Negotiating the lines between war and politics: Machiavelli’s gendering of war and peace

Abstract

This article draws out the ways in which politics and war are both the same and different in Machiavelli’s account. This poses a problem for contemporary commentators who wish to draw clear distinctions between politics and war in explaining and evaluating politics inside and outside of the state. The article then goes on to argue that the most productive way to read this sameness and difference is by resisting the temptation to read the relation between politics and war either as one of identity or in binary, oppositional terms. I suggest that one way of resisting these twin temptations is by rethinking the meaning of gendered reference points in Machiavelli’s analysis.