A Modern Interpretation of Machiavelli's Political Cycle.

Abstract

In the Discourses, Machiavelli refers early on to Polybius' cycle of regimes; however, he will not make much use of it afterwards. He still refers to a particular cycle, but one implicit in his writings and substantially different from Polybius. I propose in this paper to reconstruct Machiavelli's own political cycle, using the modern language of rationality and emotions in an agent-based model. Our starting point will be a list of individual motivations, their interplay in political action, and their effects on the regime. We will find in Machiavelli's work a model founded on three types of regimes -- tyranny, principality, and republic -- and a cycle of foundation, succession, degeneration, corruption, and refoundation of the regimes.