Machiavelli's republicanism and Republican Leadership

This lecture aims at providing students with a philosophical backdrop to see about Machiavelli’s republicanism particularly with respect to his counsel for republican leadership. Examining Machiavelli’s departure from the classical version of republicanism, this lecture elaborates his significantly distinctive view of republican leadership that cannot be confined within the Ciceronian visions of virtuous leadership. Concomitantly, analyzing Machiavelli’s teachings of actual and potential princes, this lecture asserts that his counsel for princely leadership draws a peculiar type of republican leadership that would forge a salutary change of political regime without upholding a populist desire for subversion. The upshot of this lecture is that we need to see Machiavelli’s own regulative principle with which a successful prince with tyrannical leadership can be steered ultimately to serve for realizing the republican ideal of liberty which embraces not only non-domination but also emancipation.

KWAK, Jun-Hyeok is Yixian Professor of Philosophy (Zhuhai) at Sun Yat-sen University. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2002. Before joining SYSU in 2016, he taught various universities including Korea University. His research interests lie at the crossroads of the history of political philosophy from Socrates to Machiavelli, contemporary political theories, and comparative philosophy. He has published numerous articles and books on political philosophy, comparative philosophy, and global justice in various languages, including his recent works, “Individuality with Relationality” (Philosophy East and West 2023), “A Confucian Reappraisal of Christian Love” (Religions 2023), “Confucian Role-Ethics with Non-Domination: Civil Compliance in Times of Crisis” (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2022), “Global Justice without Self-centrism” (Dao 2021), “Deliberation with Persuasion: the ‘Political’ in Aristotle’s Politics” (AJPS 2021), 《西方政治哲学导论》(monograph, 中国社会科学出版社, 2023), and Modernities in Northeast Asia (edited, Routledge 2023). Currently, he is writing his forthcoming monograph, Machiavelli and Republican Leadership: Conflict, Innovation, and Education of Potential Tyrant (Routledge, 2025), and he is serving as General Editor of the Routledge Series of Political Theories in East Asian Context and co-editor of Journal of Social and Political Philosophy.