Carlo Burelli

Is democracy a realistic political ideal? This paper historically recovers and normatively assesses Machiavelli's intuition that democratic institutions are realistically desirable in virtue of their resilience. The paper takes inspiration from Machiavelli's work in two ways. Methodologically, it argues that there is a distinctive realist normativity based on political virtues, i.e., those skills that are instrumentally required to thrive in politics. Substantively, it probes Machiavelli's idea that the most important political virtue, for both individuals and institutions, is resilience: the ability to continuously adapt to new circumstances. Machiavelli observes that democratic regimes are very resilient because, while individuals cannot change their character to adapt to new circumstances, democracies can just change the individual in charge. The paper then refines Machiavelli's intuition by building on the contemporary distinction between stability and resilience. It claims that authoritarian regimes are more stable, and yet less resilient. Democracies are instead characterized by a continuous flux of political outputs, which makes them seemingly wavering, and yet better equipped to experiment with unconventional adaptations that allow societies to survive extraordinary challenges. The two different literatures thus complement each other. The debate on resilience usefully clarifies and systematizes Machiavelli's intuition. Conversely, Machiavelli's work reveals the salience of resilience in politics, and shows why it counts as a realist political value.

For political realists, legitimacy is a central requirement for the desirability of political institutions. Their detractors contend that it is either descriptive, and thus devoid of critical potential, or it relies on some moralist value that realists reject. We defend a functionalist reading of realist legitimacy: descriptive legitimacy, i.e., the capacity of a political institution to generate beliefs in its right to rule as opposed to commanding through coercion alone, is desirable in virtue of its functional role. First, descriptive legitimacy plays an evaluative role: institutions can fail to convince citizens that they have a right to rule and can be ranked by how well they do so. Second, descriptive legitimacy plays a normative role, because if an institution fails to convince subjects of its right to rule, this gives them a reason not to comply with its directives, even if it satisfies philosophers' standards for possessing such right.

This paper argues for a new interpretation of the realist claim that politics is autonomous from morality and should be assessed based on political values. First, this article defends an original normative source: functional normativity. Secondly, it advocates a substantive functional standard: political institutions ought to be assessed by their capacity to issue binding collective decisions. Drawing from the so-called ‘etiological account’ in philosophy of biology, I will argue that functions yield normative standards, which are independent from morality. E.g. a good heart is one that pumps blood well and a good army is one that it is good at exerting military force. I then interpret realism’s naturalistic conception of politics as an etiological function of social groups: selecting binding collective decisions under persistent disagreement. I conclude that political institutions should be evaluated realistically by how well they perform this task. Finally, I assess trade-offs between this functional political normativity and other moral values. I conclude that justice, fairness, freedom, equality remain obviously important concerns, but only so long as the basic political function is secured.

In this paper I unpack a realistic conception of politics by tightly defining its constitutive features: conflict and order. A conflict emerges when an actor is disposed to impose his/her views against the resistance of others. Conflicts are more problematic than moralists realize because they emerge unilaterally, are potentially violent, impermeable to content-based reason, and unavoidable. Order is then defined as an institutional framework that provides binding collective decisions. Order is deemed necessary because individuals need to cooperate to survive, but groups cannot spontaneously secure collective decisions and are prone to conflicts. Particularly, the fact that potentially violent conflicts emerge unilaterally means that order requires coercion. I conclude that mischaracterizing conflict and order leads to undesirable normative principles, and that this criticism can be leveraged not only against Rawlsian liberals who moralize conflicts away, but also against some agonists who underestimate the need for order and some communitarians who underplay both circumstances.

I am pleased that Eva Erman and Niklas Möller found my position, if not plausible, at least intriguing enough to merit a reply. Hence, I am grateful for the opportunity to offer a reply and to further reflect on this issue. In what follows I start with what my critics agree with, which is a surprising amount, and then respond to the main criticisms point by point.

This paper tackles the issue of offshore tax sheltering from the perspective of normative political realism. Tax sheltering is a pressing contemporary policy challenge, with hundreds of billions in private assets protected in offshore trusts and shell companies. Indeed, tax sheltering produces a variety of empirical dilemmas that render it a distinctive challenge for global governance. Therefore, it is crucial for normative political theorists to confront this problem. A realist approach offers three distinct advantages, elaborated in the three subsequent sections of the paper. First, it relaxes the theoretical burden by starting from the real practice of tax evasion, rather than from an abstract theory of equality or justice. Second, realism recognizes that sheltering is a political harm: a threat to the very maintenance of order, not just a problem of inequality or injustice. If politicians fail at such polity maintenance, realism's ethic of responsibility provides clear political reasons for why they should be held accountable. Third, realism's focus on power and its acceptance of coercion open up new strategies for addressing the problem than would be allowed by theories with a stronger emphasis on consensus.

Solidarity, Stability and Enlightened Self-Interest in the EU-In this paper I argue that more solidarity, realistically conceived, is in the long-term enlightened self-interest of all European member states. I will first argue that the concept of solidarity combines two intuitions: solidarity is a set of feelings that supports group cohesion, and a set of transfers from the most advantaged to the most disadvantaged members of a group. Secondly, I will argue that solidarity is in the interest of each member of the community. It benefits the worst off by providing material assistance and avoiding that they fall below an acceptable minimum. Less obviously, it also benefits the most advantaged by stabilizing cooperation within a system that benefits them the most. Whether they know it or not, it is in their long term enlightened self-interest as well. Finally, I apply this normative argument to the case of the European Union and consider some objections.

The recent economic shocks have severely tested the EU's political sustainability. The deep-rooted and unending succession of existential crises demonstrates the sharp misalignment between the high degree of integration reached by the EU, its authority structure, and the absence of solidarity to sustain this structure. The paper unfolds as follows: first, we claim that the Union has become a complex adaptive system and that attempts to restore the status quo ante are unrealistic. Section 2 shows that its authority structure is ill-suited to steering the complex system because it lacks adequate instruments for addressing common risks and democratic externalities. Section 3 argues that contemporary EU leaders are failing to promote the principles of solidarity which, according to its founding father are required to disarm centripetal tendencies. Section 4 presents empirical evidence which signals the existence of considerable popular support for these pan-European forms of solidarity.

When we say that the function of a knife is cutting, we open the door to evaluating knives based on how well they cut. The aim of the paper is to investigate whether functions ground normative standards. This is an exciting question, as it would highlight the important existence of one instance of non-moral normativity and investigate to what degree it involves a trade off with it. Additionally, insofar as it depends on a naturalistic account of functions, functional normativity may be an obvious candidate of non-linguistic normativity that the special issue aims to investigate. The article will first investigate what functions are, providing an etiological account that explains functional attributions for artefacts, as well as biological and social functions. It then discusses how failing to discharge a function results in malfunctioning, not in losing the function. Finally, it argues that functions so understood provide normative standards, independent of moral norms.

Too often calls for utopian social change serve as a device for conserving the status quo, because they pose objectives that are beyond what is feasible to implement and devalue reachable marginal improvement. As Voltaire famously remarked: ‘the best is the enemy of the good’. In this paper I suggest that being realistic about social change means seriously committing to realize it. I argue that social change should be conceived and evaluated in terms of a course of action rather than merely an ideal end-state. End-states must be assessed in conjunction with the means they require, other consequences they imply, and their likelihood of success (i.e. as a course of action). These additional three elements give rise to three distinct failures of being realistic about social change: the fanatic who does not consider the cost of means, the saint who does not consider the benefit of end-states, and the naïve who does not consider likelihood of success. Similar failures can be construed as empirical mistakes in giving the course of action due consideration: the ineffective actor (who fails to acquire available knowledge of means), the wishful thinker (whose knowledge of consequences is distorted by preferences) and the self-deceiver (whose knowledge of end-states is distorted by his preferences). Being realistic about social change – I conclude - does not mean that we should not be ambitious in what we propose, but that we should avoid these six fallacies if we truly care about realizing it.

This paper tackles the notion of solidarity in the EU from a realistic perspective and aims at clarifying two common flaws in the arguments of many who invoke it: vagueness and utopianism. I have two aims: to clarify the concept of solidarity, and to offer a realistic justification for its application to the EU. To make sense of the heterogeneous history of the concept, I suggest distinguishing it from charity, which is spontaneous and universal, and from fraternity, which relates to a mere emotional sense of fellow-feeling. This less demanding conception of solidarity can be realistically defended as instrumental to stabilizing political cooperation within the EU, and as such it is in the long-term enlightened self-interest of all its members.

abstract: Much controversy surrounding Hobbes's interpretations springs from a puzzle – how can subjectivist assumptions lead to an objective theory of morality and politics? Two different strands coexist in the history of philosophy: the first emphasizes his moral psychology, while the other stresses the universality of the laws of nature. My hypothesis is that Hobbes's subjectivism allowed for some degree of objectivity in two ways. First, by reducing values to individual preferences they become facts, recognizable as true or false. Second, subjective desires still have factual objective consequences. With these two qualifications, Hobbes subjectivism can be made compatible with an objective science of morality. This idea is captured in the distinction between real and apparent goods, under which non-compliance appears to be an apparent good for its objective negative consequences. While for a moral scientist, the risks posed by the state of nature are sufficient to warrant cooperation, the sovereign's sanctions provide more obvious negative consequences for the less forward-looking.

Il confine tra realismo politico e liberalismo non è teoricamente così chiaro come l’asprezza del dibattito sembrerebbe suggerire. Tra le due tradizioni non c’è una forte distinzione né sul piano metodologico né su quello sostanziale. Il dibattito sul metodo, che ruota attorno alle condizioni di realizzabilità dei propri ideali, non basta a qualificare una posizione come realista, perché questa preoccupazione è presente anche nella tradizione liberale della cosiddetta teoria non-ideale (Valentini 2012). Molti realisti, come Matt Sleat (Sleat 2014), Enzo Rossi (2015b) ed Edward Hall (2015), ritengono riduttivo assimilare le loro tesi a questa posizione. Nemmeno sul piano sostanziale è facile distinguere tra realismo e idealismo perché entrambi gli approcci sostengono istituzioni liberali e democratiche. I realisti in questo caso si limitano a criticare il modo in cui queste vengono giustificate dagli idealisti (Finlayson 2015). Per cercare di chiarire questo dibattito, è dunque necessario specificare che la «caratteristica che lo definisce […] è il tentativo di dare autonomia al politico» (Rossi e Sleat 2014, 2). Questo articolo mira perciò a mettere a fuoco la «concezione fondamentalmente diversa di che cos’è la politica» (Sleat 2014, 5) adottata dai realisti politici. Utilizzando questa come criterio è possibile distinguere il realismo dal liberalismo politico kantiano di ispirazione rawlsiana, variamente criticato nella letteratura come «umanesimo liberale» (Gray 2002a, xI), «moralismo politico» (Williams 2005, 1), «approccio ethic-first» (Geuss 2009, 1), e «alto liberalismo» (Galston 2010, 385).

A growing body of literature is pointing towards the lack of solidarity in the European Union as a crucial functional deficit. But what is EU solidarity and why do we need it? First, we reconstruct the role of solidarity in the neo-functionalist and post-functionalist accounts of European Integration, highlighting how solidarity is required by functional pressures: if a stable economic system is to be secured, then some compensatory measures for asymmetries in economic trajectories among Member States need to be contemplated in order to defuse centripetal pressures. Second, we clarify the notion of social function, which is largely undertheorized in the neo/post-functionalist literature, and is traditionally considered epistemologically obscure. Drawing on the etiological literature, we defend an account of social functions which is naturalistic (compatible with our scientific view of the world), objective (independent from the observer's goals), and selective (not every tendency counts as a function). Third, we show that functions, so conceived, have normative implications: if the function of an army is exerting institutional coercion, then a good army is one that can do so. Fourth, we conclude by suggesting that solidarity is a key function of political institutions, and argue that this gives us reason to implement it, by intentionally anticipating expected functional pressures.

Nell’articolo argomento che la politica è una funzione delle società che consiste nella presa di decisioni collettive vincolanti. Tale funzione è vitale per i gruppi umani, che sono caratterizzati dall’inevitabilità del conflitto e dal conseguente bisogno di ordine. Le istituzioni politiche dunque non vanno valutate solo sulla base di criteri morali (giustizia, libertà eguaglianza), ma anche sulla base di questo criterio funzionale: quanto sono efficaci nel prendere decisioni collettive vincolanti. Per adempiere questa funzione è necessario che dispongano del monopolio del potere, che è dunque un criterio normativo chiave per valutare realisticamente le istituzioni politiche.

This paper has two aims: first, to discuss the concept of conflict within the field of political philosophy, and second, to clarify how conflict, appropriately defined, is a necessary and inevitable feature of politics. While this concept is often brought up in the literature, it has rarely been analytically defined.
I define conflict as the situation characterized by (1) two or more actors (institutions, individuals or groups) having incompatible wills (due to interests, values, identities...), (2) at least one of them prefers the situation in which his will is realized ‘against the resistance of the other party’ (Weber, 2013) to that where his will is not realized but no cost is imposed on others, and (3) has the power and means to do so.
Adopting such a definition allows to distinguish conflict from other popular concepts in political philosophy like pluralism, disagreement, violent struggle, and war. Pluralism for example, restricts (1) to values and does not imply (2). Rawls’s ‘reasonable pluralism’, for example, certainly rejects (2), while modus vivendi’s ‘radical pluralism’ often implicitly accepts it. Disagreement modifies (2) as requiring a will-to-truth or, at least, a will to find an agreement with the other party. Violent struggles are a specific form of conflict because they restrict their means (3) to violence. Similarly, war restricts (1) to institutional actors and (3) to organized violence.
This definition of conflict, allows for several interesting features of the concept of conflict to transpire. First, not all conflicts are political. Second: the use of violence is contingent, although always potential. Third: conflicts are content-neutral. They cannot be resolved by proving the enemy wrong. Fourth: conflicts may arise unilaterally. Only one actor needs to exhibit the will to prevail, in order for the other to be in a situation of conflict.
Given this definition, I claim that conflicts are permanent features of politics by showing that (1), (2) and (3) cannot be consistently eliminated. Contrasts of wills (1) are broadly recognized in the literature, both in political philosophy and in social and political sciences. The will to prevail (2) is not as unanimously acknowledged, but due to the unilateral emergence of conflict, we only need it to be possible, for conflicts to be inevitable. Similarly the disparity of power and means (3) cannot be consistently controlled in the political arena.
I conclude by noting that as a reaction to the inevitability of conflict, a need for order emerges. Men are social animals in a materialistic and pre-moral sense, because they need each other to survive. Thus, the inevitability and disruptiveness of conflict prompt a vital need for a cooperative order. Since this means that there is no way to elude the need for order, without threatening our own survival, I conclude that this element is also a necessary one of politics, albeit in a weaker, hypothetical sense.

Sul pensiero di Hobbes convivono nella tradizione filosofica due interpretazioni molto diverse. La prima lo considera un difensore del soggettivismo, enfatizzandone la psicologia morale e la teoria soggettivistica del valore. La seconda, al contrario, lo ritiene un sostenitore dell’oggettivismo, sottolineando l’universalità e immutabilità delle leggi di natura. Le nozioni di verità che ne discendono sembrerebbero radicalmente diverse e incompatibili: un soggettivismo relativista nel primo caso e un oggettivismo universalista nel secondo. Lo scopo di questo scritto è chiarire come questa contraddizione sia solamente apparente

Many will feel uncomfortable with Tamar Meisels's conclusion that killing terrorists with drones is permissible. Yet, there is little to criticise in this paper, because the most contentious parts of the argument are presupposed and understandably fall outside its scope. I will briefly sum up the argument, and then suggest two minor internal objections and a way to address its assumptions.

The Strains of Commitments is an interesting attempt to deal with the perceived tension between solidarity and diversity in modern societies. There is an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance between the intuition that a just society cannot survive without a shared belief in some ‘we’, and the belief that such disposition could have oppressive effects on minorities and outsiders. The fear is that national identities are being weakened, without being replaced by a cosmopolitan ideal capable to supply enough solidarity to sustain just institutions.

Nel dibattito pubblico si sente spesso invocare maggiore realismo. Ma che cosa vuol dire essere realisti? E per quale motivo dovremmo esserlo?
Questo libro distilla il pensiero della tradizione realista in quattro tesi fondamentali per comprendere la politica attuale. Primo, la realtà esterna è dolorosamente indipendente dai nostri desideri, e bisogna guardarsi dall’idealismo di chi sopravvaluta la capacità dei valori di affermarsi nel mondo in virtù della loro supposta verità. Secondo, alcuni caratteri di questa realtà non possono essere modificati, e va evitato l’utopismo di chi aspira a mondi attraenti ma irraggiungibili. Terzo, la realtà politica dipende dal fatto che il bisogno di vivere assieme è inesorabilmente minato dal conflitto. Per questo occorre evitare il moralismo, di chi concepisce la politica come un educato scambio di ragioni. Quarto, l’attore politico deve considerare attentamente i mezzi a sua disposizione, la probabilità di successo e le inevitabili conseguenze. Così facendo, il realismo combatte l’intellettualismo di chi si limita a contemplare alti ideali, ma non si preoccupa di realizzarli nel mondo.
Le diverse implicazioni di queste quattro tesi compongono un utile guida per l'azione di ogni politico, o aspirante tale.

Leggere Hobbes oggi è ancora un’esperienza fortemente disturbante. Insieme al sapore amaro di una visione molto cupa dell’uomo e della società, si coglie la forza di una descrizione che non si può fare a meno di sospettare accurata. L’efficacia argomentativa, la chiarezza dell’esposizione e la ricchezza di esempi pratici inducono i noi l’inquietante immagine schopenahaueriana che lo Stato e le leggi civili non siano che delle scomode museruole che vorremmo strapparci di dosso, ma che siamo grati ci risparmino dai morsi di tutti gli altri. E’ la presa di coscienza degli individui dei conflitti che li divorano a essere di incentivo a vincolare se stessi e gli altri pur di limitarne la violenza.

Our new board-game, The Queen's Dilemma, just launched on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/horribleguild/the-queens-dilemma . You can think of it as a narrative gamification of Political Realism.

"The Queen’s Dilemma is set in the Kingdom of Ankist, a dark and realistic low-fantasy world, in which morals are never defined, but rather live as a continuous intertwining of relative, temporary, partial values: the lesser evil is a reality and the absolute good simply does not exist. The issues raised by the game concern the consequences of choices, the burden of responsibility, the conflict between personal ethics and collective morality - and this is where the heart of the dilemma lies: there are no simple solutions to complex problems, every choice has a cost, and none will meet the needs of all"

I worked as lead writer and narrative designer for The King's Dilemma, a board game about tragic political choices. Players sit at the royal council and have to balance what they think is right with the interests of their house and the stability of the kingdom. Through negotiations and betrayals, the council's rulings shape the future of the realm. Their consequences will recurrently remind players of the compromises they had to make, or the ones that they failed to make.

The game is translated in 8 languages and is nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres 2020 - the most prestigious award in the field.

https://www.naspread.eu/it/contributi-it/articoli-it/essere-realisti-significato-antiutopismo-realismo-politico.html


Nel dibattito pubblico spesso si sentono richiami ad adottare un maggiore realismo, a volte rivolti alle decisioni di alcuni politici, altre volte diretti invece ai cittadini stessi. Ma che cosa vuol dire essere realisti? In un'accezione generale essere realisti significa evitare di votarsi ciecamente a ideali irraggiungibili. Con un significato più tecnico, invece, per realismo si intende un modo disincantato di guardare la politica come essa è, non come dovrebbe essere. Antiutopismo: elogio del corso d'azione (cioè come realizzare gli ideali) Il primo senso di realismo può essere definito anti-utopismo ed è più vicino all'uso comune di questo concetto. Essere realisti significa scegliere come agire non soltanto in base a uno scopo finale (ad esempio una società perfettamente giusta), ma interrogandosi su quale corso d'azione intraprendere. Un corso d'azione è costituito, appunto, non solo dal valore dello stato finale, ma anche dai mezzi che richiede, da eventuali conseguenze che comporta e dalla probabilità di raggiungerlo.

In this time of virulent Euroscepticism, the very idea of the Union is under attack. The deep root of the unending succession of existential crises is the sharp misalignment between the high degree of integration reached by the EU, its authority structure, and the absence of solidarity to sustain it. Dangerous forces feed on the lack of awareness among national and European politicians, being the true reason for this prolonged instability.

The book The Passage to Europe by Luuk Van Middelaar aims, as its subtitles clarify, at explaining how the continent became a union. However, the book does far more than that. Middelaar does not only provide a robust and insightful recollection of the intricate history of the European Union, enriched by his personal experience and insider’s knowledge. He also makes frequent reference to political thinkers to establish an interpretative framework for understanding the political meaning of these historical processes. Moreover, by explicitly rejecting the technical language of EU scholars, the volume is also easy and pleasant to read.

The book is divided in three parts, the first one tackles the theoretical question of how a political institution comes into existence, drawing from the historical precedent of the U.S. federation. In the second part, Middelaar investigates the history of the European Union to show how it came to be and to what degree we can say it exists today. The third and final part focuses on the Union’s sources of legitimacy, in order to investigate on what grounds it can continue to exist in the future.

La rappresentazione è divisa in due atti che sono consequenziali e non possono essere separati se non da un breve intermezzo. Entrambi gli atti si svolgono in un caffè con gli stessi personaggi, Thomas, Simone e Jean-Jacques. Thomas è un realista pessimista, Simone una pragmatica moralista e Jean-Jacques un accademico, talvolta petulante.
Il primo atto stilisticamente rimanda alla libertà di pensiero; i tre personaggi parlano di libertà e del suo dispiegarsi nei temi cari alla filosofia. Il dialogo è serrato, la sua scaltrezza ricalca quella dei pensieri che si susseguono seguendo la logica della ragione, ogni personaggio è caratterizzato da una precisa posizione filosofica e interloquisce con gli altri mantenendo coerente la sua prospettiva dall’inizio alla fine. Il primo atto ospita dunque tre voci incalzanti e discordanti, giacché solo accettando che i tre personaggi non concordino è possibile comprendere la libertà di pensiero. Nel rispetto di questa essi quindi non giungeranno ad alcun compromesso, rimanendo ognuno della propria idea.
Il secondo atto nasce sotto la spinta di una finzione letteraria che garantirà ai tre personaggi di concordare a partire da ciò che hanno perduto: la libertà di informarsi. L’ipotesi che i giornali non vengano più stampati permette ai tre personaggi di condividere la stessa condizione e il rimpianto per la libertà perduta. La disillusione e il disincanto sono espressi da una conversazione di respiro più ampio, incentrata su tre grandi temi che costituiscono quasi tre monologhi dei personaggi. Se non c’è nulla di cui discutere si finisce infatti per non conversare affatto. I tre temi sono il racconto del grande inquisitore, l’esperienza di Gandhi e a concludere un discorso tenuto a partire da “La libertà di stampa” di Milton.