The Art of Power offers up a challenge to traditional political theory. Diego A. von Vacano provides original interpretations of Machiavelli's oeuvre and of Nietzsche's relationship to politics.

Populism is on the rise throughout the world and it poses a challenge to democratic theory. Conventional political thought has not dealt seriously with this challenge throughout most of its history. The article takes the challenge seriously, underscoring the rise of Donald Trump as an example of populism. I argue that dominant paradigms in the study of the history of political thought and in normative, Rawlsian approaches do not elucidate populism. I argue that we need to look beyond the mainstream (...) and to comparative political thought in particular. The Latin American political theory tradition, which has been in conversation with European ideas since the dawn of the modern age, provides a model of ‘princely performative populism’ that is more useful. Drawing on a Machiavellian conception of the prince’s aesthetic relationship to the people and the centrality of populist experiences in Latin America, my model provides a novel definition of pop... (shrink)

One of the central problems of modernity has been the role race plays in politics. However, we are still not sure where the concept of race first emerges in the history of political thought. I argue that the first theorist to lay the grounds for a racial conception in politics is the Spanish Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas. In his effort to defend the 'rights' of the Amerindians, Las Casas constructs racial categories through his rhetorical enterprise. Rather than being (...) a historian, a proto- anthropologist, or a defender of the 'Indians', Las Casas was chiefly a rhetorician of empire. In this enterprise, his account of Amerindian identity, bodies, appearance and culture created a racialized understanding of the newly discovered peoples of the Americas. By examining the birth of race in the writings of Las Casas, we learn of his fundamentally rhetorical project, the centrality of race to modernity, and Las Casas' influence on the early-modern Latin American intellectual tradition. (shrink)

The article argues that Plato's Laws contain an implicit conception of freedom, particularly in Book III. It proposes that, while the concept is not treated systematically by Plato, it merits attention due to its presence in the text. I argue that there is a Form of Freedom in the book. It is comprised of two dimensions: an organic and a civic component. They are mediated by human agency. However, freedom in its ideal form is only possible for a select intellectual (...) elite that can grasp these two dimensions. This elite is composed of a few wise elder men who take up the task of lawmaking as a ludic or playful enterprise. I also argue that degeneration away from true freedom is possible when political elites mislead a community away from Plato's ideal, such as with Cyrus in Persia. Ultimately, Plato's idea of freedom tells us that liberty is only truly available to a select few, not to a broad citizenry. Thus, freedom and democracy are not tied intimately but are opposed to each other. (shrink)