Michael Doyle - Niccolo Machiavelli: "Liberal Imperialism"
In Liberalism and World Politics, Michael Doyle traces three strains of liberal intellectual tradition. The second comes from Niccolo Machiavelli. Niccolo Machiavelli has a very different perception of Liberalism than Joseph Schumpeter. Machiavelli is not a democrat; he is a classical republican in that he believes in a government divided according to function that is operated by a political elite that protects the freedoms and interests of the public. A republican state with liberty and property rights, according to Machiavelli, is so prosperous and successful that it must seek to prove its glory through expansion. Machiavellian liberal states are fueled by imperialism and conquest, and his examples are Rome and Athens. (Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics”. American Political Science Review; vol. 80 no. 4, December 1986: 1154-1155 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1960861 (accessed 2/26/2014).