Jonathan POWELL,

Noul Machiavelli. Cum se gestionează puterea în lumea modernă

[The New Machiavelli. How to Wield Power in the Modern World],trans. Alexandru Șiclovan,

Cartier, Chișinău, 2012, 504 pp.

The work of the great Florentine thinker, written merely in a few months, between June 1513 and January 1514, has inspired many contemporary authors, who tried to fit the reality of the politics and principles of modern governance in the matrix of the governance pattern created by Machiavelli’s principles. Among these we mention The New Prince (1999), the work of Dick Morris, councillor of the American president Bill Clinton, and The New Machiavelli, Jonathan Powell’s book. Jonathan Powell was the chief of staff of the British prime -minister Tony Blair, starting with his coming into power in 1997. In November 2012 the work was published in Romanian by Cartier publishing company from Chisinau.

The New Machiavelli is made up of 12 chapters and the title of each of them starts with a quote by Nicolo Machiavelli in The Prince. Therefore, even at a first glance, one may retrieve from the Machiavelli’s thinking its impressive actuality for the current political context: flatterers must be avoided; while defamation is damaging for the republics, public accusations are useful; the arrogance of the one who reaches power in a republic etc.

What Machiavelli wanted to do in The Prince was to give advice to a leader as to how to get to a governing position and how to maintain power. Furthermore, he depicted the mandatory qualities of a prince and gave advice in regard to exerting his power. Powell’s worth is his attempt to make a comparison, over a gap of centuries, between Machiavelli’s advice and Tony Blair’s way of acting while in power. This kind of awakening makes us conclude, almost with no doubt, that there are no undiscovered situations in politics and that which was an opportunity for Machiavelli’ Prince may be of great use for a modern Europe prince. Could we argue against the following thoughts of Machiavelli: the prince who obtains the power of a country by means of a favour from its inhabitants must weigh carefully the reasons for which they made this possible; and if it proves that they did not act due to a natural affection towards him and only because of discontent for the previous leadership, then it will be extremely difficult for him to keep them as friends if it will be impossible to appease them.

Jonathan Powell highlights Blair’s qualities that favoured the carrying out of his mandate. And this subject is treated through the grid of Machiavelli’s text that treasured more than two qualities that allow a man to assert himself: courage and intelligence, and these two qualities represent the core for leadership in any area. In politics the fact of having courage is seldom proven by the ability to make complex decisions and by the will to take risks when the result is uncertain. Powell shows this through Tony Blair’s working manner. Tony’s almost instantaneous decision to candidate for party leader, when John Smith died in 1994 proves his courage. A more fearful politician would have moved away from Gordon’s path, his older partner in development of the New Labourism, but he felt that Gordon missed his chance (p. 57). Through the vision shared by Powell a manifestation of courage is shown as well when one confronts the opposition. Tony did this in his election campaign in 2005, exploring the issue of immigration, a hot topic in the British politics, by which the labourists attempted to win votes of the traditional conservatives. Tony praised the remarkable advantages that immigration had brought to Britain in a public speech. This did not bring votes to them but blocked any arguments for conservatives for the rest of the campaign. Had this issue been ignored, there would have been a gradual decrease of the labourists’ votes (p. 60).

By analysing the qualities that a political leader must have, the author comes back to Machiavelli’s thinking, to later find its relevance for the modern era. Machiavelli considers that besides the ability to make decisions, a successful prince must be born with good political instincts. Some leaders choose the perfect tone, while others are tone dead. Powel states that Tony’s reaction to the news of Princess Diana’s death, on 31^st of august 1997, was an example of perfect tone. He had an instinct concerning the public’s state of mind. The author reveals a quote from his diary: he definitely feels a real pain… Especially since the phrase People’s Princess belongs to Blair. Besides courage and instinct, the leaders must acquire five qualities: competence, ability to communicate, charisma, perspective and charm. Just as Machiavelli said about new leaders, a prince must offer astonishing proofs of his abilities (p. 72). In a unique manner the author shares his thoughts about the third quality necessary for a political leader – charisma (p. 87). In Powell’s opinion, charisma may be obtained; it is not an inherited quality. Even people without inborn charisma, insists the author, such as Mikhail Gorbaciov and John Major, can make heads turn when entering a room, due to their dignified figure, because of what Max Weber called habitualness of charisma. An essential ingredient of the charisma is optimism. Powell comes with relevant arguments from electoral races: Blair versus Major, Bush Jr. versus Gore, Obama versus McCain, Clinton versus Bush Sr. etc. Tony had an optimistic spirit that appealed to people – writes his councillor.

Even if well-known, we can not neglect this allegoric comparison of Machiavelli, which recommends that a prince be at the same time lion and fox, because the lion can not dodge traps, neither the fox wolves. Therefore, one must be fox to avoid traps and lion to chase away the wolves. A leader must have the ferocity of lions and all the cunning of foxes. Tony was a master of constructive ambiguity. The most spectacular demonstration of his fox qualities was when Tony managed the northern-Ireland issues, states Powell (p. 209).

Is it better to be loved or feared? It is Machiavelli’s question full of meaning for the current political life. Machiavelli’s answer was this: since love and fear cannot coexist, if we must choose, it is safer to be feared than to be loved. The author states that when Tony became the leader of the Labourist Party, he was considered both by conservatives and press to be a Bambi, a weak and defenceless chess-piece, which may be easily overcome by the situation. It was extraordinary how fast Bambi changed into Stalin, a dictator stepping on the others’ wishes (p. 209).

It is important that, since the 16^th century, Machiavelli granted importance to public opinion. He writes in Speeches: It is not without reason the motive for which the voice of the people is like the voice of God, because the public opinion has a remarkable accuracy in prognosis… Powell follows-up on the importance of the public opinion in the modern political system, confirming the importance of the public opinion for a prime-minister. The Survey of the public opinion is an essential instrument of the prime-ministers, but social surveys, such as intelligence secrets, must be handled with care. Without these, a modern leader is blind. At the same time, the author warns that social surveys represent an image of the past, not a vision of the future, thus a leader uses it as if steering while looking behind the boat. The numbers help to find your position in the ocean and may tell something about the state of the waves, but they do not guide the course. That is why a wise leader must use social surveys as an instrument, not as a substitute to his own political instincts.

Of course, we may not agree with the author, if we talk about quality research of the public opinion by focus-groups. But Powell interferes, stating that these are subjective and seldom reveal the visions of those who hold the power (p. 211). During his period of stay on Number 10, Tony Blair was backed by two American experts from the staff of the president Bill Clinton, concerning the research of the public opinion.

Another useful moment for those practicing the big politics is the so-called pseudo-agenda of the prime-minister. Powell stated that Blair’s day of work was a congested one. Basically, he had no time to think at the big picture. That is why, to overcome this situation, the staff began to insert fictive meetings in his agenda at least an hour or two in the middle of the day, (p. 265). The prime minister sometimes did not understand the code applied by his councillors and requested these meetings to be cancelled.

The relations between the political leader and the press are a different compartment of governance. Machiavelli says that it is not essential for a Prince to have all the qualities enlisted above, but it is mandatory to act as if he had them all. A prince should… be careful not to slip a word from his mouth which may not live -up to those five qualities, because people judge more with their eyes, since they see many but few can understand.

The same thing could be said in regard to the leaders of our days. This phenomenon can be made and controlled with the help of the favourable media. The author admits that each time when things became complicated, it was necessary to refresh the contract with journalists. Blair’s staff made, in this regard, invitations to dinner for chief-editors in the small dining room of Number 10. And there plans for media coverage were made (p. 291). Even if, the author admits, the intimate contact between the leader and the media is not always recommended, Machiavelli says that a prince must always think how to avoid actions which could make him hated and despised. A careful prime-minister, advises Powell, will keep a certain distance from the press and will see them so rarely that the journalists will consider the meetings a special event.

At the end of the book, Jonathan Powell writes that the prime-ministers are preoccupied with their legacies. Even in 1998 he suggested that the world will remember Tony Blair for Northern Ireland, the constitutional reform and the political migration towards the centre. However, Tony Blair’s main political will is the change of face of the British politics.

That which finally brings down all leaders is arrogance. The arrogance did not affect Tony Blair. Machiavelli is poorly understood, says the author at the beginning. The same happens with Tony Blair, writes Powell at the end. When responsible history is written, I will be surprised if Tony Blair will not be seen as one of Machiavelli’s great princes, one upon whom Fortuna smiled and who had the courage and intelligence to take advantage of it.

The book is an attempt to learn a lesson about leadership and about the exercise of power for future practitioners. It deserves a special place in the library of any intellectuals who are interested in the mechanism of governance.