What was Macheavelli's theory of government?

Question

I'm asking you.

Answer 1

Machiavelli was the first to discuss politics and social phenomena in their own terms without recourse to ethics or jurisprudence. In many ways you could consider Machiavelli to be the first major Western thinker to apply the strictly scientific method of Aristotle and Averroes to politics. He did so by observing the phenomena of politics, reading all that's been written on the subject, and describing political systems in their own terms. For Machiavelli, politics was about one and only one thing: getting and keeping power or authority. Everything else—religion, morality, etc—that people associate with politics has nothing to do with this fundamental aspect of politics—unles being moral helps one get and keep power. The only skill that counts in getting and maintaining power is calculation; the successful politician knows what to do or what to say for every situation.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/REN/MACHIAV.HTM
Machiavelli's political theory, then, represents a concerted effort to exclude issues of authority and legitimacy from consideration in the discussion of political decision-making and political judgement. Nowhere does this come out more clearly than in his treatment of the relationship between law and force. Machiavelli acknowledges that good laws and good arms constitute the dual foundations of a well-ordered political system. But he immediately adds that since coercion creates legality, he will concentrate his attention on force. He says, “Since there cannot be good laws without good arms, I will not consider laws but speak of arms” (Machiavelli 1965, 47). In other words, the legitimacy of law rests entirely upon the threat of coercive force; authority is impossible for Machiavelli as a right apart from the power to enforce it. Consequently, Machiavelli is led to conclude that fear is always preferable to affection in subjects, just as violence and deception are superior to legality in effectively controlling them. Machiavelli observes that “one can say this in general of men: they are ungrateful, disloyal, insincere and deceitful, timid of danger and avid of profit…. Love is a bond of obligation which these miserable creatures break whenever it suits them to do so; but fear holds them fast by a dread of punishment that never passes” (Machiavelli 1965, 62; translation altered). As a result, Machiavelli cannot really be said to have a theory of obligation separate from the imposition of power; people obey only because they fear the consequences of not doing so, whether the loss of life or of privileges. And of course, power alone cannot obligate one, inasmuch as obligation assumes that one cannot meaningfully do otherwise.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/

There is much more but from all the above and other readings you might say that the Machiavelli's theory was based on the assumption that people obey only because they fear the consequences of not doing so, whether the loss of life or of privileges.

Answer 2

According to "The Prince," Macheavelli believed that, for a ruler to really have power, he must be feared. The ruler should be loved by his people because he is feared by them. Showing weakness of any kind only puts power at risk. (This is of course completely paraphrased, i'm only writing what i remember reading from "The Prince")