In his 24 September 1981 television address presenting the argument for a second round of budget cuts, President Reagan concluded by citing an old authority:

More than a century ago a Frenchman came to America and later wrote a book for his countrymen telling them what he had seen here. He told them that in America when a citizen saw a problem that needed solving he would cross the street and talk to a neighbor about it and the first thing you know a committee would be formed and before long the problem would be solved. And then he added, “you may not believe this, but not a single bureaucrat would have been involved.”

Despite the impact of Leo Strauss on American political science and political theory, where, exactly, Strauss was “coming from,” in both senses of that phrase, has been far from clear. Carl Friedrich, reviewing the, at that point, unknown author's book on Hobbes, noted that Strauss might have been more forthcoming about his own position, but he believed that it was safe to conclude that he was a “historical relativist.” Friedrich may have been closer to the mark than many subsequent commentators realized, but in order to understand Strauss's work, it is necessary to return to the universe he inhabited before “coming to America.” Since Strauss's death, his enterprise has been subject to careful scrutiny, but his early life and work have remained opaque.

The easy conflation of god(s) and country—what might be called the dual foundations of justice—is challenged and explored in Sophocles′ Philoctetes. Odysseus's consistent appeal to the common good and Philoctetes′ troubled attachment to a divinely sanctioned principle of justice are set at odds in a play where the fate of the entire Greek expedition at Troy hangs in the balance. While most read the play as a celebration of young Neoptolemus as he frees himself from the corrupt influence of Odysseus and, through his encounter with Philoctetes, grows in personal integrity, this essay maintains that Neoptolemus comes under the influence of both antagonists because each has something important to teach him. Rather than offering a simple morality tale, Sophocles′ investigation of justice in this play both reveals the depth of the conflict between the requirements of politics and those of piety, and criticizes the extreme embodiments of these perspectives in the figures of Odysseus and Philoctetes.

I contrast two perspectives adopted to theorize political authorities. The first is the modern perspective. It conceives of political society as a civic union of free and equal citizens and regards the state as the political organization of this society. This perspective is primarily concerned with the principles that should govern the use of state power. The second is the political pluralist perspective. It recognizes a multiplicity of normative orders as equally legitimate. The focus is put on the civic processes by which a diverse citizenry should negotiate its interactions. I illustrate these perspectives by considering how they approach diversity, and more specifically the political claims of indigenous peoples. The pluralist perspective is argued to be normatively motivated by a consideration for the actual freedom of citizens to sustain diverse normative orders, to negotiate the structure of political society, and to jointly search for justice.

Several recent scholars have raised afresh the question of what Aristotle meant in Politics 1 by the statement that men are “by nature” political, that is, are political animals. This article addresses this quandary by reference to Aristotle's psychology and his notion of political education. It is argued that by concentrating on Aristotle's theory of human locomotion and its implications for moral choice, we may identify the relation he conceived between the polis and human nature. Specifically, the ability of humans to live according to their natures requires the systematic education afforded by the laws and institutions of the polis.

Interest in the study of international relations has considerably increased in American universities since the close of World War II. A School of World Affairs has been established by Columbia University which is also planning institutes for special areas, the first of which, the Russian Institute, will open soon. To promote research and teaching, grants have been given to universities, such as that by the Rockefeller Foundation to Yale University. It is reported that in almost all educational institutions the students, particularly veterans, show an especially great interest in international affairs. The Council on Foreign Relations, keenly aware of this situation, has organized conferences in various parts of the country to investigate problems of teaching and research in international relations.

The Origins and the development of the national idea in Europe have been in recent years, particularly since the first World War, a favorite topic of culturo-historical studies. These studies have traced the gradual movement of European peoples toward national self-determination, and have described as normal the development from a vague feeling of warring tribal solidarity to a more conscious patriotism which customarily crystallizes around the prince, the king, in brief, the sovereign. According to these studies, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries national culture was more and more emphasized; the claims of national language increased and finally reached a culmination in the Reformation.

Machiavelli often seems to advocate a conception of religion as an instrument of political rule. But in the concluding chapter of The Prince Machiavelli adopts a messianic rhetoric in which politics becomes an instrument of divine providence. Since the political project at stake in The Prince, especially in this last chapter runs against both the interests and the ideology of the Catholic Church in Italy, some commentators have argued that Machiavelli appeals to providence merely in order to fool the Church and the Medici. This article argues that it is not necessary to appeal to such exoteric readings of the 26th chapter of The Prince if one envisages the possibility that Machiavelli may have drawn upon an alternative, non-Christian conception of divine providence coming from medieval Arabic and Jewish sources that is more compatible with his desire to return to Roman republican principles than is the Christian conception of divine providence.

A study of Edmund Burke's theory of history has not, to my knowledge, been undertaken before. There are two principal justifications for it. The first is that since Burke is, as some have claimed, “the principal founder” of the Romantic theory of history, his theory of history, as one aspect of the complicated association of thought and feeling called Romanticism, is important in the history of ideas. The second reason is that almost all of Burke's politics depends on his view of history or, at least, can be explained by it.

Among environmentalists today, there is a widespread opposition to the “Enlightenment project.” Deep ecologists, in particular, aspire to ground environmental ethics and politics in premodern modes of life and thought. This move fails to account for the myriad important connections between Enlightenment themes and those of contemporary ecophilosophy. Notions of a public sphere, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and deep time, as well as new approaches to the self and doubts about the market, persist from the Enlightenment into current environmental theory and practice. The essay warns against severing environmentalism from its Enlightenment antecedents and urges instead an ethic drawn from the revered nature writer and ecologist Aldo Leopold, who was profoundly indebted to Enlightenment ideals.

In recent years a rift has opened up between some currents of environmental philosophy and the legacy of the Enlightenment. Prominent eco-philosophers have blamed the latter for our contemporary environmental crisis. William Ophuls, for example, describes the Enlightenment as a desperate attempt to defy the ecological implications of the laws of thermodynamics by erecting a political order based on untrammeled growth rather than selflimiting virtue. One of the reviewers of Ophuls's book regards this indictment as “old news”; he criticizes Ophuls, in fact, for clinging to the Enlightenment paradigm in seeking to derive environmental ethics from natural laws. It would be fair to say that many, if not most, green intellectuals have come to define their enterprise as a counter-Enlightenment.

In his History of England, David Hume suggests that the doctrine of resistance should be concealed from the populace. But this suggestion in the very public location of the History has the effect of revealing this doctrine as much as concealing it. How should we understand this perplexing rhetorical strategy? Hume's paradoxical rhetoric is a symptom of the problem that the right of rebellion poses for every political society. On the one hand, the right of rebellion undeniably exists; on the other, no regime can recognize that right fully. The problem of rebellion thus reveals the simultaneous necessity and limitations of law. Hume's playful, transparent rhetoric is intended to compel us to reflect upon the deeper tension between liberty and authority in every political society and to furnish us with an example of how that tension might be prudently and honestly handled.

At a pivotal moment in the History of England, Hume writes: “If ever, on any occasion, it were laudable to hide truth from the populace, it must be confessed, that the doctrine of resistance affords such an example; and that all speculative reasoners ought to observe, with regard to this principle, the same cautious silence which the laws, in every species of government, have ever prescribed to themselves.” On its face, this is a recommendation that the “doctrine of resistance,” perhaps the most important principle of modern liberalism, be kept a secret, hidden away from the people at large.

“Two loves,” St. Augustine says in De Civitate Dei, “have made two cities, love of self unto contempt of God the Earthly City, love of God unto contempt of self the Heavenly City,” the City of God. These “cities”—civitates—are, of course, not states, but societies; St. Augustine himself tells us that the term civitas is an equivalent of the term society. They are societies, however, of a special kind. The Ciyitds Dei is a “mystical” society of all the elect, past, present and future. The Civitas Terrena, the Earthly City, is identical neither with the earthly state nor with any particular earthly state such as the Roman Empire, nor with any merely human society, it too is a “mystical” society, that of the impious, the damned.

The name of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), to the public at large, still lies in the shadow of moralistic condemnation. The anti-Machiavellian propaganda of the Counter-Reformation concentrated on the principles of political craftsmanship, developed in the Prince, as its target; and, apart from a narrower circle of historians, Machiavelli has ever since remained the author of the famous work, while the morality of his advice to rulers has remained the great issue of evaluation. It is hardly necessary to say that such preoccupations with moralistic propaganda cannot form the basis for a critical analysis of Machiavelli's ideas. All we can retain from the caricature is the consciousness that something extraordinary has occurred, a severe break with the traditions of treating political questions, the consciousness that with the author of the Prince we are on the threshold of a new, “modern” era. Even this element of the caricature, however, needs qualification. The furious concentration on the evil book has created the illusion that its author was a solitary figure, something like a moral freak. That, of course, is not so. There is nothing solitary or enigmatic about Machiavelli. His ideas, like everybody's, have a solid pre-history stretching over generations; and they were shared in his time by others. Historically unique, however, is the genius of Machiavelli as well as the strange disposition of circumstances directing his genius toward the crystallization of die ideas of die age in the symbol of die Prince who, through fortuna and virtù, will be the savior and restorer of Italy.

In contrast to the United States, where there is little or no public financing of parties and candidates below the presidential level, the German “party state” grants generous subsidies in a variety of forms to the political parties, though not to individual candidates. The German Basic Law (constitution), various laws passed by the national and Land (state) parliaments, and the Federal Constitutional Court have been important factors in the development of a complex and costly system of public financing for election campaigns, parliamentary parties and party foundations and for free television and radio time and billboard advertising space. In addition, the federal government incurs large tax expenditures through the encouragement of tax deductible contributions to political parties. In spite of the crucial role which public financing has assumed, recent scandals have occurred involving illegal contributions from business interests. A revised party law of 1984 and a Federal Constitutional Court decision in July 1986 have brought about significant changes, but controversy in Germany over public financing and the impact of recent reforms continues.

The charge that the Reformation heralded a triumph of confessional party over religion and fostered a spirit of division, discord, and strife is not an unfamiliar one. The thought of Jean Calvin, in particular, has been found responsible, by Karl Barth among others, for rousing its followers to militancy. As this essay will show, however, Calvin's actual positions point in a rather more irenic direction. Thus the first section of the essay addresses common misconceptions about the role of military metaphor in Calvin's writings. Section II draws attention to the integral importance for Calvin's theology of the Gospel call to unity, concord, and peace not only among Christians but all mankind. Section III examines Calvin's cautious treatment of actual fighting and war, and section IV draws together the argument by reference to Calvin's discussion of political authority and the tasks of the state.

Contrary to Arendt's claims, totalitarianism is not unique to the modern world. It is found occasionally in past ages and is exemplified in Shaka's rule over the Zulu. It is not clear whether the ideological “logic” of modern dictators differs from the seemingly paranoid behavior of Shaka or of certain ancient despots. Indeed, if Aristotle's account is accurate, certain extreme despots, by definition, treated citizens as slaves or household laborers. They thus projected the private realm into the public, effectively abolishing both; Arendt is wrong to say that modern dictators were the first to do so.

The conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union has prevented the United Nations from becoming the international government of the great powers which the Charter intended it to be. That conflict has paralyzed the Security Council as an agency of international government. In the few instances when it has been able to act as an agency of international government, it has been able to do so either, as in the beginning of the Korean War, by the accidental and temporary absence of the Soviet Union or, as on the Indonesian issue, by a fortuitous and exceptional coincidence of interests.

Scholars have noticed that Edmund Burke's impassioned economic tract in favor of market liberty, Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, appears to be at odds with his political philosophy and rhetorical temperament of prudence and restraint. This essay challenges this interpretation. I contend that Burke's emotional statements in the writing reflect strong continuities with his earlier reflections and political activities regarding economic issues. From his earliest days in Parliament to his final years, Burke was a firm supporter of commercial liberty, both domestic and foreign. I conclude by arguing that we cannot properly understand Burke's belief in gradual reform unless we grasp his idea of incremental commercial improvement.

That Machiavelli is an innovator of political philosophy is universally acknowledged. The program of innovation is outlined in The Prince, chapter 15: he wants to depart from the orders of his predecessors. The goal of the new philosophy is “effectual truth,” and not the imagination of it. Actual states, not “imagined republics and kingdoms” are its real concerns. The distinction between how one lives and how one ought to live is still made, but only in order to point out that what is done should never be abandoned for what should be done. Preservation of the state has emerged as the new summum bonum, in the interest of which everything becomes permitted. The distinction between virtue and vice is no longer important; and the new type of ruler, if he is good, must learn how to be not good. The Preface to Discourses I also proposes a similar program: he is determined “to enter a path not yet trodden by anyone” and to introduce “new modes and orders.”

TheMultiracial society of South Africa is unique and fascinating. In addition to an African majority, it includes the Cape colored community, the Indians originally introduced as indentured labor on the Natal sugar estates, and a large and long-established European minority from within which Afrikaner nationalism has emerged as the predominant political power. These groups have been progressively integrated in a modern and dynamic economy and consequently subjected to the tensions of an industrial revolution.