IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v95y2001i02p297-313_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Machiavellian Democracy: Controlling Elites with Ferocious Populism

Author

Listed:
  • McCormick, John P.

Abstract

This essay demonstrates that Niccolò Machiavelli’s political thought addresses the deficiencies of two opposite poles of contemporary democratic theory: As do formal or minimalist approaches, he specifies electoral mechanisms for elite control; and similar to substantive or civic culture approaches, he encourages more direct and robust modes of popular participation. On these grounds, I cull from Machiavelli’s Discourses a theory of democracy in which the populace selects the elites who will hold office but also constantly patrols them through extraelectoral institutions and practices, such as the tribunes of the people, public accusations, and popular appeals. Machiavelli adds to these institutional features of popular government an important cultural dimension: The people should despise and mistrust elites, and they should actively confront the injustice that elite governing inevitably entails. Finally, I explore the ramifications of this theory for debates over elite accountability in contemporary democratic theory.

Suggested Citation

  • McCormick, John P., 2001. "Machiavellian Democracy: Controlling Elites with Ferocious Populism," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(2), pages 297-313, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:95:y:2001:i:02:p:297-313_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055401002027/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gradstein, Mark, 2024. "Social Status Inequality and Populism," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 434-444.
    2. Mejia, Daniel & Posada, Carlos-Esteban, 2007. "Populist policies in the transition to democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 932-953, December.
    3. Tella, Rafael Di & Rotemberg, Julio J., 2018. "Populism and the return of the “Paranoid Style”: Some evidence and a simple model of demand for incompetence as insurance against elite betrayal," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 988-1005.
    4. Thiel, Thorsten, 2020. "The Normative Order of International Politics: Critique and Legitimacy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 25-45.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:95:y:2001:i:02:p:297-313_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.