Inspired by John Rawls and his life's work Justice as Fairness, I sought to measure how much political empathy a person has and then compare this to decision-making styles in search of any relation between the two. Political empathy is a term to refer to one's willingness to utilize governmental policy to help those who are the neediest because of the understanding that humans deserve equal treatment since no one is more human than anyone else. Because of current research I found that I can test political empathy because of empathy’s correlation with political ideology; specifically, that those who are more liberal have more empathy. I test participant’s ideology in a normal setting and then present them with the concept of Rawls’ Original Position to see if they shift more one way when presented with this idea which is supposed to make them think more empathetically.<br/>I have two hypothesis that I cover: first, that more people will shift in a more liberal direction between the two tests, and second, that those who have more political empathy make political decisions based more on emotion rather than facts and reason. I tested decision-making through a myriad of tests within a focus group so I could get multiple angles at the issue. My first hypothesis was proven incorrect and while I didn’t have enough participants in my focus groups to make a clear determination, it didn’t look like there was any correlation between political ideology and decision-making styles.
Since the global financial crisis of 2007-8, interest in worker-cooperatives and alternative forms of organization has surged. Mondragon, located in the Basque region of Spain, represents the largest federation of worker-cooperatives around the world, consisting of 98 cooperatives and 143 subsidiaries, which earned a total revenue of $14.5 billion in 2019. While previous attempts to establish a similar model have historically reached limited success, Mondragon has achieved a unique balance of remaining economically viable, on the one hand, and staying true to its founding principles of democratic governance, on the other. This paper sets out to analyze the democratic structure and the cooperative culture at the heart of the Mondragon model, as well as the new type of human relationship that it fosters. In particular, this relationship is one in which individual well-being is bound up with communal well-being that avoids the antagonistic clash between the capital and labor.
After this examination of necessary republican components, I describe the institution of constitutional dictatorship, which I devised based on the ideas of Machiavelli and the legal theorist Carl Schmitt. I then use all the institutions and ideas discussed within the framework of a thought exercise to examine possible recommendations for action by a constitutional dictatorship operating in Afghanistan, which are to bolster the Afghan National Army and neutralize the corrupting influence of Afghanistan’s “gentlemen,” or selfishly-motivated partisan leaders. Although the recommendations attempt to be as close to feasible policy as possible, they are not written with the goal of actual implementation in mind due to their lack of empirical basis.
I conclude by examining possible domestic and strategic implications of these hypothetical recommendations. This portion is also not empirically-based, merely concluding the examination of the thought exercise. An appendix uses visual aids to demonstrate the composition of the resulting Afghan government.
This paper is an in-depth analysis of the actions and rhetoric of Donald Trump’s presidency from the perspective of Machiavelli’s most famed work, 'The Prince'. Its premise is born from two articles claiming Donald Trump was either the American Machiavelli or the Anti-Machiavelli, and sets out to find out which title is the most accurate. The end findings suggest that President Trump did not follow enough rules in 'The Prince' to be Machiavellian, but that Trumpism as a political doctrine has the potential grow into a modern day Machiavellianism.