Course : Authority and Leadership from Thucydides to Adam Smith
LEPE1 - Despina Vertzagia, Georgios Steiris, Spiros Tegos
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Display all units
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I. Introduction: Authority, Power, and Political Leadership
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II. Thucydides and Xenophon: Political Leadership, Power, and the Art of Ruling
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III. Plato and Cicero: Political Knowledge, Virtue, and Auctoritas
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IV. The Machiavellian leader 1
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V. The Machiavellian leader 2
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VI. The Machiavellian leader 3
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VII. Thomas Hobbes: Authorization, Sovereignty, and Political Obligation
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VIII. Authority of the assembly and democracy in the work of John Adams
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IX. Authority of the institutions of the Old Regime and the authority of the new republican institutions during the French Revolution
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X. Authority, power, and the common interest in political systems according to David Hume
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XI. Authority, power, and the common interest in political systems according to Adam Smith
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XII.
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I. Introduction: Authority, Power, and Political Leadership
V. The Machiavellian leader 2

Unit overview
Presentation and critical analysis of the characteristics of a leader according to Machiavelli’s Discorsi.
Keywords
institutions; republicanism
Required readings
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N. Machiavelli, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio https://identityhunters.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/niccolo-machiavelli-discourses-of-livy.pdf
Complementary readings
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Jeffrey Edward Green. “Learning How Not to Be Good: A Plebeian Perspective.” The Good Society 20, no. 2 (2011): 184–202. https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.20.2.0184.