Democratic Statecraft Political Realism and Popular Power

The theory of statecraft explores practical politics through the strategies and manoeuvres of privileged agents, whereas the theory of democracy dwells among abstract and lofty ideals. Can these two ways of thinking somehow be reconciled and combined? Or is statecraft destined to remain the preserve of powerful elites, leaving democracy to ineffectual idealists? J. S. Maloy demonstrates that the Western tradition of statecraft, usually considered the tool of tyrants and oligarchs, has in fact been integral to the development of democratic thought. Five case studies of political debate, ranging from ancient Greece to the late nineteenth-century United States, illustrate how democratic ideas can be relevant to the real world of politics instead of reinforcing the idealistic delusions of conventional wisdom and academic theory alike. The tradition highlighted by these cases still offers resources for reconstructing our idea of popular government in a realistic spirit - skeptical, pragmatic, and relentlessly focused on power.

1. Introduction: realism and democracy; 2. Reason of state and two dimensions of realism; 3. From the Sophists to Aristotle: institutions lie; 4. From Aristotle to Machiavelli: democracy bites; 5. From Machiavelli to the Puritans: fire fights fire; 6. From the Puritans to the Populists: money never sleeps; 7. Conclusion: power and paradoxes.

J. S. Maloy is a native of Austin, Texas, and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma State University. He is the author of The Colonial American Origins of Modern Democratic Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and of academic papers in the Journal of Politics, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of the History of Ideas and other publications.