Principality and republic are not opposed but hypostatize authority and universality
Evidence
Russo, in his Prolegomeni , makes The Prince into Machiavelli’s treatise on dictatorship (moment of authority and of the individual), and The Discourses into his treatise on hegemony (moment of the universal and of liberty). Russo’s observation is correct, although there are allusions to the moment of hegemony or consent in The Prince too, b eside those to authority or force. Similarly, the observation is correct that there is no opposition in principle between Principato [see note 51 on p. ] and republic; what is involved is rather the hypostasis of the two moments of authority and of universality. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2074
Categorization
- DEFINE: The distinction between dictatorship/force and hegemony/consent as complementary rather than opposed political moments.
- XREF: connects to: Political universals like nation and state resist reduction to their parts — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 731; Universal provision as a right necessarily implies centralized state administration — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 387