Political Power in the Modernity and its Limitations: a Reinterpretation from the Perspective of The Reason of State by Giovanni Botero

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the issue of political power and its limits in the political thought of the Piedmontese writer Giovanni Botero, through his writings published in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The author’s concept of reason of State and the prince’s power allows to understand the rise of certain issues of relevance in modern political science: the omnipotence of power, its possible moral and institutional limitations, the relationship between politics and other areas of human knowledge and behavior. Although the methodology is based on the premises of some researchers who emphasize on the need to study thinkers holistically, taking into account their historical, ideological and linguistic context; the paper proposes some conclusions accountable in the contemporary discussion about the scope and limits of political power. As a result of this, the text presents how Botero exposes his idea of reason of State, in which the government must conceal, through a delicate balance, the need for an effective and successful political action given its obliged subordination to certain juridical, moral and religious principles.