Conflict as Legitimacy: A Modern Case for Machiavellianism
Abstract
This paper reexamines the foundations of political legitimacy by shifting focus from virtue, justice, or consent to the management of conflict. Traditional theories, from Locke’s consent-based social contract to Rawls’s principles of justice, presume a level of agreement and trust that contemporary societies often lack. Drawing on Hobbes’s account of the state of nature and modern theories of collective action, the paper argues that governments exist because conflict is inevitable and cooperation fragile. Their central function is to monopolize force and make collective action possible. Revisiting Machiavelli, the paper contends that legitimacy is not achieved by eliminating conflict but by institutionalizing it. Durable political order depends less on consensus than on the capacity of institutions to channel division into lawful, predictable, and stable forms.
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