Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to Today
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| Anteprima |
This book examines the development of the theory and practice of
constitutionalism, defined as a political system in which the coercive
power of the state is controlled through a pluralistic distribution of
political power. It explores the main venues of constitutional practice
in ancient Athens, Republican Rome, Renaissance Venice, the Dutch
Republic, seventeenth-century England, and eighteenth-century America.
From its beginning in Polybius' interpretation of the classical concept
of "mixed government," the author traces the theory of
constitutionalism through its late medieval appearance in the Conciliar
Movement of church reform and in the Huguenot defense of minority
rights. After noting its suppression with the emergence of the
nation-state and the Bodinian doctrine of "sovereignty," the author
describes how constitutionalism was revived in the English conflict
between king and Parliament in the early Stuart era, and how it has
developed since then into the modern concept of
constitutional
democracy.
