I know most people would say that multiple elements are essential but sometimes it's more entertaining to be ideological.
hmm... I am tempted to place honesty as part of influence because like all virtues, or more importantly the appearance of them if you have read The Prince, it creates respect for the government both domestically and abroad. Of course a different system of organizing these elements could use virtue as a catagory.
In the US, wealth. Its been determined that by the 2008 elections, a candidate running for The House of Representatives (the lower house for all you non-USians out there) will have to raise one million dollars for their campaign, at a minimum.
Niccolo Medici
20-06-2005, 08:55
Statecraft? The very process of making the state function? Perhaps I should get more experience in the process before I venture an opinion...
...Screw it. I'll bite. I'd say most basically, trust. Not honesty, trust. Trusting that the government will function...even if poorly.
If one cannot trust their government officials to screw them over, to look out for #1, to scratch the backs of the powerful and the like, what can you trust?
You have to know the government will continue to plod along, inefficient, bloated, and chillingly bueracratic. If you don't think the government WILL function, if you don't belive they will get all the little important things done, like paying you if you work for them, making the roads drivable (at least the ones you drive on) and all the other thousands of things that states do...You tend to start looking for alternatives.
If a state can't do what it must then it is replaced evnetually. No matter how corrupt, innefficient, nasty, brutish, or even downright evil, if it works, its a state. Thats the most important element of statecraft. Getting the damn thing to function.