The Revolution in the Concept of Politics

T HE BIRTH OF THE CONCEPT of of in the sixteenth century and its diffusion in seventeenth-century Europe involved a revolution in the understanding of politics.' As is well known, reason of state is the doctrine that asserts that the preservation of the -understood simply as dominion (legitimate or illegitimate) -can be pursued by any means, just or unjust.2 The emergence of this conception was a revolution in the sense of representing a profound change in the meaning and scope of the concept of politics as well as that of political man and political science. In spite of its magnitude, however, contemporary scholars have paid little or no attention to it. One is tempted to speak of a forgotten revolution. Most of the traditional historians of political thought do not even mention it.3 Students of of state, on the other hand, have not adequately clarified its historical meaning and implications. Friedrich Meinecke, in his seminal work Die Idee der Slaatrason in der Moderne Geschichte, correctly remarks that the doctrine of of is a product of the Western world. He also stresses, however, that raison d'etat is the fundamental principle of national conduct, the State's first Law of Motion. Thus of has always existed and will always do so: the modem world did not create but discovered it through the genius of the heathen Machiavelli. Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether Machiavelli was the true spiritual father of of state, the most serious weakness of Meinecke's work is that it does not offer us any indication as to why sixteenth-century political thinkers felt the need to invent an expression that was not available in the current language of the time.4