The perfect politician’s handbook

With this post, we will start a series dedicated to handbooks as a reason to reflect on the practical dimensions in specific fields.  One of the meanings of the word “handbook” in the Spanish Royal Academy of Language is “book in which the most substantial aspects of a subject are summarised.” We begin with the Handbook of the perfect politician.

José de Cora Paradela, born in Lugo in 1951, is a prominent Spanish writer and journalist. Throughout his career, he has worked in various media, including news agencies, newspapers, magazines, radio, cinema and television.  In 1991, José de Cora published the book Manual del perfecto político (Handbook of the Perfect Politician) in the editorial Espasa Calpe, in which he discusses on current affairs with humour and Galician irony with more general elements of reflection. Some fragments of this book will be commented below in the style of Minerva Strategy. 

On how to choose subordinates

“If you have the possibility to do so, every time you accept a new collaborator into your circle of work, you are facing one of the most important decisions of your life. That is why it is advisable not to make a mistake because just as a correct choice can be a victory in advance, a wrong one would be tantamount to a defeat beforehand” (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político). 

The best advice for building a team is to surround yourself with the best people, even if they are better than the boss, but always with loyalty as a virtue. Teams must be based on quality and must be loyal to values and people as a condition for participating in public affairs.

How intelligence is not essential 

“Political practice has such a mixture of components that it would be utterly stupid to think that the most intelligent man is also best placed for its exercise. Undocumented people, mules, and even oligophrenics have occupied the highest political offices without demerit: in the same way that wise and enlightened people have committed so many atrocities that they would claim to be the work of inferior beings” (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político). 

There are different modes of political intelligence. In the History of Ideas, Plato’s Philosopher King is often contrasted with Erasmus of Rotterdam’s virtues of the good Christian prince, with the hypocrisy, shrewdness, and fortitude promoted by Machiavelli. In public life, politicians who can show emotional intelligence towards citizens are often distinguished from those whose maxim of action is to stay in power. 

On how to be subtle

“The dosage of subtlety, knowing when it should be used in a stream or distributed in an eyedropper, is, dear prince, a teaching reserved for experience. It alone will inform you of the qulaities that adorn you in this section; for subtlety, like stature, is received without our intervention, and only by a complicated operation is it possible to modify the quantity of the one and the length of the other.” (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político).

We disagree with José de Cora here.  On the one hand, subtlety is commendable for any public servant and should also be for politicians. It is not necessary to offend; it is better to take care of manners and make people think about the underlying issues. Moreover, and more importantly, subtlety can be learned; it is not innate. It is a virtue of rhetoric that can be acquired and for which it is necessary to be trained. 

On how to abbreviate

“Baltasar Gracián’s teachings against long-winded approaches and in favour of brevity in expositions are gold-plated for a politician with aspirations. The sentences that outlive an author and those that are most successful in influencing public opinion must be short and concentrated, like black coffee” (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político). 

It used to be said that there were two types of speeches: long speeches and good speeches. Nowadays, with social networks, we are committed to brevity, to the headline, and to summarising our thoughts in 140 characters. Politicians enter into this dynamic and hold press conferences, where journalists “fish” for headlines. Brevity, perhaps, yes, but let’s give space for calm reflection, deliberation, fruitful exchange of opinions, persuading and being persuaded, in short… a public opinion.  

On how to provoke

“One of the aspects of Evita Perón’s personality that most attracted the attention of foreign politicians who knew her, was her taste for provoking and scandalising the interlocutor of the moment, with no other aim than her personal satisfaction at seeing the surprised faces that her outbursts caused” (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político). 

One might ask here: to provoke, what for? If the only aim is to attract attention, it would seem to be another form of manipulation. If the provocation has a positive objective and promotes a “free and uninhibited” debate on a given topic, usually far from the spotlight, it could be justified in that case.  

On how to take criticism 

“If you have decided to dive into the waters of public administration, you should bear in mind something as elementary as water for the fish, no matter how well you do it, no matter how many quintals of intelligence distinguish you from the rest of the administrators, no matter how many successes decorate your management, there will always be people who criticise it, who do not feel identified with your way of proceeding and who will criticise you, apart of course from your natural political enemies, those who sit with you in Parliament”. (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político).

A distinction is usually made between destructive criticism -based on negative attacks, often including personal ones- and constructive criticism -where proposals for improvement are made. The latter are the most interesting, and the former tend to contribute little. 

Politicians tend to distinguish between political adversaries and party colleagues, and relations with the latter are much more difficult. Something which, at the time of the Spanish Transition, was summed up by the politician Pío Cabanillas when he said: “Hit the deck, our men are coming!

On how to behave in the face of dismissal 

“The politician who comes to occupy a public office, such as the one that awaits you if nothing stands in your way, must know how to conjugate these three verbs: resign, dismiss, or leave, because inexorably one of them will put an end to your direct contact with power” (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político). 

When a politician leaves public office, their phone stops ringing. All those who congratulated them on their appointment evaporated, and only a few close friends communicated with them. It is a good opportunity to read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, where he distinguishes between friends by affinity and by interest.

On how to maintain greatness in the face of defeat 

“If you have decided to embark on the tortuous path of politics, you should know from the outset that there is no such thing as failure, unless you abandon this activity through force majeure or of your own free will. As long as you are in politics, politics itself will protect you from any doubt as to whether you are a winner or a loser. You always succeed because “being” is synonymous with “winning”. Being in politics is enough” (José de Cora, Manual del perfecto político).

We do not like this approach here by José de Cora.  Unfortunately, there seems to be an abundance of politicians whose only goal is to stay in power and politicians whose only work experience is in politics. A society must be able to find mechanisms to elect the best people to positions of public responsibility. It is a good general principle that these responsibilities should be temporarily limited. It is good to be able to walk away from public affairs, to exercise good accountability, and to be rewarded or punished for governance.

Juan de Mariana, on tyranny

Juan de Mariana was a prominent theologian, historian, philologist and political philosopher Spanish Jesuit. He was born in Talavera de la Reina (Toledo) in 1536 and died in Toledo in 1624. He studied at various European universities, most notably the University of Alcalá, where he also taught. He became famous with his work “Historia General de España“.

In Political Philosophy, his work Del Rey y de la institución real, of which Rogelio Fernández Delgado, on the website of the Spanish Royal Academy of History, points out that “not only it is considered to be the most notable and daring work of political literature written in Spain, but it has even been compared to El Quijote, in the sense that what Cervantes’ book represents for literature, Juan de Mariana’s work represents for Political Theory.”

The analysis in this post, in the style of Estrategia Minerva, will focus on this work of Political Philosophy by Juan de Mariana, on his characterisation of tyranny and on the controversial question of tyrannicide. This would be the flip side of the question of what virtues a good ruler should have, a classic topic.

Juan de Mariana starts from the famous typology of forms of government, formulated by Aristotle, where monarchy is the government of one in favour of the common good and tyranny, for one’s own benefit, and compares them as follows:

“Even if he starts with good intentions, he falls into all kinds of vices, especially greed, ferocity and avarice. It is proper for a good king to defend innocence, to repress wickedness, to save those in danger, to procure for the republic happiness and every kind of good; But not the tyrannus, who makes his greatest power consist in being able to indulge unrestrainedly in his passions, who thinks no wickedness unseemly, who commits all manner of crimes, destroys the estates of the mighty, violates chastity, kills the good, and comes to the end of his life without there being a single vile deed to which he has not given himself up. He is, moreover, the king who is humble, approachable, accessible, a friend to live under the same right  as his fellow-citizens; and the tyrant, distrustful, medicious, a friend to terrify by the apparatus of his force and his fortune, by the severity of his customs, by the cruelty of the judgments passed by his bloody tribunals”(Juan de Mariana, Del Rey y la institución real, cap. V).

The tyrant commits vile deeds, evils and crimes and falls into greed, ferocity and avarice. A good king defends innocence, happiness, stands against evil and danger, is humble, approachable, and seeks to be governed by the same rules as his fellow citizens.

Although there are certain anachronisms, it is worth considering whether some of today’s rulers fall more under this tyrannical profile or that of the kindly king.

Specifically, on the polemic of tyrannicide, Juan de Mariana states that “not because the citizens cannot gather together should they lack the natural ardour to overthrow serfdom, to avenge the manifest and intolerable evils of the prince, or to repress the attempts that tend to the ruin of the people, such as that of upsetting the religions of the homeland and calling to the kingdom our enemies. I can never believe that he was wrong who, seconding public desires, has in such circumstances made an attempt on the life of his prince”(Juan de Mariana, Del Rey y la institución real, cap. VI).

In this paragraph, tyrannicide is justified. There is a tradition in the History of Ideas in this sense, but here it is made explicit. It can be argued that the murder of a person cannot be the solution to political problems, which have other, more civilised channels and do not require such sacrifices of human life. What also underlies here is the notion of raison d’état, defended by Machiavelli, where illegal or immoral actions would be justified if the state is in danger.  

It is relevant because Thomas Aquinas refers to the fight against tyranny, from more moderate premises and assuming the principle of the lesser evilThus, he states: “the tyrannical regime is not just, since it is not ordered to the common good, but to the particular good of the one who holds power, as Aristotle proves in Politics. Hence, the disturbance of this regime does not have the character of sedition, unless the regime of the tyrant is altered in such a disorderly way that the tyrannised multitude suffers greater detriment than with the tyrannical regime” (Tomás de Aquino, Suma Teológica II-II, c. 43).

Juan de Mariana insists on the lawfulness of the right of resistance to illegitimate authority, in these terms: “but when there is no more hope, when the sanctity of religion and the health of the kingdom are already endangered, who will be so lacking in reason as not to confess that it is lawful to shake tyranny with the force of law, with the laws, with arms?” (Juan de Mariana, Del Rey y la institución real, cap. VI).

This connects with ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers, where power is based on a covenant and if one party – the ruler – does not comply with it, the other party – the people – has the right to resist that ruler and his rules. In Locke‘s formulation, the legitimacy of power is based on the tacit consent of the people. These theories of the Social Contract are conditional, the agreement must be fulfilled to achieve legitimacy. Otherwise, it would be justified to react to the injustice of tyranny.

On the duty of the ruler to obey the law, Juan de Mariana states “let the prince finally know that the sacrosanct laws on which public health rests will only be stable if he himself sanctions them by his example. He must lead such a life that he never allows himself or anyone else to have more power than the laws, for since they contain what is lawful, it is indispensable that he who violates them should depart from probity and justice, which is granted to no one, least of all to the king, who must use all his power to sanction equity and to vindicate crime, always having in both things his understanding and his care” (Juan de Mariana, Del Rey y la institución real, cap. IX).

The ruler must comply with the laws he promotes. Later, this is considered one of the key principles on which the Rule of Law is based. Beyond the merely legal sphere, the current demands of accountability require those in power exemplarity—they are references or role models for society—and coherence—harmony between public statements and private behaviours-.