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@article{ART001876450},
author={Bomin Kim},
title={The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty},
journal={Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University},
issn={1598-3021},
year={2014},
volume={71},
number={2},
pages={357-385},
doi={10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357}

TY - JOUR
AU - Bomin Kim
TI - The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty
JO - Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University
PY - 2014
VL - 71
IS - 2
PB - Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University
SP - 357
EP - 385
SN - 1598-3021
AB - This study offers an Agambenian interpretation of Machiavelli’s use ofhistorical examples in The Prince. I show how, even as Machiavelli insistson the impunity with which the prince can and should transgress traditionalnorms of political action for the sake of his personal safety and thestability of the body politic, his historical examples, initially appearingfragmentarily for illustrative purposes, gradually snowball into stories ofthe fall, as well as the rise, of princes. If the prince can rule on himselfas being exceptional to conventional ethical and moral parameters of statecraft,he can, in turn, also be ruled as exceptional to the safeguards afforded by traditional moralities. Without being explicit about it,Machiavelli effectively anticipates the paradoxical duality of sovereign exceptionality,famously conceptualized by Giorgio Agamben, according towhich the necessary correlative to the prince’s capacity to create homosacer is his suppressed identity as another homo sacer. The duality ironicallyopens up the possibility that Machiavelli’s own discourse with itsemphasis on serving the current ruler of the state can indiscriminatelyserve the illegitimate, as well as the legitimate, ruler and even would-beusurpers. It is this consciousness of the paradoxical nature of his own discoursethat motivates Machiavelli’s insistence on martial virtuosity as theonly princely virtue, his categorical distinction between princely virtù andthe subject’s virtue, and his call to Lorenzo Medici to bring order to Italyin a state of primordial chaos.
KW - Niccolò Machiavelli;Giorgio Agamben;Carl Schmitt;exemplar history;advice literature;sovereignty;the state of exception
DO - 10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357
ER -

Bomin Kim. (2014). The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty. Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University, 71(2), 357-385.

Bomin Kim. 2014, "The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty", Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University, vol.71, no.2 pp.357-385. Available from: doi:10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357

Bomin Kim "The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty" Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 71.2 pp.357-385 (2014) : 357.

Bomin Kim. The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty. 2014; 71(2), 357-385. Available from: doi:10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357

Bomin Kim. "The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty" Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 71, no.2 (2014) : 357-385.doi: 10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357

Bomin Kim. The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty. Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University, 71(2), 357-385. doi: 10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357

Bomin Kim. The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty. Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University. 2014; 71(2) 357-385. doi: 10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357

Bomin Kim. The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty. 2014; 71(2), 357-385. Available from: doi:10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357

Bomin Kim. "The Karma of Power: The“Both Sides” of Machiavellian Exemplarity in The Prince and the Paradox of Agambenian Sovereignty" Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 71, no.2 (2014) : 357-385.doi: 10.17326/jhsnu.71.2.201405.357