The End of Machiavellian Politics?

PRINCES who have achieved great things have been those…who have known how to trick men with their cunning, and who, in the end, have overcome those abiding by honest principles”. The following words, written by Niccolo Machiavelli in his landmark work The Prince, are generally are taken to be the defacto standards governing a realist paradigm of international politics. The familiar saying “in politics, there are no permanent friends or foes; only permanent interests” rings true daily in the corridors of power. Deception is widely acknowledged by international diplomats and political statesmen to be part and parcel of the political game.

The revelation of US diplomatic cables then, ought not to surprise members of the political community. As a friend of mine studying at the London School of Economics quipped, “Any self-respecting academic or diplomat/defense official should know that they are the basic, core stuff of international politics. Those gossip mills and write ups - most of them marked Confidential or below Secret – are standard [fare]”. If indeed, the information that is being released are well-known secrets among those who are involved in international diplomacy, why then the political furor?

In my view, the problem is not so much the content of information that is being divulged as it is the criteria that we use in forging meaningful relationships with others – individually or internationally. In the Machiavellian world-view, the state – represented by their political leaders – is seen as the prime mover of international diplomacy and to which all other authorities that are within the geographically boundaries of the state are subservient to. The role of a diplomat then is to promote the interests of the state – at all costs – even at the expense of his own personal, inner convictions.

The idea then that one’s private opinions ought not to matter in international diplomacy is flawed for several reasons, two of which I will briefly touch on.

Firstly, ideas have consequences; to assume that political life operates only within the paradigm of economic/material interests is to severely understate the importance of ideational motivations. From jihadists to Julian Assange, financial and material renumeration seemed to matter less than their intention to propagate the superiority of their worldview and ideas. Privatized ideas have public consequences.

Secondly, as human beings, what motivate us ultimately are not the abstract ideals of nationalism or capitalism, but those that we are personally – and privately – in touch and involved with. While the advent of email and official correspondence have made the political process a technologically mediated one, no-self respecting diplomat would dare put his/her career at risk by not engaging in some form of coffee conversations or dinner diplomacy. The fact that such meetings require the presence of the diplomat suggest much more than the public face of the state is involved; the private face of the diplomat is also placed under diplomatic scrutiny – oftentimes more so than the state.

As the events of Wikileaks evinced, the cleavage between public statements and private sentiments suggest that Machiavellian politics – ostensibly state-centric – will become untenable in the long run as the number of non-state actors increase. While this is not to suggest the demise of the nation-state, it does challenge the idea that a country’s foreign policy is unequivocal – and is shared by all members of her diplomatic community. It is common knowledge among the diplomatic corp that “official statements” are often less officious – and perhaps even less veracious – than they are said to be.

Indeed if there is one key lesson Wikileaks have taught us, it is that both public and private statements matter and the greater the consistency of practice, the less the embarrassment. Perhaps it is time to rethink the Machiavellian paradigm.