The modern prince is the political party, not a person.

Evidence

The modern prince, the myth-prince, cannot be a real person, a concrete individual. It can only be an organism, a complex element of society in which a collective will, which has already been recognised and has to some extent asserted itself in action, begins to take concrete form. History has already provided this organism, and it is the political party—the first cell in which there come together germs of a collective will tending to become universal and total. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 605

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core concept definition: Gramsci’s reworking of Machiavelli’s prince into the collective party organism.
• XREF: This is the scaffolding concept the reader will carry into Islamophobia readings about collective political will and hegemony — connects to Gramsci’s hegemony toolkit.
• SEED: Article angle: how the ‘collective will’ concept explains why social movements need institutional carriers (parties) to become historical forces.