Browsing by Subject "Autocracy"
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Item Open Access Good Arms and Good Laws: Machiavelli, Regime-Type, and Violent Oppression(2014) Wittels, William DavidThe problem of violent oppression is a persistent one. Every regime - autocratic or democratic - has an obligation to prevent the violent oppression of its citizens. My dissertation "Good Arms and Good Laws: Machiavelli, Regime-Type, and Violent Oppression" uses Machiavelli's understanding of different regime-types and their political dynamics to explore the means by which democracies and autocracies alike can prevent violent oppression within their borders. My exploration produces a standard for praiseworthy political regimes and action, based on what Machiavelli identifies as the people's desire "not to be oppressed."
Machiavelli's analysis of this problem of political violence leads to the conclusion that all types of regimes are united in needing an interdependent, yet competitive political relationship between their leading political figure(s) and the people at large. Different kinds of regimes vary, however, in the roles that their primary political classes must play in order to prevent oppression within their borders. After using the Florentine Histories to identify the lines of thinking central to Machiavelli's work, in chapter 1 I turn to Machiavelli's discussion of the citizen-militia in The Art of War. In chapters 2 and 3, I detail Machiavelli's recommendations for praiseworthy principalities in the Prince, where Machiavelli actually exhorts princes to arm their people (chapter 2) while simultaneously crafting for them the political ethics for which the text is notorious (chapter 3). In Chapters 4 and 5, I detail Machiavelli's recommendations for praiseworthy republics in the Discourses on Livy, where Machiavelli charges the people with policing the elites that would engage in projects of oppression if left to their own devices (chapter 4) while simultaneously praising elites who help to create and maintain mechanisms of violence (chapter 5). Machiavelli's analysis compels us to recognize that it is the particulars of these interdependent, yet competitive relationships between the people and their leading political figure(s) that define a regime and that our praise of that regime ought not depend categorically on whether the people rule, but rather whether the a regime's political classes effectively cooperate to prevent violent oppression.
Item Open Access King Democracy: Do Democratic Nations Mitigate Conflict Over Transboundary Freshwater Resources Better Than Other Nations?(2016-06-27) Abendroth, KathrynThe prospect of water wars and conflict over water are ideas that are frequently dramatized in media and also studied by scholars. It is well-established that bona fide wars are not started over water resources, but conflict over water does exist and is not well understood. One would suppose, as scholars often do, that dyads composed of two democratic nations would be the best at mitigating conflict and promoting cooperation over freshwater resources. General conflict research supports that supposition, as does the argument that democracies must be best at avoiding conflicts over resources because they excel at distributing public goods. This study provides empirical evidence showing how interstate dyads composed of various governance types conflict and cooperate over general water and water quantity issues relative to each other. After evaluating the water conflict mitigating ability of democratic-democratic, democratic-autocratic, and autocratic-autocratic dyads, this study found that democracy-autocracy dyads are less likely to cooperate over general water issues and water quantity issues than the other two dyad types. Nothing certain can be said about how the three dyad types compare to each other in terms of likelihood to conflict over water quantity issues. However, two-autocracy dyads seem to be most likely to cooperate over water quantity issues. These findings support the established belief that democratic-autocratic pairs struggle to cooperate while also encouraging greater scrutiny of the belief that democracies must be best at cooperating over water resources.