Search results

Niccolò Machiavelli has acquired a prominent position in the history of political thought. Machiavelli is probably most notorious as a teacher of evil, a political realist advising tyrants and a proud proponent of Machiavellism, a devilish politics that astoundingly bears his name. This image, however, is far from being the only one. Sorting through the history of political thought, Machiavelli suddenly appears ubiquitous and dressed in various disguises. Historical interpretations of Machiavelli's writings range from a predecessor of totalitarianism to a proponent of subversive republicanism or even radical democracy, from the first political scientist to have discovered the ideal of value-free political analysis, to a liberal, a fascist, or a communist avant-la-lettre to name just a few.

The majority of Thais live in rural areas and depend on rural livelihoods. They have been drawn into political conflict over the environment by the mounting pressure that modernisation exerts on the sources of their sustenance. The environmental issues that concern most Thais are essentially livelihood and welfare issues. In order to explain the prominence local and national environmental issues have attained today in Thailand, the authors review the development of environmental politics at the national level during the last 15 years. (DÜI-Sen)

In this brief essay, I take up Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964) to discuss key social and psychic energies at work across the United States today. Although they have longstanding roots in the United States, these paranoid tendencies have only intensified in recent years. I see this in two, intertwined ways–new social and psychic vulnerabilities as well as the rise of so-called "eliminationist" rhetoric.