament, which had the effect of putting men so at cross-purposes with one another. This predicament is the thing which it is the purpose of this paper to examine; and first of all I propose to try to show how the historian comes to discover its existence.

As Quentin Skinner argues, political thinkers are best read in historical context. But in what context do Skinner's own interpretations of the history of political thought belong? This essay places his denunciation of grand narratives in the context of the decline of Whig interpretations of history and presents his Republicanism as a substitute source of legitimacy in the wake of the collapse of the British Empire and of the loss of social influence of Christianity. This essay also argues that Skinner's inquiries cannot be understood solely in the light of their historical context. His historical work is linked with his republican philosophy. The relation between his concept of liberty and his contextualism shows the dependence of his contextualist methodology on specific philosophical commitments.

In recent years it has become increasingly common to speak of the international or global common good. It remains unclear, however, what political content attaches to this expression, and how it relates to more traditional conceptions of the common good rooted in the context of the polis or the nation-state. This article examines the ramifications of extending this time-honored concept to a transnational framework, focusing in particular on the evolving rhetoric of the political common good in Catholic social thought. The first part traces the emergence of the transnational common good in Catholic thinkers such as Maritain, Murray, and Messner, as well as in the encyclical tradition. The second part addresses, from the standpoint of political theory, problems of scope, structure, and application attending the expansion of the common good. The concluding section proposes a multilayered, heuristic interpretation of the common good organized around the notion of a “plurality of pluralisms.”

When one speaks of the common good, it always makes sense to inquire: The common good of whom? How the common good is demarcated is a matter of no small moment for any claims that are made in its name. name. For these claims stumble as soon as it becomes clear that the good referred to is in fact shared by only some members of the assumed collectivity and not the rest; and they likewise falter if they are revealed to rest on an inappropriate delimitation of the collectivity at the expense of others who, for the purposes at hand, should rightfully be included.

This article discusses possible interpretations of the concept of national interest, with a view to providing a conception more analytically useful than those that have dominated the literature. It argues against the two most prevalent approaches. The first, most obviously represented by political realism, relies on a single overarching assumption that both encompasses the national interest and provides a standard for assessing how successfully it is pursued. The second, identifies a finite set of national objectives which, by possessing a large measure of the formal attributes by which the national interest is defined, are considered its proper subsets. While both approaches have their virtues, each is flawed as a method for establishing correspondence between policy and interest. The approach proposed here relies on a different principle altogether—the nature of the political procedure via which judgments about the link between foreign policy and national interest are made. The article argues that our ability to judge whether a policy does serve the national interest is intimately connected to how democratic the decision behind the policy is.

Alexis de Tocqueville's account of the formation of the American regime identifies two constitutive moments: the Puritan colonization and the Revolution and the Constitution (1775–1789). Contrary to historians of the day, Tocqueville gave as much credit to the Puritans as to the Founders. Yet far from being a pure history, Tocqueville's narrative also had the purpose of promoting a new political foundation that replaced the philosophical doctrine of natural rights with an account based on “Customary History.” Tocqueville's approach was intended to further a great theoretical project inaugurated by Montesquieu that offered an alternative model to the mainstream Enlightenment position for how political philosophy should enter into and influence political life. This article analyzes the two-founding thesis, explores the underlying theoretical project on foundations of Tocqueville and Montesquieu, and presents and assesses the debate on the merits of attempting to change the political foundation of the American regime.

There has been much debate about how to locate Hannah Arendt within the tradition of political philosophy. This article argues for an “existentialist” reading, claiming that Karl Jaspers's categories reappear, politicized, in Arendt's own thought. Her language and arguments do not, in fact, become completely intelligible until read in the context of Jaspers's Existentz philosophy. The authors contend that the apparent obscurity and ambiguity of Arendt's writings owe to her attempt to stretch the framework of existentialism to fit the milieu of classical antiquity, to which it is fundamentally alien. Conversely, Arendt appropriated only those aspects of Aristotelian theory that suited her existentially defined concerns while ignoring the rest, a procedure that accounts for many of the tensions and contradictions found in her work.

This paper sets out to criticize Thomas Pangle's and Paul Rahe's reading of The Spirit of the Laws as a contribution to liberal republicanism, arguing instead that Montesquieu's text is better understood as a defense of liberal monarchism. Pangle's and Rahe's interpretation of The Spirit of the Laws as an unequivocal defense of the English modern republic is wrongheaded. Montesquieu in fact spent much more of his time and energy outlining another and very different political model, moderate monarchy, embodied not by England but by the government under which he lived—France. This conclusion has profound implications for our understanding not just of The Spirit of the Laws but also of the history of early modern political thought more generally speaking, showing that the political debate of this period cannot be reduced to a struggle between classical and modern republicans.

Over the last twenty years, comparative political theory has emerged as a distinctive contribution to contemporary theoretical and methodological debate in making the case for greater engagement between “Western” and “non-Western” traditions. While comparative political theory includes multiple methodological approaches and numerous objectives, this article argues for an interpretive method that combines conceptual and contextual analysis to demonstrate both the malleability of concepts and the varying implications that these concepts can have for political action in particular settings. The contextualized comparison need not necessarily be between Western and non-Western cases. This article argues for a “contextualizing concepts” approach and exemplifies this through an analysis of three cases where the concept of reconciliation has been articulated as a means of transforming divided societies since the 1990s: South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Australia.

To Avoid misunderstanding, I should note at once that my point of view is here not that of the mere logic of ideas and doctrines, but that of the concrete logic of the events of history.

From the first point of view, that of the mere logic of ideas and doctrines, it is evident that there are many possible positions other than the “pure” positions which I shall examine. One might ask theoretically and in the abstract, what value these various positions have. That is not what I plan to do. In a word, my point of view is that of the philosophy of culture, and not that of metaphysics.

Maitland once observed that, in the Middle Ages, “Law was the point where life and logic met.” This aphorism of the master must serve as my apology for including in one essay two topics so diverse, according to some opinions, as abstract political theory and concrete constitutional problems. It may be that the mediaeval jurists can provide a link between the two spheres, for their reflections on mediaeval government were not mere philosophical abstractions. They were rooted in real life. An essential ingredient of the jurists' raw material was a practical experience of the workings of mediaeval society. It is not surprising, therefore, that eminent historians on both sides of the Atlantic have called attention to the need for legal studies as a basis for further advance in mediaeval constitutional research, and that, in recent years, we have heard a great deal about the importance of feudal law and folk law, of Roman law and English common law in the formation of mediaeval ideas and institutions. My task will be to state briefly the case for the canonists.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest among social scientists in authoritarianism, both as a type of regime and as a specific political approach to the problems of economic development and modernization. This revival of interest has been spurred in part by the proliferation of authoritarian regimes in the less developed countries and by the fact that many of these regimes are doing a more than creditable job in stimulating and managing the process of development and modernization.

Hegel was a resident of Jena when the Battle of Jena, a shattering defeat for Prussia, took place. On October 13, 1806, the day on which the French entered the town and deployed for the engagement fought the next day, Hegel wrote to his friend Niethammer:

As I wrote to you earlier, all of us here wish the French victory and success. The Prussians are suffering the defeats they deserve… This morning I saw the Emperor Napoleon, that World Soul (diese Weltseele), riding through the town to a parade. It's a marvelous feeling to see such a personality dominating the entire world from horseback … He is capable of doing anything. How wonderful he is!

Three months later, in a letter to another friend, Zelmann, Hegel summed up the historical lesson of the Battle of Jena: “There is no better proof than the events occurring before our eyes, that culture is triumphing over barbarism and the intellect over spirit-less mind.”

How shall we be governed in an atomic war? Who will make the decisions for defense and survival, and what compulsions will support their peremptory execution? What will be the measure of our cherished liberties? In all the vast literature of atomic energy and the atomic bomb there appear no clear answers to these distressing questions.

Several authorities have meditated wisely upon the particular problems of domestic government in the atomic age. Robert E. Cushman has pictured the challenge of atomic energy to our traditional concepts of civil liberty; Arthur Bromage has admonished state and local public administrators to decentralize or die, and Senator Wiley has done the same for the national government; Bernard Brodie and Hanson Baldwin have warned of the inadequacy for atomic warfare of our present defense and mobilization plans. Yet no one seems to have outlined the over-all pattern that the American government would assume in the event of atomic war or indicated the workable adjustments that we might undertake now to prepare our constitutional system for this dreadful contingency. This neglect may well be just another symptom of our apparent decision (arrived at through indecision) to ignore the bomb and, like Mr. Lincoln, “confess plainly” that events control us. Since we refuse to contemplate the horrors of atomic war, we likewise refuse to imagine the sort of government that such a war would force us to adopt.

SoonAfter John F. Kennedy became President, difficult foreign policy decisions had to be made. Even before he assumed the burdens of office, he knew an early judgment would be required concerning United States policies vis-à-vis Laos. Throughout 1960, Communist forces in Laos and their allies won numerous military victories and the Laotian Royal Army was unable to check their advances. The United States and other SEATO members were understandably disturbed. They now had to contemplate a total Communist victory with all its potentially painful and embarrassing consequences. These consequences worried President-elect Kennedy and prior to his inauguration, he and his advisors began systematically examining all their policy alternatives; they found that none were really attractive.

Karl Jaspers coined the term the “axial period” to refer to what he saw as the simultaneous development in several different and separate societies—China, India, Iran, Israel, Greece—of “a new departure within mankind.” What he meant has been characterized as “a kind of critical, reflective questioning of the actual and a new vision of what lies beyond.” While it is true that people in each of these separate cultures began to develop new ways of talking about the cosmos, ethics, and community, Jaspers's approach and description of these phenomena were, I shall argue, highly defective. This has led to serious misunderstandings of what was involved.

Operation Intercept was launched along the United States-Mexico border in September of 1969, ostensibly to halt the flow of marijuana, heroin, and dangerous drugs. In reality, however, it was designed not to interdict narcotics but to publicize the new administration's war on crime and force Mexican compliance with Washington's antidrug campaign. With the exception of border residents, the much-heralded operation has been forgotten by most Americans a decade later. But as President Jimmy Carter discovered during his visit in early 1979, Mexicans, and particularly their presidents, have keen memories. Hastily conceived, unilateral programs such as Operation Intercept go far in explaining why.

My purpose is to consider Machiavellianism. Regarding Machiavelli himself, some preliminary observations seem necessary. Innumerable studies, some of them very good, have been dedicated to Machiavelli. Jean Bodin, in the XVIth Century, criticized The Prince in a profound and wise manner. Later on Frederick the Great of Prussia was to write a refutation of Machiavelli in order to exercise his own hypocrisy in a hyper-Machiavellian fashion, and to shelter cynicism in virtue. During the XIXth Century, the leaders of the bourgeoisie, for instance the French political writer Charles Benoist, were thoroughly, naïvely and stupidly fascinated by the clever Florentine.