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Statecraft and
the Political Economy
of Capitalism
Scott G. Nelson · Joel T. Shelton
 International Political Economy Series

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USA;
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The global political economy is in flux as a series of cumulative crises
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Scott G. Nelson · Joel T. Shelton

Statecraft
and the Political
Economy
of Capitalism
Scott G. Nelson Joel T. Shelton
Virginia Tech Elon University
Blacksburg, VA, USA Elon, NC, USA

ISSN 2662-2483 ISSN 2662-2491 (electronic)

International Political Economy Series
ISBN 978-3-031-15970-1 ISBN 978-3-031-15971-8 (eBook)
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 Preface

The chapters comprising this book were written over a period of several
years, and first drafts were prepared as working papers for academic audi-
ences in North America, Europe, and Asia. The main analytical thread
linking all of the chapters was conceived in the early years of Barack
Obama’s presidency when we observed some of the key dynamics that
would culminate in Donald Trump’s election in 2016, dynamics that
would only intensify in the years after. Suffice to say that the experi-
ence of the Trump presidency sharpened our thinking about the perilous
social and political conditions that now prevail in the United States as
well as in many of the world’s “advanced” democracies. The ascendance
of far-right politics is unique to each country, of course, but there is
little question that parallel experiences obtain across them. One common
experience is that state power has been wielded at home and abroad
to further private interests rather than to secure the welfare of ordinary
people. In the American context, long prior to the coronavirus pandemic
there was a sense that a deadly combination of government neglect over
many years, coupled with abject incompetence and the onslaught of disin-
formation and propaganda, could well imperil populations and create
ever-stiffer headwinds for democracy, not to mention a politics grounded
in a commitment to equity and respect for difference. While the United
States may be a special case, a number of dangers also threaten democracy
in many countries that were once counted on as stalwarts of the liberal
democratic order.

vii
viii PREFACE

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the dire consequences of relin-
quishing the role of the state in securing the public interest—a task that
we associate in this volume with the art and practice of statecraft. When
Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House Coronavirus Response Coor-
dinator, remarked in a March 2021 interview with CNN that most of the
coronavirus deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented if the Trump
administration had acted earlier and more decisively to curb the spread of
the disease (Wang, 2021), Americans were presented with a reality that
was sadly squaring all too well with their experiences with the govern-
ment in a time of crisis. A year later, in the early spring of 2022, the
country passed the one million mark of deaths attributed to COVID-19,
what remains a truly staggering number. In early summer of that year Dr.
Birx told a congressional committee investigating the federal pandemic
response that the Trump White House had urged her to dilute guidance
sent to state and local health officials in the second half of 2020 (Weiland,
2022). Certainly in the past five years Americans have been reminded
again and again that the government can choose to advance the public’s
welfare or it can aid and abet the darkest of society’s impulses. Under
Trump and a vast coterie of Republican supporters, it chose the second
path, and the country has paid dearly.
The coronavirus may have appeared at the worst possible moment in
the United States’ recent history; to be sure, its timing was equally tragic
for all other countries, no matter the size or stage of development. Yet,
so devastating in the United States was a political culture that proved so
ill-equipped to grapple with the gravity of the situation from the very
start of the pandemic. Decades of government failings, and not least the
transformation of the world economy over the preceding half century, had
badly warped the country’s entire political-economic landscape. Counter-
globalization movements of the early 2000s and the far-right politics that
took root during the Great Recession (e.g., the Tea Party) resembled
in some ways the populist politics of the early twentieth century, but
in 2020 the social and cultural drivers were very different—the world
economy was far larger, involved many more players, and did not display
anywhere near the level of coordination needed to allow nations to fight
the rapid spread of the virus. The financial crisis that began in 2008
risked a disaster as potentially damaging as the Great Depression of the
1930s. Fortunately, the economic turmoil of 2008–2010 was contained
by swift and competent (if insufficient) action by the Obama administra-
tion, preventing a fullscale collapse of the country’s financial system, an
 PREFACE ix

event that would have exacted considerably more damage on the economy
than the country experienced.
Still, trust in government was further corroded by the presence of
many lasting scars—the Great Recession inflicted deep wounds upon
millions in the United States and in many other countries. In the wake
of the crisis more imaginative and politically difficult roads to recovery
were tragically not traveled. While the stock market eventually regained
its losses, employment recovered much too slowly and labor force partic-
ipation declined overall. The perception—not unfounded—that banks
had been bailed out while homeowners were left high and dry further
damaged public trust and left citizens susceptible to the appeals of well-
funded and all too narrow interest groups bent on further dismantling
government and, what may be worse, sowing the seeds of hatred of
minorities, immigrants and the so-called “elite.” Many social illnesses
became even more grave, proving that the links between the events of
2008–2010 and Trump’s election several years later are many and run
deep.
Of course, the financial crises of 2008–2010 impacted many coun-
tries. With memories of crisis still relatively fresh, governments and central
banks in affluent countries responded aggressively to the economic crisis
that followed the pandemic shutdown in 2020; developing economies, on
the other hand, spent only what they could, which many now acknowl-
edge was not nearly enough. As Adam Tooze (2021) described in his early
history of the pandemic response, governments of “advanced” democ-
racies shut down in part because they could afford to do so, and they
injected unprecedented levels of fiscal stimulus that provided almost
immediate relief for many businesses and households. Central bankers
in financial capitals came to the rescue of markets for corporate bonds
and sovereign debt. In the United States, the Federal Reserve inter-
vened swiftly and creatively on several fronts: The Fed shored up the
market for treasuries, engaged in large-scale purchases of financial assets,
and monetized public debt at near-historic levels. In Europe the Euro-
pean Central Bank (ECB) also pledged aggressive monetary support, and
under Christine Lagarde’s leadership the ECB’s programs were paired
with a once-unthinkable decision by European governments to finance
a COVID-19 relief package with the issuance of common debt. The very
worst of the economic pain was again avoided by decisive administrative
action, yet citizens felt acutely the uneven nature of a “crisis economics”
that was beginning to seem like the new normal.
x PREFACE

In the American context those who depended on the cooperation and

coordination of national, state, and local governments, not to mention
the fortitude and grit of the general public, saw the government’s
response to COVID-19 falling well short of what the country most
needed. Decades of neglect of public goods that a generation earlier
John Kenneth Galbraith memorably characterized as “private opulence
and public squalor” (1998, p. 191) had bequeathed a grossly inadequate
public healthcare system, insufficient spending on public education, and
countless underfunded social safety nets intended to support the weakest
and most vulnerable. No better illustration of poor preparedness existed
than insufficient stockpiles of personal protective equipment (PPE) during
the pandemic. And as the pandemic shutdown began in March of 2020,
social inequities in housing and employment, access to medical care, child-
care, and nutrition—all exacerbated by the country’s slow recovery from
the financial crisis a decade earlier—were the unmistakable underlying
features of an economy geared primarily toward the needs of the wealthy.
Also made more visible were the tenuous links among national
economies. Globalization no longer appeared as some natural force but
was revealed to be a fragile arrangement that depended on government
priorities and high-stakes risk taking among corporations. Delicate and
easily disrupted global supply chains would soon slow global trade signif-
icantly, compromising livelihoods in many trade-dependent economies.
As countries turned inward, private sector disinvestment at home made it
difficult to ramp up the production of needed PPE and many in-demand
commodities. Coordination among federal and state agencies was chaotic
in many countries and was further impeded by grandstanding, infighting,
and interference by elected officials who were hostile to public health
directives, particularly in the United States. Messaging from public health
officials was often confused and contradictory and a large percentage of
the public became increasingly dismissive of their advice and expertise.
The chance to contain COVID-19 was therefore all but lost. And all of
this in the face of a public health disaster that, however complex and diffi-
cult to manage in a short period of time, had been presciently forecast in
the years following the SARS and MERS outbreaks of 2002 and 2012.
Like the Great Recession, the pandemic was hardly a “black swan” event.
Even more significantly, once the pandemic was underway the public
health measures needed to contain the disease in the U.S. simply could
not be maintained absent the support of the American people. In our
view, this suggests something important about public policy that is often
 PREFACE xi

overlooked—the vital role played by democracy’s most critical actor, the

public.
In poor countries, the failure to contain COVID-19 could be
attributed to any number of factors, from low state capacity to insufficient
funding, inadequate public health and physical infrastructure, high levels
of poverty, unequal access to doctors, treatments, and vaccines, and the
failure of the international community to prioritize global health equity.
In the United States, the problem was not so much administrative or
financial as social and political—an indicator of the toxic inequality and
festering cultural rot that prepared the ground for the embrace of know-
nothing denialism that rejected not only the best advice of scientists and
public health experts, but also any feeling of obligation to those outside
of one’s own household. While countless heroic Americans fought day
after day to save lives in hospital ICUs, many millions of others refused
even the inconvenience of “masking up” for a short trip to the grocery
store. The willingness of fellow citizens to make shared sacrifices as part
of a collective undertaking—an ethos much celebrated in the lore of the
World War II generation—was noticeably absent in a large percentage of
the population. Center-left policymakers could not combat the coarsening
waves of misinformation, distrust, and incendiary rhetoric that accelerated
and intensified as the pandemic took its course. State and local govern-
ments found themselves incapable of attending to a particular pathology
of power that was rapidly spreading throughout the body politic.
This is not a book about public health and health policy. Nor is it
a book that takes aim at Trump’s presidency or the Republican Party.
Instead, our objective is to account for a deep and prolonged period of
neglect of the public interest and to reckon with what is lost when the
art and practice of governing in pursuit of the public good is compro-
mised over a sustained period of time. Statecraft, a concept that is rich
with meaning and which we argue deserves consideration given the chal-
lenges many nations now face, is the term of art that best highlights what
this public good must struggle against and how it can be advanced. State-
craft, as we present it, is the culmination of deliberate state actions that
are designed to respond to the long-term needs of the public. These
actions accrue over decades and in some cases much longer. Our hope
is to contribute to a steadily building chorus that urges a fundamental
rethinking of the purposes of government and of economic policy-making
in particular.
xii PREFACE

As we lay out in this volume, countries that wish to shape a future

rather than simply respond to cascading events such as a pandemic or a
financial crisis will now have to attend to the emergence and consolidation
of forces that have conspired to compromise the public trust, fragment the
public will, and fracture the common interest. These forces, we contend,
are not singularly or even primarily economic—that is, attributable to
decades of “hyper-globalization” or to neoliberal policies (Rodrik 2011),
as they are so often described—but are cultural and social, ultimately
manifesting themselves at the political level but not simply reducible to
institutions or governmental action alone. If nothing else they reflect the
unraveling of a society that has neglected the public purpose of economic
and social policy-making for far too long. The stakes, as we try to convey
them, could not be higher.
All of those who are in positions of public leadership or who aspire to
make or simply inform public policy would do well to reckon anew with
the long and varied tradition of thinking about the craft of the state. Most
often on our minds as we framed the arguments in this book have been
our fellow political economists. While the globalization of the past several
decades has surely made the task of statecraft a more difficult one, it has
not dramatically transformed the nature of what is ultimately a collective
undertaking. Securing the well-being of individuals and whole commu-
nities requires not merely smart policy, but an understanding of, and a
facility with, the uses of public power and the means to direct it in pursuit
of ends that must be shared. These great tasks in turn demand attention to
ever-shifting processes of collective meaning-making, and finally to the re-
vitalization of community tout court, with its many provisions. Ultimately,
public or collective action is not merely a means to mitigate disaster, but
involves the will to imagine and to bring into existence a society in which
individuals can flourish in the context of threats that will not go away.
This is the always unfinished work of statecraft.

Blacksburg, VA, USA Scott G. Nelson

Greensboro, NC, USA Joel T. Shelton
 PREFACE xiii

References
Galbraith, J. K. (1998). The affluent society (40th anniversary ed.). Mariner
Books.
Rodrik, D. (2011). The globalization paradox: Democracy and the future of the
world economy. W.W. Norton.
Tooze, A. (2021). Shutdown: How Covid shook the world’s economy. Viking.
Wang, A. (2021, March 27). Birx tells CNN most U.S. covid deaths ‘could have
been mitigated’ after first 100,000. Washington Post.
Weiland, N. (2022, June 23). Deborah Birx says Trump White House asked her
to weaken covid guidance. New York Times.
 Acknowledgments

This book, like many such collaborations, had its beginnings in a series of
conversations between the authors that took place in fits and starts over
many years. It is the product of shared scholarly interests and norma-
tive commitments marked by what is now a friendship of more than two
decades. As with any project completed over an extended period, our
debts are many and it is a pleasure to record them here.
The work of writing Statecraft and the Political Economy of Capitalism
commenced nearly seven years ago with the preparation of a co-authored
paper for the annual meeting of the International Studies Association
(ISA) in Atlanta (2016). Since that time, we presented early versions of
chapters at meetings of the ISA in Baltimore (2017), Hong Kong (2017),
St. Louis (2019), and at the ISA’s virtual conference during the coron-
avirus pandemic (2021). An early chapter draft was also presented at the
British International Studies Association (BISA) Annual Conference in
Bath, UK (2018). Drafts of two chapters were presented to the Political
Economy Working Group, and the ASPECT Working Paper Series, both
at Virginia Tech. We thank our many colleagues near and far who took
the time to read our work and to help us refine our thinking on these
occasions.
Two chapters of the book were adapted from previously published
journal articles. Chapter 3 is adapted from “The Public Purpose of Polit-
ical Economy,” which was published in New Political Science, 41(3),
400–422. Chapter 5 is adapted from “The Delicate Order of Liberalism:

xv
xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Resentment Politics and the Public Trust,” which was published in Polity,
53(4), 589–615. We thank several anonymous reviewers and members of
these journals’ editorial teams for their input.
We are grateful to those who provided especially valuable support as
scholars and colleagues, and no one more than Edward Weisband of
Virginia Tech. Edward is at once our teacher, valued mentor, and dear
friend, and this book would not have been possible without the guidance
he provided in many forms over the years. We happily dedicate the book
to him. We are also indebted to Timothy W. Luke of Virginia Tech for
advice at many stages of the project. Paul Bowles at the University of
Northern British Columbia gave us feedback on two chapters, and gener-
ously shared with us his thoughts on what would become the book in the
early stages of the manuscript’s development.
At Palgrave Macmillan we thank Timothy Shaw, Anca Pusca,
Hemapriya Eswanth, and Paulin Evangelin for their efforts on behalf of
this project and for their patience with our many requests for deadline
extensions as we worked to complete the manuscript during a difficult
two years.
Scott Nelson would like to recognize the support of various kinds
that came from Judson Abraham, Binio Binev, Thomas Balch, Mauro
Caraccioli, Cara Daggett, Francois Debrix, Bikrum Gill, Bradley S. Klein,
Andy Scerri, and Yannis Stivachtis. Besnik Pula was especially helpful at
several turns, offering us particularly incisive readings of several chapters.
Once again, Scott’s colleagues in Virginia Tech’s Global Education Office
gave support when he was assigned to Virginia Tech’s Steger Center for
International Scholarship in Canton Ticino, Switzerland. These colleagues
include Sara Steinert Borella, Rachel Fitzgerald, Guru Ghosh, Don
Hempson, Theresa Johansson, and Caroline Skelley. He would also like
to recognize his students (far too many to name) in the European Affairs
in a Global Context program at Virginia Tech.
Joel Shelton would like to recognize the support of his colleagues in
the Department of Political Science & Policy Studies at Elon Univer-
sity. A special word of thanks is due to Barış Kesgin and to Kaye Usry.
Joel also thanks the many students with whom he discussed the ideas and
arguments presented in this volume, particularly those students who were
part of the inaugural cohort of Elon’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
(PPE) program. Additionally, Joel acknowledges the family and friends
who have sustained him over the past several years. He thanks his
parents, Tim and Karen Shelton, his brother, Derek Shelton, his grand-
mother, Phyllis Trent, and many dear friends, including David Avery,
Ben Berkow, Brent Blevins, Aliesje Chapman, Thomas Dickerson, Rachel
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xvii

Goshgarian, Dave Harbourt, Elmer and Sue Hodge, Rachel Lopez,

Federico Motka, and Benjamin Trent. Finally, Joel is especially grateful
for the support of Allyson Yankle, who offered much encouragement as
the book was brought to completion.
Praise for Statecraft and the Political
Economy of Capitalism

“How state power is used and in whose interests it is exercised is one

of the most important questions of our time. The multiple crises that
humanity faces all require states fit for purpose. In this well-researched
and provocative book, Nelson and Shelton show us how statecraft, both
as theory and practice, is central to this task. Rich in historical lessons and
passionate in defence of collective interests, the book makes a powerful
case for reclaiming citizenship and for statecraft for the common good.”
—Paul Bowles, Professor of Global and International Studies, University
of Northern British Columbia

“Statecraft and the Political Economy of Capitalism blends detailed anal-

ysis with theoretical rigor, giving students of political economy new
analytical tools to understand the tensions that arise between markets and
government. Nelson and Shelton contribute significantly to our under-
standing of the broad subject matter while giving readers critical insights
into why democratic governance matters more than ever.”
—Byung-ok Kil, Professor, School of Integrated Security Studies,
Chungnam University

xix
 Contents

1 Reintroducing Statecraft 1
2 The Ambitions of Government: Statecraft in Historical
Perspective 13
3 The Public Purpose of Political Economy 39
4 National Economic Policy: History, Culture,
and Development 71
5 The Delicate Order of Liberalism 93
6 The Transgressive Economy 125
7 Democracy as Statecraft 153
8 Conclusion: An Agenda for Citizenship 171

Index 181

xxi
 CHAPTER 1

Reintroducing Statecraft

We are concerned in this book with a political concept that is among

the oldest in Western thought, a concept which is seldom issued today in
discussions of foreign policy and certainly economic policy. Nonetheless,
conditions appear favorable for its use once again, especially as it bears on
creating domestic policies to advantage the public interest in national and
world economies.
The concept is statecraft. The manner in which statecraft is concep-
tualized in this volume has implications for how political and economic
affairs are understood not only in the discourses of political economy but
relative to informing a broad range of public policy discussions, especially
those bearing on the age-old question of the frontiers of economic and
political relations. We take it as axiomatic that analyses of complex and
ever-shifting relations of power are themselves implicated in just these
power relations.
We begin by highlighting the original dimensions of the meaning of
statecraft advanced in the book so that the reader can grasp our principal
objectives in ways that are hopefully enlightening as well as suggestive of
our intended contribution. In the chapters that follow, statecraft signi-
fies the practice of inventing and carrying out the affairs of the state,
or more simply the political community, in pursuit of ends chosen in
response to domestic and international pressures and shaped by prevailing

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
S. G. Nelson and J. T. Shelton, Statecraft and the Political Economy
of Capitalism, International Political Economy Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15971-8_1
2 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

systems of knowledge and legitimate authority structures. As a “practice”

statecraft is concerned with a great many things, all of them embodying
the sphere of deliberate collective action in response to the economic,
social, and political conditions that obtain in a given society and time. The
art and practice of civic action entails the design and implementation of
policy—what are essentially acts of calculation and creativity undertaken
in response to perceived challenges and opportunities.
The political collective—represented by the state, but not exclusive to
it—is invented and reinvented through this action, and all reinventions of
the collective point to the importance of a fundamental predicament of
power: Crafting the state is a ceaseless activity. Scholars and practitioners
have long understood that the essential predicament of political power
derives from a precarious condition of political community, one that is
never finally given and stable, and one involving both promise and peril.
The condition is one of perpetual and sometimes sudden flux in the face
of which actors must act to secure achievable ends.
The unique predicament of power that public actors invariably face
was expressed well some years ago by Isaiah Berlin in his justly famous
study of Machiavelli. On Berlin’s reading Machiavelli conceived of state-
craft as “action within the limits of human possibility, however wide”
(Berlin, 1988, p. 290). That characterization—which among other things
carved out a secular space for the political—would endure for centuries.
In the modern epoch political action has chiefly been undertaken by the
one political entity that stands a chance of wresting stability and order
in both foreign and domestic settings from the vicissitudes of time and
circumstance. Action is the state’s essential craft, comprised of all of those
powers that it can summon forth to ensure the longevity of the political
community, usually defined in terms of interests.
However, we should remind the reader that the state is the name
commonly given to a political unit and its interests in a limited sense—
namely, relative to the state’s survival. It is a name that expresses
consolidated interest and action, and this suggests the importance of lead-
ership and presumes (as opposed to regarding as essentially problematic,
and thus interrogating) the health and well-being of the political commu-
nity itself. The state is tasked with safeguarding the public interest—an
interest that grounds the state’s sovereignty and (again, in the modern
context) the legitimate exercise of its power. The state is represented in
space and time by a multitude of governmental actions, and this implies
that the state brings itself into effect through itself—that is, by acting. If
 1 REINTRODUCING STATECRAFT 3

the state ceases to act it dies. Strategies associated with the state may offer
a population security, first and foremost, and second, could yield a system
of laws ostensibly oriented toward securing and preserving the conditions
for human flourishing. Neither activity is a given.
What is also important to stress is the idea that statecraft is a practice of
remarkable political creativity. It can be understood as summoning forth
the labors of political imagination and all of the attendant understandings
implicated in such an undertaking. Statecraft exploits an opening in an
existing order, and it asserts a will that marks out a region of historical
event which it is thought to be capable of bringing under some measure of
control. Political theorists have appreciated such an august undertaking as
it was laid out in Machiavelli’s writings, among others. In his well-known
study of the Florentine theorist, Herbert Butterfield observed that Machi-
avelli “showed a special interest in that region where human foresight or
self-assertion could steal a victory over time and chance” (Butterfield,
1967, p. 17). Statecraft was in some respects an insurance policy against
the future, and Machiavelli’s science of statecraft—while admittedly under-
developed as a theory of knowledge—was meant to condition political
action by leveraging accumulated wisdom and its considered application.
Machiavelli—and some notable contemporaries like Francesco Guicciar-
dini—sought to lay down a body of rules by which governments should
act and upon which they should rely—the only real chance the state had
to endure (Butterfield, 1967, p. 18).
Security has principally been thought of as a political provision, but
public health dimensions, as well as economic forces, bring about an
array of considerations of security that transcend issues of basic legiti-
macy, extending well beyond protecting the essence of the national polity
in crucial respects. Some perils faced by states today—such as an array
of threats known to fall under the broad rubric of cyber—are new, but
many—such as infectious disease outbreaks that reach pandemic scale—
are not. True, the techniques through which threats and various risks
are presented as compromising the public interest, and its trust, may be
wholly original and are thus relevant in the context of representations of
state interests and capacities. In times of global economic integration, and
certainly during a disease pandemic, state power is all the more conse-
quential even as the many forces traversing state borders and depleting
its sovereignty are growing and widening their sphere of influence with
ever-greater speed.
4 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

Analytically the political and the economic have always been difficult
to distinguish from one another, and in the chapters that follow we often
resort to the concept political-economic, a sometimes-cumbersome locu-
tion that nevertheless highlights areas of overlap that are important to
specify within each sphere. The term political economy further compounds
this ambiguity, signifying not only a domain of inquiry and activity
(the political economy), but also an academic field or tradition (Polit-
ical Economy). The fact that political and economic behaviors, affairs,
relations, patterns of conduct, and so forth are often so indistinct should
tell us something about the idea of statecraft as it has developed in theo-
retical discourses over time. Our own theorization of statecraft borrows
from earlier usages and carries some of them forward into the contempo-
rary period in ways that speak to the nexus of the political-economic both
in terms of what is being represented and in terms of leveraging domestic
and international policy to address some of the most pressing challenges
almost all societies in the world today confront. Indeed, each chapter
foregrounds an inescapable theoretical quality to the concept of state-
craft that we believe is a vital element of any healthy political community,
and perhaps most importantly for efforts to bring a global community,
however conceived, into being.
Readers of English translations of Aristotle’s Politics will recall the idea
of statecraft being introduced in the context of his taxonomy of constitu-
tional forms. The Greeks were acutely aware of dimensions of government
that were related to the art as well as the technique of governing, and
especially relative to the founding and ordering of political community.
Also well known, of course, is Machiavelli’s discussion of the state as a
work of art —as the highest of human achievements. Inasmuch as the
state was underwritten by a science—a discussion that was most vividly
presented in the political theories of Vico and Hobbes—the state was
commonly thought to be willed into existence by the concerted actions of
human beings. State-making was both an act of comprehension—a means
of understanding the world and the defining character of the times—as
well as a means of disposing and constraining human energies to secure
order and preserve some measure of social tranquility. While early-modern
thinkers may not have used the precise term, the most consequential of
them realized their theories in a political organization that was best repre-
sented as an artistic practice (“By art is created that great Leviathan”)—a
crafting of the state.
 1 REINTRODUCING STATECRAFT 5

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was not until 1642

when the term statecraft first appeared in English with its specific refer-
ence to the “art” of managing state affairs. The idea of statecraft,
therefore, preceded the term in the modern epoch. Most of the asso-
ciated connotations in the early-modern period were quite negative and
naturally call to mind the skills of the virtuoso that Machiavelli discussed in
The Prince and the Discourses —cunning, manipulative, and devious tactics
necessitated by wielding power in ways that inevitably injure and offend.
Many interpreters have observed that in Machiavelli’s hands the idea of
statecraft suggested the leader’s virtù, what amounted to accumulated
experience and not least a problem-oriented perspective on the exercise
of power (Wolin, 1960). Actions that were conjured by a tactically nimble
and strategically adroit mind could be exploited as opportunities to set an
example, even if that meant displaying crafty, clever and at times all-too-
sinister methods. But it was a dramatic change in the political times that
afforded an opportunity for the management of state affairs. Statecraft
again became a term of art because it was the necessary response to the
gradual separation of political and religious categories in sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century Europe. It also reflected, in the words of Sheldon
Wolin, a time of “extreme social mobility, an ‘age of the bastards,’ as
Burckhardt called it,” in a dawning era of “restless ambition, of the rapid
transformation of institutions and quick shifts in power among the elite
groups.” Statecraft designated the critical regions of a political sphere that
was “plagued by the dilemma of limited goods and limitless ambition”
(Wolin, 1960, p. 201; see also Wolin, 1987).
However memorable the devious and diabolical qualities that early
moderns deliberately featured are, the perspective that suggests a
problem-oriented approach to managing the state’s affairs is the more
consequential of their teachings. This amounted to statecraftsmanship
or the idea of a “skill based largely upon experience combined with
applied technical knowledge (such as was required in, and preparations
for, warfare)” (Wolin, 1987, p. 483). The idea here is one comprised of
both skill and art—in short, a “techne.” To craft meant to form—in other
words, the polity could be shaped with care that was derived from knowl-
edge formed through experience and wisdom passed down through the
ages. “Craft” also brings to mind the German Kraft or power—force or
strength. This meaning suggests the “mobilizing [of] the full force of the
state to protect its existence or to expand its power,” which the times
often demanded (Wolin, 1987, p. 483).
6 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

By the nineteenth century—again according to the OED—various uses

in English still suggested negative aspects of manipulation and coer-
cion—e.g., the OED notes “double treason,” “primitiveness,” “anarchy,”
“force,” and “atrophe.” “To avoid a civil war, wage a foreign war, is
an old adage of profligate statecraft,” observed one W. Taylor in 1798.
And in 1886 statecraft started to be distinguished from statesmanship
(OED). In the twentieth century International Relations (IR) seized on
the term and highlighted a dimension that interpreters had captured well
in interpretations of Machiavelli’s pagan-informed politics. This dimen-
sion emphasized inescapable constraints and countless double binds in a
political sphere absent a common power and marked by unusual fluidity.
IR scholars have continued to emphasize the virtues of “knowing neces-
sity” (Haslam, 2002) as they expound on the fact of anarchy, the doctrine
of self-help, states conceived as self-interested actors, etc.—all aspects that
express the very real constraints on the range of actions that states would
endeavor to pursue.
Inevitably the reader will wonder where the concept of governance
stands in relation to statecraft. The two concepts are not mutually exclu-
sive, though as we explain in Chapter 2, under neoliberal conditions
the former concept acquired a technical-administrative rationality that
is oriented to preserving a system of power via state support for a
lightly regulated market system at the expense of ensuring the collec-
tive’s welfare, broadly understood. If securing the public interest is one
of the critical uses of governmental power, and especially protecting those
without power, we might wonder how it has happened that the govern-
ments of so-called “advanced” democracies have so often done precisely
the opposite.
What is noteworthy in all of this for our purposes is that the concept
of statecraft has received so little attention in contemporary analyses
relative to economic and social policymaking, particularly as governing
challenges—domestic and international—have multiplied alongside the
expansion of global markets. The premise of this book is that there may
be no better time than now to resuscitate the term in the field of Political
Economy. If the state is an act of creation, the policies that governments
bring about to ensure its health and longevity also require creative acts of
perpetual state re-creation. In short, we view the political economy as a
critical domain of statecraft.
Our principal aim in this book is to make a case for “the public” in the
context of these acts of state-making. There are a great many reasons
 1 REINTRODUCING STATECRAFT 7

that governments today have neglected the public in the design—or

more often than not, the circumvention—of policy: Without protections,
the political-economic juggernaut of capitalism runs roughshod over the
public rather than attending to its protection and furthering the condi-
tions for its flourishing. International relations are shaped by security
concerns above all else (or so we are told), and the space for the public is
often violently circumscribed by (what is presented as) an unerring logic
of necessity. To wit, globalization may require rules and norms, but the
international marketplace remains fiercely competitive. All too often these
logics conveniently excuse the absence of the public from “public policy,”
citing the vicissitudes of competition, efficiency gains, increasing GDP,
and so on.
Reckoning with this absence, we suggest, requires more than coming
to terms with the sublimation of the public interest and the steady
ascendance of private ends. It also requires addressing modern state-
craft’s tenuous relationship to democracy and citizenship, and it demands
renewed attention to the well-being of communities at a time when poli-
cymakers rarely speak of social units that extend beyond individuals or
households except to direct fits of rage toward aggrieved groups or to
disparage the actions of the state itself. The erasure of the health of the
collective as the chief end of governing reflects, in our view, the abdica-
tion of statecraft in the contemporary era. Neoliberal governance, which
might simply be characterized as state action designed to advance private
interests at the expense of a public whose existence is routinely denied, is
decisive in taking the health and vitality of the market rather than that of
the political community as the chief object of concern. Neoliberal state-
craft, then, is a contradiction in terms: A statecraft that does not attend
to the collective’s benefit, however formulated, would be unrecognizable
not only to Aristotle, but also to Machiavelli and even to the likes of
Adam Smith, who maintained that the alignment of private gain with the
public interest was neither automatic nor inevitable (Shelton, 2016).
If statecraft and its attendant concern for the public interest has largely
been erased from the vocabulary of political economists, that erasure
has come at a considerable cost. Drawing on traditions of political and
economic thought from the ancient world to the modern and contempo-
rary periods, the chapters that follow provide an account of statecraft as an
indispensable practice of government oriented to the pursuit of the public
purpose. From its ancient origins as a practice of citizenship concerned
with securing the common benefit, modern statecraft was transformed
8 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

by the development of capitalism and by associated attempts to consol-

idate the power of the state and to establish the proper bounds of state
authority during a period of rapid social and economic change—efforts
which helped to establish Political Economy as a distinct field of knowl-
edge. Statecraft in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries offered lessons
for national economic development, but also failed to reconcile the state
to liberal democracy and to the political agency, so often unpredictable
and unruly, of citizens. The strains and contradictions that characterized
the liberal state, long unresolved, helped to precipitate the political dead-
lock that gave rise to fascism in the interwar period. In the contemporary
era, the neglect of statecraft has left citizens of “advanced” democracies
ill-prepared to take on a backlog of accumulating crises—from the climate
disaster and accelerating socio-economic inequality to the political chal-
lenges posed by authoritarian populism. This book provides an analytical
framework for assessing these and other public concerns that stand in
urgent need of a collective response.
Chapter 2 provides a historical and theoretical context for thinking
about the role of the state in relation to the achievement of shared ends,
with attention to the origins of statecraft in the work of Aristotle and to its
subsequent development in relation to the economic, social, and political
changes that accompanied the modern and contemporary eras. Through
an engagement with a range of modern thinkers, including Machiavelli,
Hobbes, Locke, and the early proponents of “political oeconomy,” James
Steuart and Adam Smith, we identify two strands of distinctly modern
statecraft—the technical-administrative and the liberal —and consider the
subsequent transformation of statecraft in the contemporary neoliberal
period relative to each. In making statecraft visible in its historicity,
we associate statecraft with the ceaseless practices of bounding and
securitization undertaken by the state.
Chapter 3 establishes the political negotiation of the public good
or common benefit as an indispensable practice of statecraft. We argue
that the field of Political Economy must support the advance of polit-
ical knowledge essential to the public negotiation of collective ends and
aspirations. We leverage the work of John Kenneth Galbraith to argue
that reviving statecraft requires both a theory of power and a facility
with ideas often absent in contemporary analyses of national and global
economies. Contemporary statecraft must attend to predicaments of
power as they impact ordinary people, and political economists must
therefore be attuned to politically destabilizing and socially disruptive
 1 REINTRODUCING STATECRAFT 9

forms of power that threaten to fragment and disintegrate what remains

of the public purpose.
Chapter 4 explores the relationship between modern statecraft and
the national economy through the work of the iconoclastic nineteenth-
century economist Friedrich List and his twentieth-century interlocutors,
whom we associate with a tradition identified in the chapter as devel-
opmental statecraft. We argue that List’s principal objective was to
highlight the importance of moral, cultural, and historical characteristics
of national economies, characteristics that responded to and also facili-
tated the incentives of markets. For List, increasing a nation’s productive
powers requires more than technical knowledge of markets and sensi-
tivity to the incentives and constraints facing domestic and international
actors. The development of national economic potentialities also demands
attention to the creative powers and productive energies unleashed by
cultural attributes, intellectual standards, and even religious attitudes—
all irrepressible factors of national economies that liberal theorists all but
entirely neglect. Drawing on the work of John Maynard Keynes, we assess
the contributions as well as the limitations of developmental statecraft for
addressing the dilemmas facing poor and middle-income countries as well
as the challenges of revitalizing the post-industrial economies of the rich
world.
Chapter 5 identifies declining public trust and the advance of a poli-
tics of cultural resentment in many “advanced” democracies as problems
to which statecraft must urgently attend. We leverage the experience
of the interwar period and the writings of three of its most important
interlocutors—Karl Polanyi, John Maynard Keynes, and E.H. Carr—to
direct analysis of the contemporary condition to a broader set of uniquely
psycho-social and cultural dynamics. These dynamics have been over-
looked by political economists who have sought explanations for political
disaffection in the economic dislocations wrought by globalization, dein-
dustrialization, and automation. We identify sentiments ranging from
disillusion to defiance that are now fueling a runaway politics narrowly
defined around race, ethnicity, and national identity. Drawing parallels to
assessments of the interwar period, we argue that today’s resentment poli-
tics is not the product of economic hardship or even institutional failure
alone, but emerges also from a breakdown of the social and cultural
ties that underpin liberalism—a “delicate order” built in part on subli-
mated psycho-social understandings of agency and community. Statecraft
must therefore necessarily concern itself with issues of rank, status, and
10 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

security—an agenda that goes well beyond economistic renderings of the

public purpose that so predominate in discussions of politics and policy.
Chapter 6 examines Georges Bataille’s groundbreaking theory of the
“general economy” for insights into a number of economic and polit-
ical forces evident in a time of globalization and digitalization—forces
that defy the concepts and categories, such as “sovereignty” and “the
economy,” through which modern states organize collective responses
to pressing problems. Today’s technologically advanced economies have
amassed vast untapped surpluses of productive as well as wasted power.
Firms increasingly chase new consumptive ends in the context of perfor-
mative rewards characteristic of the digital economy, for example. Such
dynamics are reshaping the structure of societies, altering the uses of
science and technology, capital and credit, labor relations, and trade. The
erosion of trust associated with any number of public goods appears to
be related to these developments, and the specter of fascism lurks once
again. Bataille’s originality lay in calling attention to the risks associated
with economic and social dynamics that fostered ever-increasing energies
and expenditures at work well beyond the domains of traditional forms of
production and exchange. Managing these emerging forces becomes an
essential task of statecraft in this day and age.
Chapter 7 considers the relationship of statecraft to democracy and
citizenship. One defining feature of contemporary statecraft is the extent
to which the activities of citizens have been displaced by the impera-
tives of administration and constrained by the so-called requirements of
the market. The works of a range of democratic theorists are discussed,
among them Robert Dahl, Sheldon Wolin, Wendy Brown, and Astra
Taylor, to illustrate why statecraft unmoored from citizenship is so
dangerous. Without citizens, statecraft is adrift and ineffective at best:
Governments conflate private ends with those of the public, cascading
crises remain unresolved, longstanding and festering grievances are unad-
dressed, and the demos is at risk of dividing into warring factions. The
future of statecraft in “advanced” democracies therefore depends upon
the revitalization of the political subject and the reintegration of the
citizen into the craft of the state—a set of practices identified with what
we term demotic statecraft.
Finally, a brief conclusion lays out a preliminary agenda for a renewal
of the practice of statecraft, offering initial reflections on the considerable
efforts that must be made to revive this indispensable work through the
activities of citizenship. This labor, drawing as it must on the aspirations,
 1 REINTRODUCING STATECRAFT 11

imaginations, and energies of everyday people, is necessarily public and

collaborative. All the more reason, then, to provide scholars, students,
and policymakers with resources for understanding multiple dimensions
of public life as they bear on the work of the state, with the hope that the
art and practice of governing can contribute to, and in fact ennoble, the
conditions for human and species flourishing.

References
Berlin, I. (1988). The proper study of mankind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Butterfield, H. (1967). The statecraft of Machiavelli. Collier Books.
Haslam, J. (2002). No virtue like necessity: Realist thought in international
relations since Machiavelli. Yale University Press.
Shelton, J. T. (2016). Appropriating Adam Smith: Affirmation and contesta-
tion in discourses of political economy. In S. G. Nelson & N. Soguk (Eds.),
The Ashgate companion to modern theory, modern power, world politics: critical
investigations. Ashgate.
Wolin, S. S. (1960). Politics and vision: Continuity and innovation in Western
political thought. Little, Brown.
Wolin, S. S. (1987). Democracy and the welfare state: The political and theoret-
ical connection between staatsräson and wohlfahrtsstatsräson. Political Theory,
15(4), 467–500.
 CHAPTER 2

The Ambitions of Government:

Statecraft in Historical Perspective

We have introduced the concept of statecraft to highlight those dimen-

sions of governing that pertain to concerns that chiefly involve the
well-being of any society, concerns that are properly the matter of a
very old and inescapably political practice. In doing so, we aim to rein-
troduce the imaginative and purposive dimensions of this practice to a
field, Political Economy, that in recent decades has been preoccupied
almost exclusively with the technical, institutional, and procedural aspects
of economic management. These aspects are characterized by the term
governance, with its attendant focus on the roles of a variety of state and
non-state actors in the making and enactment of policy. It is no coin-
cidence that governance has become ubiquitous at just about precisely
the time that the ambitions of governments have seemed to narrow,
corresponding, it would appear, with the evident inability of polities to
ameliorate the social, economic, and cultural dislocations that accompany
periods of change and upheaval. The state’s role in the era of neoliber-
alism has been one of deference to and support for the social organization
(and distributional outcomes) effected by and integral to the accumula-
tion of capital. Attempts to address some of the greatest challenges of our
time—from rising inequality to climate change and the rise of far-right
populism—have thus been impeded by a narrowing vision of the scope

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 13

Switzerland AG 2023
S. G. Nelson and J. T. Shelton, Statecraft and the Political Economy
of Capitalism, International Political Economy Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15971-8_2
14 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

and possibilities of state action, a transformation that well predates the

fiscal crisis of the state in the 1960s and 1970s (O’Connor, 2017).
Indeed, the dispensability of the state has been embraced not only
by the disciples of Hayek and Friedman, but also by those on the left
who see in the state, especially in its neoliberal form, only a reflection
of bourgeois interests. The result is that little attention is paid today to
theorizing the state’s role in realizing the public purpose of a given polit-
ical economy—either on a national basis or in relation to a global system
of production and exchange. We argue that a renewed vision of this
purpose—one that is derived from present conditions and that emerges
in relation to contemporary political dynamics—is essential to meeting a
host of critical governing challenges of our time.
This chapter provides a historical and theoretical context for thinking
about the role of the state in relation to the achievement of shared
ends. In the history of political thought, responsibility for the overall
direction or the collective aspirations of a given community was tradi-
tionally assigned to a practice that since Aristotle has been referred to
as statesmanship, or statecraft. In the sections that follow, we account
for several ways that statecraft has been understood and practiced, high-
lighting the distinctive characteristics of statecraft in its ancient, modern,
and contemporary forms. In doing so, we hope to establish the signifi-
cance of statecraft in the history of Political Economy, in particular. Our
aim is to make more difficult all those taken-for-granted assumptions, so
deeply entrenched after forty-plus years of neoliberal dominance, about
the proper relation of the state to economies and societies undergoing
periods of economic transformation and social change. We intend not
only to make a claim for the state and its practices in the analysis of the
global economy, a task that has been taken up by others (see Kurlantzick,
2016), but also to elevate the indispensability of the common good in the
analysis of the state’s relationship to the economy and society, with crit-
ical attention to how that good is understood, elaborated, and put into
practice across various epochs. The aim of this analysis is not to revive
the statecraft of a previous era but to esteem the knowledge and prac-
tice of statecraft especially as an imperative of government that must take
on new forms to address escalating challenges to individual and collective
well-being unleashed by the dynamics of contemporary capitalism.
We are mindful that we are asking political economists to engage with a
concept that is easy to dismiss as antiquarian or reactionary, recalling the
realpolitik of Bismarck and his successors in the tradition of European
 2 THE AMBITIONS OF GOVERNMENT … 15

“Great Power” politics—a politics that bequeathed to the twenty-first

century the destructive and dehumanizing inheritance of empire and
patriarchy. By the end of the last century, one of the few scholars still
concerned with articulating a theory of statecraft had concluded that
the traditional understanding of statecraft as “the art of conducting state
affairs… has been virtually abandoned by students of domestic affairs”
(Baldwin, 1985, p. 8). Today, statecraft is commonly understood to be
a practice related to the conduct of foreign policy exclusively. Several
works of late twentieth and early twenty-first century Political Economy
are indicative of this genre: Baldwin (1985) focuses his study of economic
techniques of statecraft on “governmental influence attempts directed at
other actors in the international system” (1985, p. 9). Freeman (1997,
p. ix) defines statecraft quite generally as “concerned with the application
of the power of the state to other states and peoples.” More recently,
Brands and Edel’s (2019) examination of statecraft—in a text concerned
with the “tragic sensibility” (2019, p. 147) of ancient Greeks—applies its
lessons outwardly, to the maintenance of the international order.
To some degree, contemporary references to statecraft have been set
aside in favor of geoeconomics , a term similarly defined as a “strategic prac-
tice” concerned with the application of economic means of power by
states so as to realise geostrategic objectives” (Scholvin & Wigell, 2019,
p. 9). Others have defined geoeconomics as “a method of analysis and
form of statecraft”: “the use of economic instruments to promote and
defend national interests, and to produce beneficial geopolitical results;
and the effects of other nations’ economic actions on a country’s geopo-
litical goals” (Blackwill & Harris, 2016, p. 20). The conceptual shift away
from statecraft suggests that even in the domain of the international, the
idea of statecraft invokes too readily the old world of the Concert of
Europe. Geoeconomics, on the other hand, brings to mind the new world
of political risk consultants.
Statecraft as it is commonly understood today by scholars and prac-
titioners alike is concerned neither with the direction of the state as a
whole, nor with the common purposes of a given society. It is even less
interested in the practices and sensibilities of citizens. On the rare occa-
sions when statecraft is referenced, the term is used to signify the use of
economic instruments to shape the behavior of a variety of other state
actors. A richer account of statecraft will, we hope, suggest a great many
other possibilities for a field, Political Economy, that has in large part
forgotten its own history.
16 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

On the Origins of Statecraft

The idea that communities as communities possess distinct ends or aims,1
and that such purposes require overall organization or direction of some
kind, is certainly not new. It was Aristotle who gave the idea of the polit-
ical community its characteristic purpose: It “comes to be for the sake
of living, but it remains in existence for the sake of living well” (1998,
p. 3). Aristotle, who defined the political community as a “a multitude
of citizens adequate for life’s self-sufficiency” (1998, p. 67), argued that
what made “the community that is political” distinct from other forms of
community is that it “encompasses all the other aims” of its constituent
parts and has “the most authority of all” (1998, p. 1). A collection of
households, families, and villages constitutes a polis only when their “end
is a complete and self-sufficient life, which we say is living happily and
nobly” (1998, p. 81). Aristotle thereby establishes that a political commu-
nity is political precisely because it embodies a common purpose—a
collective good. This is not a settled good: In Aristotle’s analysis, different
constitutions empower different classes, emerge out of conflicts between
rich and poor, and conceive of justice in divergent ways—but however
contested, such aspirations are essential to a political life.
For Aristotle, the ideal political community arranges the activities of
the multitude in such a way as to achieve “that organization in which
anyone might do best and live a blessedly happy life” (1998, p. 194).
Individuals and households have a distinct role to play in the polis, but
organizing a political community such that this happiness can be achieved,
is, for Aristotle, the work of statesmanship, or statecraft: “Since in every
science or craft the end is a good, the greatest and best good is the end of
the science or craft that has the most authority of all of them, and this is
the science of statesmanship. But the political good is justice, and justice is
the common benefit” (1998, pp. 85–86). Directing a community to this
common benefit requires a statesman or “excellent legislator” whose task
“is to study how a city-state, a race of men, or any other community can
come to have a share in a good life and in the happiness that is possible
for them” (1998, p. 195).

1 Exactly how such aims are constituted as essential to the community, and under what
conditions and circumstances, given what distinctive relations of power, is taken up in
subsequent chapters.
 2 THE AMBITIONS OF GOVERNMENT … 17

The aspirations of Aristotle’s political vision are expansive. For Aris-

totle, the work of organizing a multitude requires not just good laws
(1998, p. 97) but also ensuring that the organization of the political
community is compatible with the character and qualities of persons who
are citizens (1998, p. 99)—those “eligible to participate in deliberative
and judicial office” (1998, p. 67). Aristotle’s understanding of the nature
of human beings as to some degree malleable—“the best of the animals
when perfected, so when separated from law and justice he is the worst of
all” (1998, p. 5)—raises the stakes for statesmanship or statecraft consid-
erably, with important implications for how the work of government is
conceived and executed. Aristotle’s statecraft is concerned not just with
the effect of law on conduct, but with the power of habituation: “For
the law has no power to secure obedience except habit; but habits can be
developed over a long period of time” (1998, p. 9).
In seeking the best organization of political community, Aristotle
regards the practices and habits of citizens to be of public interest. Citi-
zens must possess a particular virtue associated with citizenship: “the
capacity to rule and be ruled… and doing both well” (1998, p. 72).2
The concern of the statesman attempting to establish a polity that is as
“ideal as we could wish” (1998, p. 197) is therefore not just the prob-
lems of resources, geography, population size, fortification, access to the
sea, water supply, health, urban planning, and other sundry issues (1998,
pp. 209–211) of practical import, but assuring that a polity’s citizens are
“excellent” (1998, p. 213) and therefore up to the task of governing and
being governed.
Such a conception of statecraft therefore entails attention to the nature,
habit, and reason of citizens (1998, p. 214). Asserting that the “nature”
of a people is essentially fixed (see footnote two), Aristotle maintains that
“everything thereafter is a task for education. For some things are learned

2 To our minds, the least credible and most disturbing aspect of Politics for modern
readers is the way in which Aristotle attributes to slaves, women, “vulgar craftsmen,”
and others a set of immutable qualities that he believes should disqualify them from
participation in political life – namely, the absence or incompleteness of “the deliberative
part of the soul” (1998, p. 23). C.D.C. Reeve argues that Aristotle pays “an enormous
price … for having too narrow a conception of what human perfection consists in …
Without [false claims about] natural slaves or women whose nature makes them incapable
of ruling, Aristotle’s ideal constitution would have to look very different than it does”
(1998, p. lxxix).
18 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

by habituation, and others by instruction” (1998, p. 214). Indeed, Aris-

totle’s statesman or legislator is especially preoccupied with education—it
is “by means of education” that “a multitude is united and made into a
community” (1998, p. 34) and through which citizens learn how to rule
and be ruled (1998, p. 215). For Aristotle, “the most important” way to
make a constitution last “is for citizens to be educated in a way that suits
their constitutions. For the most beneficial of laws, even when ratified by
all who are engaged in politics, are of no use if people are not habituated
and educated in accord with the constitution… for if weakness exists in a
single individual, it also exists in a city-state” (1998, p. 158).
In Aristotle’s vision of statecraft, the task of a statesman is no less than
to “look to all these things, particularly to those that are better and those
that are ends, and to legislate in a way that suits the parts of a soul and
their actions … For the same things are best both for individuals and
communities, and it is these that a legislator should implant in the souls of
human beings” (1998, pp. 216–217, emphasis added). Statecraft is there-
fore in some measure a form of soul craft, presenting a vision of the public
purpose and of the reach and ambitions of government that predominates
in the history of ancient and medieval political thought. This ambition for
government is transformed, but not displaced, by the insertion of Chris-
tian theology into the political discourses of the Middle Ages. In Thomas
Aquinas’ De regimine principum, for example, “to govern is to guide what
is governed in a suitable fashion to its proper end” (2002, p. 39): “The
king’s duty is to secure the good life for the community in such a way
as to ensure that it is led to the blessedness of heaven” (2002, p. 43).
The fact that salvation is understood to be a proper end of government
suggests the vast ambitions of those concerned with articulating a shared
vision of “living well.”

Order and Legitimacy in Early Modern Statecraft

With the writings and ministerial correspondence of early moderns like
Machiavelli (see Butterfield, 1955, pp. 19–22) and Hobbes, the theoret-
ical ground reflected a dramatic shift. Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s concern
with soulcraft presumed a world in which the most basic questions of
order had been resolved, and in which the idea of the political community
 2 THE AMBITIONS OF GOVERNMENT … 19

itself could be taken for granted.3 The worlds of Machiavelli and Hobbes,
by contrast, reflect the tumult of an era in which new organizations
of political community and new systems of belief and belonging were
pressing upon old models, introducing a new imperative for the state:
The essential work was of modern state-making . This work entailed not
only the centralization of administration and the utilization of destructive
advances in the military sciences, but also the need to secure the acqui-
escence of ambitious men to a sovereign imposition in a period marked
by the shattering of religious sentiment and the fragmentation of dynastic
claims (Anderson, 1996). Order was understood to be a prerequisite to
any pursuit of Aristotelian virtue or Judeo-Christian values. In Machiavel-
li’s work, “the euphemisms [for power and violence] were cast aside and
the state was directly confronted as an aggregate of power” (Wolin, 2004,
p. 198). As Hobbes famously wrote, “before the names of just and unjust
can have place, there must be some coercive power…” (1994, p. 89). The
naked power of the state must first be confronted, and then concealed.
The great number of leadership challenges that Machiavelli consid-
ered in The Prince and The Discourses conveys the extent to which
early-modern statecraft served as a varied and multifaceted practice, one
that significantly revised Aristotle’s vision of human beings as potentially
perfectible given the right constitutional order and educational program.
Still, it would be incorrect to characterize Machiavelli’s statecraft as
abandoning entirely, along with overt appeals to religion, Aristotelian
aspirations to shape the conduct of individuals in everyday life: While
the statecraft of The Prince, concerned as it was with the “instability of
political life in the Italian city-states” (Wolin, 2004, p. 177), was largely
preoccupied with the “economy of violence” (2004, p. 199), Machiavelli
writes extensively in The Discourses about the importance of institutions
and laws that give expression to a people’s aspirations (1994, p. 94) and
ensure the virtù of citizens (1994, p. 87).
For Machiavelli, however, statecraft takes the form of the constraint or
bridling (1994, p. 154) of individuals rather than the shaping of souls:
“Men never do anything that is good except when forced to … as soon
as good habits break down, then laws at once become necessary” (1994,

3 Aristotle, for example, examined the specific political dynamics that accompanied
constitutions of various types, but he took the basic organization of the polis, and the
social hierarchy that sustained it, as a given.
20 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

p. 93). For Machiavelli, human nature means that political communi-

ties are forever fraught. Law works to impose an “artificial necessity”
(1994, p. 87) that will secure peace, order, and stability—at least for a
time. Despite Machiavelli’s concern for the virtù of citizens, the scope
for the application of public power is less comprehensive than that envi-
sioned by Aristotle. Neither is Machiavelli’s statecraft exhaustively and
invasively prescriptive: He does not share, for example, Aristotle’s need to
identify the melodies and rhythms appropriate for the education of citi-
zens (Aristotle, 1998, pp. 235–236), and neither does Machiavelli share
Aristotle’s concern about the deleterious effects of flute-playing (1998,
p. 238).
For Hobbes, who experienced the profound crisis of legitimacy that
erupted in the Thirty Years’ War, the imposition of the sovereign state
was itself the indispensable “artificial necessity,” and the task of state-
craft entrusted to the sovereign was no less than to secure the essential
prerequisites for political order. Sharing Machiavelli’s poor estimation of
human nature, but lacking the Florentine’s faith in the ability of good
laws and good institutions to generate a virtùous populace capable of
self-government, Hobbes urged that men who are “continually in compe-
tition for honour and dignity” (Hobbes, 1994, p. 108), and inevitably
subject to envy, hatred, and war, cannot be trusted to distinguish the
public benefit from their own private gain: “Man, whose joy consisteth
in comparing himself with other men, can relish nothing but what is
eminent” (1994, p. 108).
According to Hobbes, it is the common power of the state, in the
person of the sovereign, who must determine what is to be done in the
name of “the peace and defence of them all” (1994, p. 113). Hobbesian
statecraft, then, is the exclusive prerogative of the sovereign—a public
power unconstrained by civil law, acting “for the preserving of peace and
security” (1994, p. 113). To those who would doubt the necessity of such
a power to achieve these most essential ends, Hobbes offers up the specter
of chaos and disorder, all those “miseries and calamities that accompany a
civil war” (1994, p. 117). The most essential task of statecraft, then, is to
implant in the minds of subjects the necessity—and moreover, the natural-
ness—of sovereign power. What statecraft must effect is the concealment
of the arbitrary character of this imposition.
It is only after Locke has consolidated the legitimation project initiated
by Hobbes that the work of state-making—and its useful fictions—can be
set aside, and statecraft can take up the worldly problem of wealth as
 2 THE AMBITIONS OF GOVERNMENT … 21

its principal subject, replacing Aristotle’s concern for human virtue with
the interplay of human interests (see Hirschman, 2013), and sidestepping
altogether the essential problem of political order that so preoccupied
Machiavelli and Hobbes. The presumed success of the Lockean social
contract, with its promise of freedom secured by a consent that is always
already tacitly given, paves the way for the early political economists of
the eighteenth century. They set aside foundational questions of legiti-
macy, community and consent—and with dire consequences that we will
explore in subsequent chapters.

Modern Statecraft
and the Emergence of “The Economy”
Modern statecraft comes of age at precisely the juncture when the
sovereign imposition can be taken for granted—under conditions in
which the priorities of the state shift from the management of violence
to the management of men. While the modern state certainly retained its
claim to the legitimate use of violence (and increasingly did so in rela-
tion to imperial claims on foreign lands and peoples), periods of relative
peace in Europe gave rise to a new object—the economy—that would in
time pull statecraft further away from its traditional moorings. It is not
that ancient and early modern notions of statecraft made no room for
considerations that we would call economic: Aristotle’s engagement with
the subject of household management in Politics distinguishes between
the acquisition of property “necessary for life” (1998, p. 14), and a
second type of wealth acquisition, called “commerce” that was “con-
cerned primarily with money… its task is to be able to find sources from
which a pile of wealth will come” (1998, p. 16). Aristotle is particularly
concerned that wealth acquired “without limit” (1998, p. 27) will sap the
virtue required for effective citizenship. Wealthy citizens will fail to distin-
guish between their own ends and those of the community, becoming
“preoccupied with living, not with living well … their gratification [lying]
in excess” (1998, p. 17). The solution for Aristotle’s legislator is not
material equality but the cultivation of the mind: “For one should level
desires more than property, and that cannot happen unless people have
been adequately educated by the laws” (1998, p. 42).
While acknowledging the need for the statesman to consider matters
related to “wealth acquisition and the associated revenues” (1998, p. 21),
these subjects are linked in Aristotle’s Politics to essential questions
22 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

of constitutional organization and the problems of faction that arise

in unequal societies where the rich few and the poor multitude are
deeply divided over basic understandings of equality and inequality (1998,
p. 135). Despite references to wealth, commerce, and property, Aristotle
does not establish an independent domain of concern called “the econ-
omy” that statecraft ought to attend to in a way distinct or separate from
the other obligations of the legislator.
Arguably it is Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1980 [1690]),
with its defense of property as a natural right, and vision of an economy
that exists prior to political or civil society, that sets the stage for a
separation that has proven very costly for politics. Having resolved the
ultimately arbitrary imposition signified by private ownership of what God
gave to man in common, accumulation and exchange become potentially
separable from the statesman’s other concerns; in matters of economy, the
practice of statecraft is restricted by a natural right that is understood to
be prepolitical, reinforced by the sanctity of civil contract and thus not
to be subjected to public constraint. Modern statecraft must therefore
come to terms with the constraint on state action imposed by individual
right—a constraint that Aristotle would not have recognized.
In our view, two distinct visions of modern statecraft emerge from
the political-economic thought of the eighteenth century, both arising
from a great number of then-emerging social and political challenges
presented by pressures that would test the limits of human knowledge
and action, particularly those forces that were unleashed by relentless
processes of change in the gradual expansion and consolidation of modern
capitalism. The requirements of governing increased in both quantita-
tive and qualitative terms as markets expanded and contracted and as
communities adapted to the shifting requirements of societies consumed
with the imperative of accumulation. Accounts of the state and its rela-
tion to economy and society proliferated in an environment in which the
dynamics of capitalism posed continuous and continually shifting chal-
lenges for governing. Knowledge of political economy secured a space
in the social field as a means principally concerned with managing the
vicissitudes of economic life. Governing in this context took on a new
urgency.
The first conception of statecraft—which we call technical-
administrative statecraft —is frequently mischaracterized by political
economists and economic historians as an outmoded expression of
a vulgar mercantilism. This kind of dismissal, which corresponds with the
 2 THE AMBITIONS OF GOVERNMENT … 23

move to position Adam Smith as the founder of an economic science

(see Shelton, 2016), misstates the ambitions and dismisses the anxieties
reflected in the state’s early engagement with the expansion of inter-
national markets. It also overlooks the legacy of this tradition for the
work of later economists and economic sociologists—from Friedrich List
to Max Weber, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Polanyi and John Kenneth
Galbraith—who depart from neoclassical orthodoxy by embracing a
prominent role for the state in relation to economy and society. They
articulate a vision of government that requires immense technical capacity
but also an abiding awareness of political constraints as well as opportu-
nities. This vision required a facility with ideas over and above technical
aspects of the “science of production.” The vision of the administrative
state that emerges from early Political Economy required not merely the
skill of a legislator, the virtù of a prince, or the imposition of a sovereign,
but an entire apparatus of government.
Consider the task for statecraft outlined by Sir James Steuart, Adam
Smith’s lesser-known but better-traveled contemporary whose magnum
opus, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy, was published
in 1767—just nine years before Smith’s Wealth of Nations . Steuart was
born in 1713 into the tumultuous politics of early eighteenth-century
Scotland, where power in the wake of the Glorious Revolution of 1688
had yet to be consolidated. Despite suspicions of his grandfather’s loyalty
to the party of Orange, Steuart’s family emerged from the tumult of
the late seventeenth century mostly unscathed; Steuart’s father attained
prominence as a member of the Union Parliament and served as Solicitor
General for Scotland (Steuart, 1966, p. xxiii). Young James Steuart grew
up several miles outside Edinburgh, where he later attended school and
studied law, passing the Scottish bar at the age of 24 (1966, p. xxiv).
Steuart’s worldly education began with a foreign tour that commenced
the same year; over the next five years, Steuart studied in Holland and
Spain and traveled to the south of France and on to Rome, where he
met James Francis Edward Stuart, the “Old Pretender,” and planted the
seeds of his future exile. While Steuart dabbled in politics prior to 1745, it
was Charles Edward Stuart’s rebellion of that year, and Steuart’s eventual
declaration of support for the cause and participation in Jacobite coun-
sels, that would be his undoing. Steuart was sent to Paris to secure French
assistance for the short-lived rebellion (1966, p. xxxii). Facing prosecution
at home after the defeat of the Young Pretender in April 1746, Steuart
24 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

would not be permitted to return to Scotland for 17 years. It was during

this long exile that Steuart began writing his Principles.
This work, among the earliest to outline the ambitions of the new
“science” of political economy, is missing the almost fantastical opti-
mism of Smith’s Wealth of Nations . Informed by the observations and
experiences of nearly two decades of exile on the continent, Steuart’s
treatise is packed with depictions of the economic disharmony that char-
acterized the expansion of manufacturing power, the intensification of
international trade, and the reordering of social relations as the old feudal
order disintegrated. As Steuart grasps for a language to make sense of a
commercial society that is increasingly international in scope, he describes
an “equilibrio” (1966, p. 191) maintained by “moderate” vibrations
(1966, p. 194), a term that suggests the hum and rhythm of trade
and industry where competition is healthy and the availability of work
corresponds with demand for the products of labor. For Steuart, this
“happy state” (1966, p. 195) cannot last—“time necessarily destroys the
perfect balance” (1966, p. 196). Once-“gentle” (1966, p. 190) vibra-
tions inevitably become out of sync, louder, and more volatile, signifying
disturbances to the social balance. Underlying these disturbances is a
discontinuity between available work and demand for goods. Changes in
taste, an increase in foreign competition, a loss of industriousness (1966,
p. 195), a broader shift in the “spirit of a people” (1966, p. 25)—all
can lead in Steuart’s observations to mass unemployment, widespread
disorder, and the specter of a society populated by those who depend on
no one and by those “upon whom nobody depends, and who depends
upon every one” (1966, p. 88). If the concept of vibration signifies
for Steuart a political economy characterized by continual, machine-like
motion, he offers his readers no confidence that a hum will prevail over a
screech or a roar.
Absent Smith’s faith in an invisible hand, how might harmony yet be
contrived? Steuart’s account of economic disruption makes reference to
price fluctuations but is more concerned with the habits, customs, and
manners of a people falling out of step with the requirements of the
moment. Steuart calls upon the statesman—a term used by Steuart “to
signify the legislature or supreme power” rather than any specific indi-
vidual (1966, p. 16)—to restore the lost “equilibrio.” The statesman must
carefully consider “different schemes of oeconomy” and then “model the
minds of his subjects” so as to induce them to restore harmony through
the “allurement of private interest” (1966, p. 17): “In treating every
 2 THE AMBITIONS OF GOVERNMENT … 25

question of political oeconomy, I constantly suppose a statesman at the

head of government, systematically conducting every part of it, so as to
prevent the vicissitudes of manners, and innovations, by their natural and
immediate effects or consequences, from hurting any interest within the
commonwealth” (1966, p. 122).
Steuart’s is a technical-administrative vision of modern statecraft that
is at once equally demanding and simultaneously more constraining than
the statecraft of the ancient and medieval worlds. Indeed, the work of
Steuart’s modern state entails aspiring to a limitless knowledge of the
population to be governed—this knowledge, political oeconomy, takes
as its object “to provide food, other necessities, and employment to
everyone of the society”; “to provide a proper employment for all the
members of a society, is the same as to model and conduct every branch of
their concerns” (1966, p. 28). For Steuart, it is impossible to execute the
correct plan of political economy “without exactly knowing [the inhabi-
tants’] situation as to numbers, their employment, the gains upon every
species of industry, the numbers produced from each class” (1966, p. 70).
Steuart links the practice of statecraft to the development of a systematic
knowledge of the body politic—an organization of power-knowledge that
Foucault (1978) would later identify as biopolitics.
Despite these aims, Steuart’s statesman is not offered the convenience
of a blank slate or the opportunity to imagine, as did Aristotle, what it
would be like to live as ideally as possible: “States are found formed,
and the oeconomy of these depends upon a thousand circumstances. The
statesman… is neither master to establish what oeconomy he pleases, or,
in the exercise of his sublime authority, to overturn at will the established
laws of it, let him be the most despotic monarch on earth” (1966, p. 16).
Chief among these “laws” is “self-interest,” which Steuart, reflecting a
view of human nature inherited from the political thought of Machiavelli
and Hobbes, describes as “the ruling principle” of the subject (1966,
p. 142). Given a state “found formed” and a people inclined to “self-
love” (1966, p. 34), Steuart’s supreme power is tasked with contriving
harmony. This is no easy task. Steuart thus revives the ambitions of
statecraft as soulcraft without addressing the contradiction between the
necessity of modeling minds and the acceptance of a rigidly self-interested
subject.4

4 By the twentieth century, Steuart’s theoretical heirs had discovered new foundations
for human behavior—seeking in knowledge of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and
26 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

A second—and perhaps more familiar—vision of modern statecraft

attempts to square this circle. Adam Smith, a figure appropriated by
almost every tradition in modern economics (Shelton, 2016), could easily
be characterized as the father of liberal statecraft —the author who, more
than any other, reconciled the relation between the public and private
good by equating, to a large degree, the interests of individuals with
those of society. In the work of Smith and his followers, “what was once
considered a defect – self-interestedness – became the ground on which
an edifice of rights was erected” (Will, 1983, p. 43). The effect of this
most consequential of theoretical moves was not only to constrain the
legitimate concerns of the state to those areas of collective life that could
not be effectively mediated by voluntary exchange, but instead to substi-
tute the knowledge and practice of Steuart’s overburdened state with
the vast machinery of an open and (in the case of the late nineteenth
century) rapidly expanding market system. Having mostly resolved the
disharmonies that statecraft is intended to order, Smith’s “invisible hand”
replaces the visible hand of the statesman who is no longer required to
be “systematically conducting every part of” government (Steuart, 1966,
p. 122).
Smith’s depiction of the role of government in a society of almost
perfect liberty does not erase the state, but it restricts its activities to the
securing of justice, the building of public works, the work of national
defense, and the provision of basic education (Smith, 1976). While these
tasks are not as minimal as some commentators argue, they are a consider-
able distance from Steuart’s requirement that the supreme power “model
and conduct every branch of their [the public’s] concerns” (Steuart,
1966, p. 28). As emphasized some years ago by George Will (1983),
“Ancient political philosophy demanded subtle statesmanship but held
out the promise of nobility. Modern political philosophy demands less of
statesmen – indeed, it insists on modest, even banal aims – but it promises
clarity and certainty” (1983, p. 44).
The impact of liberalism on the ambitions and priorities of government
is detailed further in the chapters that follow. But an essential consequence

biology the means to more effectively administer the population. The original contradic-
tion between soulcraft and self-interest is not so much resolved as displaced; if right is
the formal limit of power, then statecraft must learn to understand and to influence the
drivers of “freely” choosing subjects. The aim is therefore to shape interests rather than
to be limited by them.
 2 THE AMBITIONS OF GOVERNMENT … 27

is that as the aim of “living well” becomes a matter for individual calcu-
lation and decision, liberal statecraft cedes much of the ground on which
Aristotle’s conception of politics rests. It does not eliminate the idea of
the public good from the vocabulary of the state, but it abandons to the
market mechanism both the work of enacting the public purpose and the
requisite attention to negotiating collective power that such an enactment
demands: “Once politics is defined negatively, as an enterprise for drawing
a protective circle around an individual’s sphere of self-interested action,
then public concerns are by definition distinct from, and secondary to,
private concerns” (Will, 1983, p. 45).
Inheriting from Hobbes and Locke a vision of a depoliticized state
composed of contracted individuals, liberal statecraft exhibits amnesia
about the contested character of basic understandings of political commu-
nity and displays discomfort with the analysis of power. In the liberal
order, “Man might not be elevated, but he could be tamed. Regimes
may not be elevating, but they will be perpetual. They shall be perpetual-
motion machines, wonderful clockwork devices running off the natural
motion of mankind” (Will, 1983, p. 44). Just as early-modern state-
craft functioned to naturalize the profound imposition of the state, liberal
statecraft conjures a society constituted by and coordinated through the
frictionless transactions of self-interested buyers and sellers. The effect is
not only to banish power from the analysis of the economy, but perhaps
just as important to generate a forgetting of the historical conditions—
material, political, social, cultural, and psychological—in which politics
and the economy, states and markets are inescapably bound. Just as the
social contract removes to an imagined past the moment when a given
“we” (see Nelson, 2010) might be legitimately contested, the “natural
motion” of the market depoliticizes the newly established domain of the
economy, further eroding the remit for state action in the public interest.
The result is not only “the abandonment of soulcraft” identified by
Will (1983, p. 43), but the ceding of this ground to the social coor-
dination effected by non-state actors, among them today’s culture and
communications industries supercharged by new (social) media technolo-
gies and platforms, with attendant effects on political socialization and
shared notions of community. Will’s assessment helps to clarify why
liberal statecraft has so little to say about matters of domestic or national
concern—previously the chief domain of the statesman’s essential craft.
Having sidestepped the problem of order, transferred the organization
of the community to a civil society mediated by the market, and shifted
28 S. G. NELSON AND J. T. SHELTON

the responsibility of living well to private interests, public power and

common purpose recede into an obscure background, along with the
tradition of sustained and collective reflection on what living well together
might mean for a community in a given time and place. It is not
surprising, then, that public policy in liberal democracies comes to lean
so heavily on the operation and signaling provided by the market mech-
anism, crowding out more imaginative ways of thinking about aspects
or techniques of governing that might overcome the limits imposed
by the artificial division of state and market, economy and society. In
the words of one commentator, liberalism “hinder[s] thinking about
economic statecraft. Any doctrine firmly committed to one – and only
one – technique of statecraft is not likely to encourage speculation about
alternative techniques” (Baldwin, 1985, p. 59).

The Post-War Revival of Statecraft

While the emergence of liberal statecraft (and its neoliberal successor) is
the focus of much of our analysis in this chapter, the legacy of Steuart’s
much more expansive vision of technical-administrative statecraft should
not be overlooked. Indeed, the theorists we consider in subsequent chap-
ters have inherited Steuart’s anxieties and his aims—even as they challenge
some of his assumptions about the drivers of “self-interested” human
behavior. Part of the difficulty of accounting for statecraft in its many
manifestations across the history of political thought is indeed the incon-
gruence between the professed aspirations of government and its more
sober, and sobering, realities. This is particularly evident in the tradition
of liberal statecraft: While the use of economic measures to blunt the
workings of the market never sat easily with a liberalism defined in inter-
national terms by the harmony of interests, it was E.H. Carr (2001) who
reminded us just how far the statecraft of the early twentieth century
departed from its Utopian pretensions. Technical-administrative statecraft
was never entirely abandoned, but it was subject to a theoretical erasure.
As Ha-Joon Chang (2008) has argued, the failure to acknowledge the role
of the state in strengthening the productive powers of the United States
and United Kingdom at home reflects a kind of historical amnesia. By
contrast, in Germany and Japan the liberal model was all but categorically
resisted—and the older concerns with state-making and the administra-
tion of economic forces in pursuit of collective or national ends never
disappeared.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
detailed many things regarding the wild flight of himself and
Aguinaldo's party up the coast. The last words written in it
were pathetic and indicated something of the noble character
of the man. The passage, which was written only a few minutes
previously, while the fight was on and while death even then
was before him, said: 'I am holding a difficult position
against desperate odds, but I will gladly die for my beloved
country.'

"Pilar alive and in command, shooting down good Americans, was

one thing, but Pilar lying in that silent mountain trail, his
body half denuded of its clothes, and his young, handsome,
boyish face discolored with the blood which saturated his
blouse and stained the earth, was another thing. We could not
help but feel admiration for his gallant fight, and sorrow for
the sweetheart whom he left behind. The diary was dedicated to
the girl, and I have since learned that he was to have married
her in Dagupan about two weeks before. But the Americans came
too soon. Instead of wedding bells there sounded the bugle
calls of the foe and he was hurriedly ordered to accompany his
chief, Aguinaldo, on that hasty retreat to the mountains. The
marriage was postponed, and he carried out his orders by
leaving for the north. Pilar was one of the best types of the
Filipino soldier. He was only 23 years old, but he had been
through the whole campaign in his capacity as
brigadier-general. It was he who commanded the forces at
Quingua the day that Colonel Stotsenberg was killed, and it
may be remembered that the engagement that day was one of the
most bloody and desperate that has occurred on the island. He
was a handsome boy, and was known as one of the Filipinos who
were actuated by honestly patriotic motives, and who fought
because they believed they were fighting in the right and not
for personal gain or ambition."

Chicago Record's Stories of Filipino Warfare,

page 14.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899 (March-July).
The establishment of a provisional government
in the island of Negros.

Negros "was the first island to accept American sovereignty.

Its people unreservedly proclaimed allegiance to the United
States and adopted a constitution looking to the establishment
of a popular government. It was impossible to guarantee to the
people of Negros that the constitution so adopted should be
the ultimate form of government. Such a question, under the
treaty with Spain and in accordance with our own Constitution
and laws, came exclusively within the jurisdiction of the
Congress. The government actually set up by the inhabitants of
Negros eventually proved unsatisfactory to the natives
themselves. A new system was put into force by order of the
Major-General Commanding the Department [July 22, 1899], of
which the following are the most important elements:

"It was ordered that the government of the island of Negros

should consist of a military governor appointed by the United
States military governor of the Philippines, and a civil
governor and an advisory council elected by the people. The
military governor was authorized to appoint secretaries of the
treasury, interior, agriculture, public instruction, an
attorney-general, and an auditor. The seat of government was
fixed at Bacolod. The military governor exercises the supreme
executive power. He is to see that the laws are executed,
appoint to office, and fill all vacancies in office not
otherwise provided for, and may with the approval of the
military governor of the Philippines, remove any officer from
office. The civil governor advises the military governor on
all public civil questions and presides over the advisory
council. He, in general, performs the duties which are
performed by secretaries of state in our own system of
government. The advisory council consists of eight members
elected by the people within territorial limits which are
defined in the order of the commanding general. The times and
 places of holding elections are to be fixed by the military
governor of the island of Negros. The qualifications of voters
are as follows:

(1) A voter must be a male citizen of the island of Negros.

(2) Of the age of 21 years.

(3) He shall be able to speak, read, and write the English,

Spanish, or Visayan language, or he must own real property
worth $500, or pay a rental on real property of the value of
$1,000.

(4) He must have resided in the island not less than one year
preceding, and in the district in which he offers to register
as a voter not less than three months immediately preceding
the time he offers to register.

(5) He must register at a time fixed by law before voting.

(6) Prior to such registration he shall have paid all taxes

due by him to the Government.

{384}

Provided, that no insane person shall bc allowed to register

or vote. The military governor has the right to veto all bills
or resolutions adopted by the advisory council, and his veto
is final if not disapproved by the military governor of the
Philippines. The advisory council discharges all the ordinary
duties of a legislature. The usual duties pertaining to said
offices are to be performed by the secretaries of the
treasury, interior, agriculture, public instruction, the
attorney-general, and the auditor. The judicial power is
vested in three judges, who are to be appointed by the
military governor of the island. Inferior courts are to be
established. Free public schools are to be established
 throughout the populous districts of the island, in which the
English language shall be taught, and this subject will
receive the careful consideration of the advisory council. The
burden of government must be distributed equally and equitably
among the people. The military authorities will collect and
receive the customs revenue, and will control postal matters
and Philippine inter-island trade and commerce. The military
governor, subject to the approval of the military governor of
the Philippines, determines all questions not specifically
provided for and which do not come under the jurisdiction of
the advisory council."

Message of the President, December 5, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, page 47).

Also in:
Report of General Otis (Message and Documents,
volume 2, page 1131-1137).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899 (May-August).

Agreement of terms with the Sultan of Jolo concerning
the Sulu Archipelago.

On the 19th of May, a detachment of U. 8. troops took the

place of the Spanish garrison at Jolo, the military station in
the Sulu Archipelago. On the 3d of July, General Otis, Military
Governor of the Philippines, issued orders as follows to
General J. C. Bates, U. S. V.: "You will proceed as soon as
practicable to the United States military station of Jolo, on
the island of that name, and there place yourself in
communication with the Sultan of Jolo, who is believed to be
at Siassi, where he was sojourning when the last information
concerning him was received. You are hereby appointed and
constituted an agent on the part of the United States military
authorities in the Philippines to discuss, enter into
negotiations, and perfect, if possible, a written agreement of
character and scope as hereinafter explained, with the Sultan,
which upon approval at these headquarters and confirmation by
the supreme executive authority of the United States, will
prescribe and control the future relations, social and
political, between the United States Government and the
inhabitants of the archipelago. … In your discussions with the
Sultan and his datos the question of sovereignty will be
forced to the front, and they will undoubtedly request an
expression of opinion thereon, as they seem to be impressed
apparently with the belief that the recent Spanish authorities
with whom they were in relationship have transferred full
sovereignty of the islands to them. The question is one which
admits of easy solution, legally considered, since by the
terms of treaties or protocols between Spain and European
powers Spanish sovereignty over the archipelago is conceded.
Under the agreement between Spain and the Sultan and datos of
July, 1878, the latter acknowledged Spanish sovereignty in the
entire archipelago of Jolo and agreed to become loyal Spanish
subjects, receiving in consideration certain specific payments
in money. The sovereignty of Spain, thus established and
acknowledged by all parties in interest, was transferred to
the United States by the Paris treaty. The United States has
succeeded to all the rights which Spain held in the
archipelago, and its sovereignty over the same is an
established fact. But the inquiry arises as to the extent to
which that sovereignty can be applied under the agreement of
1878 with the Moros. Sovereignty, of course, implies full
power of political control, but it is not incompatible with
concessionary grants between sovereign and subject. The Moros
acknowledged through their accepted chiefs Spanish sovereignty
and their subjection thereto, and that nation in turn conferred
upon their chiefs certain powers of supervision over them and
their affairs. The kingly prerogatives of Spain, thus abridged
by solemn concession, have descended to the United States, and
conditions existing at the time of transfer should remain. The
Moros are entitled to enjoy the identical privileges which
they possessed at the time of transfer, and to continue to
 enjoy them until abridged or modified by future mutual
agreement between them and the United States, to which they
owe loyalty, unless it becomes necessary to invoke the
exercise of the supreme powers of sovereignty to meet
emergencies. You will therefore acquaint yourself thoroughly
with the terms of the agreement of 1878, and take them as a
basis for your directed negotiations. …

"It is greatly desired by the United States for the sake of

the individual improvement and social advancement of the
Moros, and for the development of the trade and agriculture of
the islands in their interests, also for the welfare of both the
United States and Moros, that mutual friendly and well-defined
relations be established. If the Sultan can be made to give
credit to and fully understand the intentions of the United
States, the desired result can be accomplished. The United
States will accept the obligations of Spain under the
agreement of 1878 in the matter of money annuities, and in
proof of sincerity you will offer as a present to the Sultan
and datos $10,000, Mexican, with which you will be supplied
before leaving for Jolo—the same to be handed over to them,
respectively, in amounts agreeing with the ratio of payments
made to them by the Spanish Government for their declared
services. From the 1st of September next, and thereafter, the
United States will pay to them regularly the sums promised by
Spain in its agreement of 1878, and in any subsequent promises
of which proof can be furnished. The United States will
promise, in return for the concessions to be hereinafter
mentioned, not to interfere with, but to protect the Moros in
the free exercise of their religion and customs, social and
domestic, and will respect the rights and dignities of the
Sultan and his advisers."

{385}

Of the results of the mission of General Bates, General Otis

reported subsequently as follows:

"General Bates had a difficult task to perform and executed it

with tact and ability. While a number of the principal datos were
favorably inclined, the Sultan, not responding to invitations,
kept aloof and was represented by his secretary, until
finally, the general appearing at Maibung, the Moro capital, a
personal interview was secured. He being also Sultan of North
Borneo and receiving large annual payments from the North
Borneo Trading Company, expected like returns from the United
States, and seemed more anxious to obtain personal revenue
than benefits for his people. Securing the port of Siassi from
the Spaniards, establishing there his guards and police, he
had received customs revenues from the Sandaken trade which he
was loath to surrender. Negotiations continued well into
August, and finally, after long conferences, an agreement was
reached by which the United States secured much more liberal
terms than the Spaniards were ever able to obtain."

Report of General Otis, August 31, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, pages 1162-1164).

"By Article I the sovereignty of the United States over the

whole archipelago of Jolo and its dependencies is declared and
acknowledged. The United States flag will be used in the
archipelago and its dependencies, on land and sea. Piracy is
to be suppressed, and the Sultan agrees to co-operate heartily
with the United States authorities to that end and to make
every possible effort to arrest and bring to justice all
persons engaged in piracy. All trade in domestic products of
the archipelago of Jolo when carried on with any part of the
Philippine Islands and under the American flag shall be free,
unlimited, and undutiable. The United States will give full
protection to the Sultan in case any foreign nation should
attempt to impose upon him. The United States will not sell
the island of Jolo or any other island of the Jolo archipelago
to any foreign nation without the consent of the Sultan.
Salaries for the Sultan find his associates in the
administration of the islands have been agreed upon to the
amount of $760 monthly. Article X provides that any slave in
the archipelago of Jolo shall have the right to purchase
freedom by paying to the master the usual market value. The
agreement by General Bates was made subject to confirmation by
the President and to future modifications by the consent of
the parties in interest. I have confirmed said agreement,
subject to the action of the Congress, and with the
reservation, which I have directed shall be communicated to
the Sultan of Jolo, that this agreement is not to be deemed in
any way to authorize or give the consent of the United States
to the existence of slavery in the Sulu archipelago."

Message of the President, December 5, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, pages 47-48).

"The population of the Sulu Archipelago is reckoned at

120,000, mostly domiciled in the island of Jolo, and numbers
20,000 fighting men. Hostilities would be unfortunate for all
parties concerned, would be very expensive to the United
States in men and money, and destructive of any advancement of
the Moros for years to come. Spain's long struggle with these
people and their dislike for the former dominant race in the
Philippines, inherited, it would seem, by each rising
generation during three centuries, furnishes an instructive
lesson. Under the pending agreement General Bates, assisted by
the officers of the Navy, quietly placed garrisons of one
company each at Siassi and at Bongao, on the Tawai Tawai group
of islands, where they were well received by the friendly
natives. With the approval of the agreement, the only
difficulty to a satisfactory settlement of the Sulu affairs
will arise from discontent on the part of the Sultan
personally because of a supposed decrease in anticipated
revenues or the machinations of the insurgents of Mindanao,
 who are endeavoring to create a feeling of distrust and
hostility among the natives against the United States troops.

"The Sultan's government is one of perfect despotism, in form

at least, as all political power is supposed to center in his
person; but this does not prevent frequent outbreaks on the
part of the datos, who frequently revolt, and are now, in two
or three instances, in declared enmity. All Moros, however,
profess the Mohammedan religion, introduced in the fourteenth
century, and the sacredness of the person of the Sultan is
therefore a tenet of faith. This fact would prevent any marked
success by a dato in attempting to secure supreme power. Spain
endeavored to supplant the Sultan with one of his most
enterprising chiefs and signally failed. Peonage or a species
of serfdom enters largely into the social and domestic
arrangements and a dato's following or clan submits itself
without protest to his arbitrary will. The Moro political
fabric bears resemblance to the state of feudal times—the
Sultan exercising supreme power by divine right, and his
datos, like the feudal lords, supporting or opposing him at
will, and by force of arms occasionally, but not to the extent
of dethronement, as that would be too great a sacrilege for a
Mohammedan people to seek to consummate. The United States
must accept these people as they are, and endeavor to
ameliorate their condition by degrees, and the best means to
insure success appears to be through the cultivation of
friendly sentiments and the introduction of trade and commerce
upon approved business methods. To undertake forcible radical
action for the amelioration of conditions or to so interfere
with their domestic relations as to arouse their suspicions
and distrust would be attended with unfortunate consequences."

Report of General Otis, August 31, 1899

(Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900,
volume 2, page 1165).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1899-1900.

 Military operations against the Insurgents.
Death of General Lawton.

"The enlargement of the field of operations and government in

the Philippine Islands made it impracticable to conduct the
business under the charge of the army in those islands through
the machinery of a single department, and by order made April
7, 1900, the Philippine Islands were made a military division,
consisting of four departments: The Department of Northern Luzon,
the Department of Southern Luzon, the Department of the
Visayas, and the Department of Mindanao and Jolo. The
Department of Northern Luzon is subdivided into six, the
Department of Southern Luzon into four, the Department of the
Visayas into four, and the Department of Mindanao and Jolo
into four military districts. …

"At the date of the last report (November 29, 1899 [see
above]) the government established by the Philippine
insurgents in central Luzon and the organized armed forces by
which it was maintained had been destroyed, and the principal
civil and military leaders of the insurrection, accompanied by
small and scattered bands of troops, were the objects of
pursuit in the western and the northern parts of the island.
{386}
That pursuit was prosecuted with vigor and success, under
conditions of extraordinary difficulty and hardship, and
resulted in the further and practically complete
disintegration of the insurrectionary bands in those regions,
in the rescue of nearly all the American prisoners and the
greater part of the Spanish prisoners held by the insurgents,
in the capture of many of the leading insurgents, and in the
capture and destruction of large quantities of arms,
ammunition, and supplies. There still remained a large force
of insurgents in Cavite and the adjacent provinces south of
Manila, and a considerable force to the east of the Rio Grande
de Pampanga, chiefly in the province of Bulacan, while in the
extreme southeastern portions of Luzon, and in the various
Visayan islands, except the island of Negros, armed bodies of
Tagalogs had taken possession of the principal seacoast towns,
and were exercising military control over the peaceful
inhabitants. Between the insurgent troops in Bulacan and the
mountains to the north, and the insurgents in the south,
communication was maintained by road and trail, running along
and near the eastern bank of the Mariquina River, and through
the towns of Mariquina, San Mateo, and Montalban and the
province of Morong. This line of communication, passing
through rough and easily defended country, was strongly
fortified and held by numerous bodies of insurgents.

"On the 18th of December, 1899, a column, under the command of

Major General Henry W. Lawton, proceeded from Manila, and
between that date and the 29th of December captured all the
fortified posts of the insurgents, took possession of the line
of communication, which has ever since been maintained, and
destroyed, captured, or dispersed the insurgent force in that
part of the island. In the course of this movement was
sustained the irremediable loss of General Lawton, who was
shot and instantly killed while too fearlessly exposing his
person in supervising the passing of his troops over the river
Mariquina at San Mateo.

"On the 4th of January, 1900, General J. C. Bates, U. S. V.,

was assigned to the command of the First Division of the
Eighth Army Corps, and an active campaign under his direction
was commenced in Southern Luzon. The plan adopted was to
confront and hold the strong force of the enemy near Imus and
to the west of Bacoor by a body of troops under General
Wheaton, while a column, under General Schwan, should move
rapidly down the west shore of the Laguna de Bay to Biñang,
thence turn southwesterly and seize the Silang, Indang, and
Naic road, capture the enemy's supplies supposed to be at the
towns of Silang and Indang, and arrest the retreat of the
enemy, when he should be driven from northern Cavite by our
troops designated to attack him there, and thus prevent his
reassembling in the mountains of southern Cavite and northern
Batangas. This plan was successfully executed. General
Schwan's column moved over the lines indicated with great
rapidity, marching a distance of over 600 miles, striking and
defeating numerous bodies of insurgents and capturing many
intrenched positions, taking possession of and garrisoning
towns along the line, and scattering and demoralizing all the
organized forces of the enemy within that section of country.
From these operations and the simultaneous attacks by our
troops under General Wheaton in the north the rebel forces in
the Cavite region practically disappeared, the members either
being killed or captured or returning to their homes as
unarmed citizens, and a few scattered parties escaping through
General Schwan's line to the south. By the 8th of February the
organized forces of the insurgents in the region mentioned had
ceased to exist. In large portions of the country the
inhabitants were returning to their homes and resuming their
industries, and active trade with Manila was resumed. In the
course of these operations about 600 Spanish prisoners were
released from the insurgents, leaving about 600 more still in
their hands in the extreme southeastern provinces of Camarines
and Albay, nearly all of whom were afterwards liberated by our
troops. In the meantime an expedition was organized under the
command of Brigadier General William A. Kobbé, U. S. V., to
expel the Tagalogs who had taken possession of the principal
hemp ports of the islands situated in Albay, the extreme
southeastern province of Luzon, and in the islands of Leyte,
Samar, and Catanduanes. This expedition sailed from Manila on
the 18th of January and accomplished its object. All of the
principal hemp ports were relieved from control of the
insurgents, garrisoned by American troops, and opened to
commerce by order of the military governor of the islands on
the 30th of January and the 10th and 14th of February. The
expedition met with strong resistance at Legaspi by an
intrenched force under the Chinese general, Paua. He was
speedily overcome and went into the interior. After a few days
he reassembled his forces and threatened the garrisons which
 had been left in Albay and Legaspi, whereupon he was attacked,
and defeated, and surrendered. Thirty pieces of artillery, a
large quantity of ammunition, a good many rifles, and a
considerable amount of money were captured by this expedition.

"On the 15th of February an expedition, under the supervision

of Major-General Bates and under the immediate command of
Brigadier General James M. Bell, U. S. V., sailed from Manila
to take possession of the North and South Camarines provinces
and Western Albay, in which the insurgent forces had been
swelled by the individuals and scattered bands escaping from
our operations in various sections of the north. The insurgent
force was defeated after a sharp engagement near the mouth of
the Bicol River, pursued, and scattered. Large amounts of
artillery and war material were captured. The normal
conditions of industry and trade relations with Manila were
resumed by the inhabitants. On the 20th of March the region
covered by the last-described operations was created a
district of southeastern Luzon, under the command of General
James M. Bell, who was instructed to proceed to the
establishment of the necessary customs and internal-revenue
service in the district. In the meantime similar expeditions
were successfully made through the mountains of the various
islands of the Visayan Group, striking and scattering and
severely punishing the bands of bandits and insurgents who
infested those islands. In the latter part of March General
Bates proceeded with the Fortieth infantry to establish
garrisons in Mindanao. The only resistance was of a trifling
character at Cagayan, the insurgent general in northeastern
Mindanao surrendering and turning over the ordnance in his
possession.
{387}
With [the execution of these movements] all formal and open
resistance to American authority in the Philippines
terminated, leaving only an exceedingly vexatious and annoying
guerilla warfare of a character closely approaching
brigandage, which will require time, patience, and good
 judgment to finally suppress. As rapidly as we have occupied
territory, the policy of inviting inhabitants to return to
their peaceful vocations, and aiding them in the
reestablishment of their local governments, has been followed,
and the protection of the United States has been promised to
them. The giving of this protection has led to the
distribution of troops in the Philippine Islands to over 400
different posts, with the consequent labor of administration
and supply. The maintenance of these posts involves the
continued employment of a large force, but as the Tagalogs who
are in rebellion have deliberately adopted the policy of
murdering, so far as they are able, all of their countrymen
who are friendly to the United States, the maintenance of
garrisons is at present necessary to the protection of the
peaceful and unarmed Filipinos who have submitted to our
authority; and if we are to discharge our obligations in that
regard their reduction must necessarily be gradual."

United States, Secretary of War,

Annual Report, November 30, 1900, pages 5-10.

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1900 (January).

Report of the First Philippine Commission.

The First Commission to the Philippines returned to the United

States in the autumn of 1899, and then submitted to the President
a brief preliminary statement of its proceedings in the
Islands and the opinions its members had formed, concerning
the spirit and extent of the Tagalo revolt, the general
disposition of the people at large, their capacity for
independent self-government, etc. On the 31st of January
following the commissioners presented a report which deals
extensively with many subjects of investigation and
deliberation. In Part I., it sets forth the efforts made by
the commission "toward conciliation and the establishment of
peace," through interviews with various emissaries of
Aguinaldo, and others, and by means of a proclamation to the
people. In Part II., it gives an extended account of the races
and tribes of which the native population of the Islands is
composed. In Part III., it details the provision that has
heretofore been made for education, and states the conclusions
of the commission as to the capacity of the people and their
fitness for a popular government. In Part IV., a very full
account of the Spanish organization of government in the
Philippines, general, provincial and municipal, is given, and
the reforms that were desired by the Filipino people are
ascertained. From this the commission proceeds to consider the
question of a plan of government for the Islands under the
sovereignty of the United States, and concludes that the
Territorial system of the United States offers all that can be
desired. "What Jefferson and the nation did for Louisiana,"
says the report, "we are … free to-day to do for the
Philippines. The fact that Bonaparte had provided in the
treaty that Louisiana should in due time be admitted as a
State in the Union, and that in the meantime its inhabitants
should have protection in the free enjoyment of their liberty,
property, and religion, made no difference in the relation of
Louisiana to the Constitution of the United States so long as
Louisiana remained a Territory; and, if it had made a
difference, it should have constituted something of a claim to
the immediate enjoyment of some or all of the benefits of the
Constitution. Unmoved by that consideration, however, the
Jeffersonian policy established once for all the subjection of
national domain outside the States to the absolute and
unrestricted power of Congress. The commission recommends that
in dealing with the Philippines this vast power be exercised
along the lines laid down by Jefferson and Madison in
establishing a government for Louisiana, but with … deviations
in the direction of larger liberty to the Filipinos. … The
result would be substantially the transformation of their
second-class Territorial government of Louisiana into a
Territorial government of the first-class for the Philippine
Islands." To this recommendation of the Territorial system of
government the commission adds a strenuous plea for a closely
 guarded civil service. "It is a safe and desirable rule," says
the report, "that no American should be appointed to any office
in the Philippines for which a reasonably qualified Filipino
can, by any possibility, be secured. Of course the merit or
business system must be adopted and lived up to; the patronage
or spoils system would prove absolutely fatal to good
government in this new Oriental territory." Further parts of
the report are devoted to the Philippine judicial system, as
it had been and as it should be; to "the condition and needs
of the United States in the Philippines from a naval and
maritime standpoint"; to the secular clergy and religious
orders; to registration laws; to the currency; to the Chinese
in the Philippines; and to public health. Among the exhibits
appended in volume 1 of the published Report are the
constitution of Aguinaldo's Philippine Republic (called the
Malolos constitution), and several other constitutional drafts
and proposals from Filipino sources, indicating the political
ideas that prevail.

Report of the Philippine Commission,

January 31, 1900, volume 1.

See, also (in this volume),

EDUCATION: A. D. 1898 (PHILIPPINE ISLANDS).

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: A. D. 1900 (March).

Institution of municipal governments.

By General Orders, on the 29th of March, 1900, the Military

Governor of the Islands promulgated a law providing for the
election and institution of municipal governments, the
provisions of which law had been framed by a board appointed
in the previous January, under the presidency of Don Cayetano
Arellano, chief justice of the Philippines. The first chapter
of the law reads as follows:

"ARTICLE 1.
 The towns of the Philippine Islands shall be recognized as
municipal corporations with the same limits as heretofore
established, upon reorganizing under the provisions of this
order. All property vested in any town under its former
organization shall be vested in the same town upon becoming
incorporated hereunder.

"ARTICLE 2.
Towns so incorporated shall be designated as 'municipios,' and
shall be known respectively by the names heretofore adopted.
Under such names they may, without further authorization, sue
and be sued, contract and be contracted with, acquire and hold
real and personal property for the general interests of the
town, and exercise all the powers hereinafter conferred. The
city of Manila is exempt from the provisions of this order.

{388}

"ARTICLE 3.
The municipal government of each town is hereby vested in an
alcalde and a municipal council. The alcalde and councilors,
together with the municipal lieutenant, shall be chosen at
large by the qualified electors of the town, and their term of
office shall be for two years from and after the first Monday
in January next after their election and until their
successors are duly chosen and qualified: Provided, That the
alcalde and municipal lieutenant elected in 1900 shall hold
office until the first Monday in January, 1902, only; and that
the councilors elected in 1900 shall divide themselves, by
lot, into two classes; the scats of those of the first class
shall be vacated on the first Monday of January, 1901, and
those of the second class one year thereafter, so that
one-half of the municipal council shall be chosen annually.

"ARTICLE 4.
Incorporated towns shall be of four classes, according to the
number of inhabitants. Towns of the first class shall be those
which contain not less than 25,000 inhabitants and shall have
18 councilors; of the second class, those containing 18,000
and less than 25,000 inhabitants and shall have 14 councilors;
of the third class, those containing 10,000 and less than
18,000 inhabitants and shall have 10 councilors; of the fourth
class, those containing less than 10,000 inhabitants and shall
have 8 councilors. Towns of less than 2,000 inhabitants may
incorporate under the provisions of this order, or may, upon
petition to the provincial governor, signed by a majority of
the qualified electors thereof, be attached as a barrio to an
adjacent and incorporated town, if the council of the latter
consents.

The qualifications of voters are defined in the second chapter

as follows:

"ARTICLE 5.
The electors charged with the duty of choosing elective
municipal officers must be male persons, 23 years of age or
over, who have had a legal residence in the town in which they
exercise the suffrage for a period of six months immediately
preceding the election, and who are not citizens or subjects
of any foreign power, and who are comprised within one of the
following three classes:

1. Those who, prior to the 13th of August, 1898, held the

office of municipal captain, gobernadorcillo, lieutenant or
cabeza de barangay.

2. Those who annually pay 30 pesos or more of the established

taxes.

3. Those who speak, read, and write English or Spanish."

Succeeding articles in this chapter prescribe the oath to be

taken and subscribed by each elector before his ballot is
cast, recognizing and accepting "the supreme authority of the
United States of America"; appoint the times and places for
holding elections, and set forth the forms to be observed in
them. In the third chapter, the qualifications of officers are
thus defined:

"ARTICLE 13.
An alcalde, municipal lieutenant, or councilor must have the
following qualifications:

1. He must be a duly qualified elector of the municipality in

which he is a candidate, of 26 years of age or over, and have
had a legal residence therein for at least one year prior to
the date of election.

2. He must correctly speak, read, and write either the English

language or the local dialect.

"ARTICLE 14.
In no case can there be elected or appointed to municipal
office ecclesiastics, soldiers in active service, persons
receiving salary from municipal, provincial or government
funds; debtors to said funds, whatever the class of said
funds; contractors of public works and their bondsmen; clerks
and functionaries of the administration or government while in
said capacity; bankrupts until discharged, or insane or
feeble-minded persons.

"ARTICLE 15.
Each and every person elected or appointed to a municipal
office under the provisions of this order shall, before
entering upon the duties thereof, take and subscribe before
the alcalde or town secretary"—an oath analogous to that
required from the electors.

Further articles in this chapter and the next define the

duties of the alcalde, the municipal lieutenant, municipal
attorney, municipal secretary, municipal treasurer, and the
municipal councilors. The fifth chapter relates to taxation
and finances; the sixth and seventh contain provisions as
follows:

"ARTICLE 53.
The governor of the province shall be ex officio president of
all municipal councils within the province and shall have
general supervisory charge of the municipal affairs of the
several towns and cities therein organized under the
provisions of this order, and in his said supervisory capacity
may inspect or cause to be inspected, at such times as he may
determine, the administration of municipal affairs and each
and every department thereof, and may hear and determine all
appeals against the acts of municipal corporations or their
officers. He, or those whom he may designate in writing for
that duty, shall at all times have free access to all records,
books, papers, moneys, and property of the several towns and
cities of the province, and may call upon the officers thereof
for an accounting of the receipts and expenditures, or for a
general or special report of the official acts of the several
municipal councils or of any and every of them, or of any and
every of the officers thereof, at any time, and as often as he
may consider necessary to inform himself of the state of the
finances or of the administration of municipal affairs, and
such requests when made must be complied with without excuse,
pretext, or delay. He may suspend or remove municipal
officers, either individually or collectively, for cause, and
appoint substitutes therefor permanently, for the time being
or pending the next general election, or may call a special
election to fill the vacancy or vacancies caused by such
suspension or removal, reporting the cause thereof with a full
statement of his action in the premises to the governor of the
islands without delay. He shall forward all questions or
disputes that may arise over the boundaries or jurisdictional
limits of the city, towns, or municipalities to the governor
of the islands for final determination, together with full
report and recommendations relative to the same. He may, with