Harvey Mansfield Jr.'s influential book Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power, which examines the historic definitions and scope of executive power, is the subject of an Oct. 16 and 17 conference that will bring some 15 scholars together at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies.The conference is presented by the John Marshall International Center for the Study of Statesmanship at the Jepson School, which is directed by professors Gary L. McDowell and Terry L. Price.
In this Q&A, the conference organizers discuss the enduring lessons of the book and why now is an especially good time to re-examine the topic of executive power.
Why build a conference around this particular book and the topic of executive power?
Harvey Mansfield, Jr.'s Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power is arguably the most learned book on the nature and extent of executive power ever written. Given that this is a time when questions abound about the limits of executive power, not least on issues such as the war on terror and the handling of enemy combatants, it seemed a particularly important moment to pause and reflect on the deepest issues of that power. It is also the 20th anniversary of when Taming the Prince was published.
Could you give a little background on the book?
Rather than focus on the mere practice of executive governance, in the book Mansfield excavates the philosophic foundations of the idea of the power itself, situating the origins of the modern understanding squarely in the teachings of Niccolo Machiavelli. But to show how that is best understood, he offers as well a survey of those contributors to what he calls the "pre-history" of executive power - such writers as Aristotle, Aquinas, and Marsilius of Padua. But the real story is how Machiavelli's infamous prince comes to be tamed and ultimately placed within the republican and constitutional context of the American presidency.
Harvey Mansfield, Jr. will be the keynote speaker for the conference. He is a man who has well-known views on a variety of subjects...
Mansfield is a scholar's scholar, to be sure, but he is also a most impressive public intellectual. In addition to his scholarly books and articles, not to mention his translations of Machiavelli and Tocqueville, he has also been honored as the Jefferson Lecturer at the National Endowment for the Humanities and writes frequently in the public press on the most pressing issues of the day.
As part of the conference Mansfield will deliver a lecture on his reflections on the book after 20 years. What are the enduring lessons from the book and what are the unresolved questions on the subject?
There still remains a question - or perhaps many questions - about both the nature of executive power and its proper extent. What does it mean to speak of the necessity of energy in the power of a constitutional executive? Is the nature of presidential power unitary, as some recently have insisted, or is it part of a more republication or democratic web of institutional arrangements meant to tie it down from potential mischief? Was Alexander Hamilton correct when he insisted in The Federalist that "a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government"?
In addition to Mansfield's lecture there will be panel discussions on the philosophic foundations of executive power, America and the constitutionalization of executive power, and executive power in contemporary politics.
The panel discussions will provide a forum for the presentation of views from a variety of perspectives, and, as with any successful conference, it is our hope that thinking about executive power will be both broadened and deepened at a time when public discourse most needs it.