The Prince
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli provides an analysis on how to govern and maintain power in a principality. In the first five chapters, he defines the three ways a monarch can acquire his dominion: either he inherits it, whether he creates a new one, or annexes territories, and further discusses how to govern them. Machiavelli states that hereditary principalities are less problematic than the mixed ones since newly acquired dominion tend to be more rebellious. The ruler must therefore colonize them and allow citizen to keep their laws or annihilate the governmental structure. In order to illustrate his point, he analyses the success of Alexander the Great conquest in Iran. He then considers five possible ways to acquire power and become a prince (Ch. VI-XI). First, a private citizen can become a ruler due to his own qualities or virtues, like Cyrus or Romulus. A second way to become a ruler is through other's power or favor. Hence a man like Cesare Borgia gained power due to his father support, but lost it when the latter died. For Machiavelli, getting power so quickly can be dangerous since the new monarch might lack knowledge on how to govern. In the third case, he uses the example of Agathocles of Sicily to illustrate power
Although most countries today have a democratic system, or no longer need fortress to protect themselves for instance, his remarks are still pertinent. On the other hand, the Exxon-Valdez oil-spill case is an example of deceptive PR. Indeed, not much was done for the Alaskan community and the corporation ended up being perceived in a very negative way by the general public. XXI-XXIV) how a monarch should chose his allies, ministers and protect himself from flatterers. The fact that a ruler is made by and for the people, for example, is still accurate. He put on the face of virtue to deceive his citizens and in so doing manipulated the perception they had of him. Although The Prince was in its time read this way, Machiavelli does not directly support monarchs' immoral acts; he rather describes the consequences of fear on citizens. He describes the virtues commonly assimilated with a prince and concludes that some "virtues" will lead to a prince's destruction, whereas some "vices" will enable him to survive. Rulers and tyrants, such as Hitler and Mussolini, used this treatise for centuries to conquer, understand the mechanism of power, and avoid being overthrown. He describes the advantages of being generous or greedy, merciful or severe, deceitful or honest. The emphasis on the interdependent relationship is one of the key elements of PR and Machiavelli sees it as a key to power. " The text provides a rather tangible and practical analysis of power, which is not necessarily cynical. A PR campaign that built trust for instance, was the "Tylenol" case as handled by Johnson & Johnson. Hence, this perspective leads to the question: to what extent are PR's goals and methods different from those of ancient monarchs? Indeed, considering that some public relation practitioners work in the power sphere as politicians' counselors, for example, and that they create an image to help them acquire power, shows their knowledge about its mechanisms. A counter example, of course, would be the one of President Clinton as he voluntarily lied in court about his relation with Monica Lewinsky.
Common topics in this essay:
Florentine Republic,
PR Machiavelli,
Niccolo Machiavelli,
XIX Machiavelli,
Hitler Mussolini,
Indeed Alaskan,
Agathocles Sicily,
Ch XXI-XXIV,
Monica Lewinsky,
Cesare Borgia,
maintain power,
principles human,
illustrate analyses,
acquire power,
machiavelli provides,
human nature,
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Acceptance Essays
