Our experiences with both war and taxation demonstrate that, even though some modern American presidents and European prime ministers have wanted to put Machiavelli's programs into effect, they have rarely had the concentration of power necessary to be completely Machiavellian. There are, of course, plenty of exceptions to this rule. Many twentieth-century political leaders managed to seize absolute power over their countries—from Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini in the early part of the century to Pinochet, Mobutu, and Hussein in our time. These leaders have repeatedly shown that absolute power concentrated in a single person is not in the best interests of the state, and their examples have caused countries all over the world to incorporate the separation of powers doctrine into their constitutions. This fact makes Machiavelli's advice increasingly less relevant to our day. Almost all of Machiavelli's advice assumed a leader with absolute power; wherever nations follow the doctrine of the separation of powers, such advice will be of little use to modern politicians.
These transitions relate the various ideas in the paper both to each other and to the overall thesis of the essay: that Machiavelli's ideas would not work in a modern democracy because the separation of powers doctrine would prevent anyone from having the power that he ascribes to princes. Each paragraph extends this argument into some realm of contemporary politics and then explicitly explains how it relates back to the overall thesis. As a result, the entire essay comes across as a single, coherent argument about the contemporary relevance of Machiavelli's political theory.
CONCLUSIONS
Conclusions are important. They give readers a sense of closure and writers the opportunity to tie together various threads of argument into focused assertions or to demonstrate the significance of the cases that they have made in their essays. Consider the conclusion to the sample essay about Machiavelli (p. 644):
Our experiences with both war and taxation demonstrate that, even though some modern American presidents and European prime ministers have wanted to put Machiavelli's programs into effect, they have rarely had the concentration of power necessary to be completely Machiavellian. There are, of course, plenty of exceptions to this rule. Many twentieth-century political leaders managed to seize absolute power over their countries—from Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini in the early part of the century to Pinochet, Mobutu, and Hussein in our time. These leaders have repeatedly shown that absolute power concentrated in a single person is not in the best interests of the state, and their examples have caused countries all over the world to incorporate the separation of powers doctrine into their constitutions. This fact makes Machiavelli's advice increasingly less relevant to our day. Almost all of Machiavelli's advice assumed a leader with absolute power; wherever nations follow the doctrine of the separation of powers, such advice will be of little use to modern politicians.
This conclusion is designed to take the two major topics (war and taxation) and link them together as different manifestations of the same thing: the limitations imposed on national leaders by the separation of powers doctrine, an idea that goes hand in hand with the overall thesis. But it also has a secondary function, which is to anticipate and correct a potential weakness: the fact that not every government in the world today believes in the separation of powers, and that there are still dictators today who have the kind of absolute power that Machiavelli envisioned in The Prince. By bringing up some of these dictators, the writer demonstrates that he or she has considered this issue and that it does not disprove his or her thesis.
Though there are many ways to bring your essay to a close, below are a few strategies you can employ, along with examples of alternate conclusions to the sample paper that we have been working with:
Refer back to the introduction
If you started your essay with an introductory quotation, question, or historical situation, you can often return to your introduction as the basis for forming a conclusion. Consider the sample introduction on page 641 that begins with a discussion of Watergate as a way to explain the separation of powers. Returning to the story of Nixon's resignation would be an excellent way to conclude an essay that began with such an introduction:
In Machiavelli's society, leaders were often rebelled against, occasionally exiled, and, not infrequently, assassinated. But no Italian prince in the sixteenth century would ever have done what Richard Nixon was forced to do in 1974: resign and leave office because of a Supreme Court decision forcing him to turn over incriminating evidence to a congressional committee. Supreme Courts and congressional committees simply were not part of the world that Machiavelli inhabited. The fact that they have become such an important part of the world today, and that leaders in democratic countries are prevented from achieving the kind of power that Machiavelli assumed that a prince would have, makes it difficult to see his advice as relevant to American society in the twenty-first century.
Demonstrate the implications of your argument
Sometimes, you can reach the end of an essay only to discover that your argument has some major implications that you have not addressed. The conclusion can be a good place to show how the fairly focused argument that you have been making has broader and more general applications to other kinds of questions and arguments:
Though America was founded with a separation of powers doctrine designed to prevent any individual from achieving the kind of power that Machiavelli attributed to princes, we have recently been in danger of forgetting what our Founding Fathers did. Recent presidents, from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, have committed troops to long foreign engagements without ever receiving a declaration of war from Congress; congressional committees are famous for attaching spending bills to completely unrelated pieces of legislation; and, in 2000, the Supreme Court divided along partisan political lines to give the presidency of the United States to someone who had not been elected by a majority of the people. The writings of Niccolo Machiavelli do more than show us what life was like during a particularly violent period of the Italian Renaissance. They warn us what our lives will be like should we ever allow our leaders the power to act unilaterally and with impunity.
Close with a quotation
Just as a quotation can make a good hook for the beginning of an essay, so a quotation can provide an effective way to tie everything together at the end. Furthermore, a well-chosen quotation from someone that the reader recognizes can provide the sense of closure and completeness that should always characterize a concluding paragraph. Beware, however, of using a lengthy quote—another person's words should not make your argument for you but rather sum up what you have already effectively demonstrated:
Americans often become annoyed at the inefficiency of our political system. Elections are long and drawn out, debates over important issues are held up by political maneuvering, and the courts, Congress, and the president are forever frustrating each other's plans. The media calls this "gridlock," but scholars of the Constitution call it "checks and balances"—and it is this very inefficiency that prevents rulers from being able to follow Machiavelli's advice completely. It is perhaps this element of democratic inefficiency that Winston Churchill had in mind when he reportedly said that "democracy is the worst form of government in the world with the single exception of all the others."