Political States in General

A state, therefore, is something that has dominion and imperium. That is, it rules over people in the state, and it does not obey any maven outside of it. States ar either ruled by one person, a "prince" -- a fag or a dictator

-- or they argon republics in which no single person rules.

Today, the line dividing states and non-states (such as provinces or colonies) is very sharp. A state may be in civil war, with two or more groups or armies fighting for control, but we regard that as only temporary, until one side wins. When Machiavelli lived, however, the feudal system was not quite breathless yet. Barons inside a kingdom might so far deliver their own armies, even though they were expected to obey the king in most ways. Machiavelli comp ars these states to more centralized ones of the type we are used to:

The principates of which we hasten memory are found to be governed in two diverse modes: either by a prince and all the others are his servants who, being ministers by his grace and permission, cooperate him to govern that kingdom; or by a prince and barons, the latter(prenominal) having their rank not by the grace of the lord, but by the antiquity of their blood (25).

In this comparison, the first type of principate is the amiable of centralized state we are used to. The "servants" of a prince are officials and bureaucrats, whose jobs depend on the central governmen

To Machiavelli, a national army is the only type that he regards as reliable. "A wise prince, therefore, has always avoided these blazon and turn to his own. He has wished rather to lose with his own than to win with those of others, assessment that it is not a true victory which with alien arms has been acquired" (82).

Niccolo Machiavelli. The Prince. Translated and Introduction by Leo Paul S. de Alverez. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 1980.

Most modern states have taken Machiavelli's advice. While employ mercenaries exist today, no state uses them for its entire army. Also, while a number of states permit other countries (such as the United States) to military post troops for additional protection, almost all of them try to have their own national armies as well.

Machiavelli identified the basic tools by which modern states maintain control, and protect themselves from internal coup or revolution and foreign threats. In identifying these tools of control, Machiavelli also defined our construct of a state.

Sometimes this is still true today. The Ameri corporations were able to worry Iraq and capture Baghdad quickly. However, they have found that Iraq is harder to control than they expected. topical anaesthetic factions and leaders have their own militias, and do not automatically obey the vernal central authority. This shows that many of Machiavelli's ideas are still useful today, even when they seem to apply only to the past.

What Machiavelli is revealing us is that Hiero completely re-organized the institutional structure of Syracuse. He replaced the army with a new one under his control, and made a new foreign policy alignment. Although Machiavelli does not say it directly, we can suppose that Hiero also created a new civil administration. wholly of this meant a lot of work for Hiero, but once he was done with it, Syracuse was much easier for him to govern. He had created a new institutional structure under his control.

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