The Constitution of the Roman Republic

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-84
Author(s):  
Eric A. Posner
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Agency Theory ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Military Forces ◽  
The People ◽  
Governmental Functions

The constitution of the Roman Republic featured a system of checks and balances that would eventually influence the American founders, yet it was very different from the system of separation of powers that the founders created. The Roman senate gave advice but did not legislate; the people voted directly on bills and appointments in popular assemblies; and a group of magistrates, led by a pair of consuls, proposed bills, brought prosecutions, served as judges, led military forces, and performed other governmental functions. This chapter analyzes the Roman constitution from the perspective of agency theory, and argues that the extensive checks and balances, which were intended to prevent the recurrence of monarchy, may have gone too far. Suitable for an earlier period in which the population was small and the political class was homogenous, the constitution proved unworkable when Rome acquired a vast, diverse empire. The lessons of Roman constitutionalism for the American constitution are also discussed.

scholarly journals Are There “Sources of Resilience” When the Separation of Powers Breaks Down?

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Arjun Tremblay
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The People ◽  
Legislative Branch ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Jacob Levy describes three variants of the separation of powers in the 31st Annual McDonald Lecture in Constitutional Studies, only one of which is germane to this reflection. The first variant he describes is based solely on the independence of the judiciary from both the executive and legislative branches of governments; consequently, this variant encompasses both presidential and parliamentary systems under its conceptual ambit. Another variant, which Levy attributes to Montesquieu, envisages the separation of powers between executive, judicial, and legislative branches as a way of allowing for the “pooled”1 rule of “the one” (i.e. monarch), “the few” (i.e. aristocrats), and “the many” (i.e. the people). Levy also describes a distinctly American variant of the separation of powers undergirded by a system of checks and balances. This variant was designed to ensure “mutual monitoring between executive and legislative”2 and it vests the legislative branch with the power to impeach the executive in order to “maintain effective limits on the political power and the political ambition of the president.”3

A Reformation of Manners

The Puritans ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 144-171
Author(s):  
David D. Hall
Keyword(s):  
General Assembly ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Reform ◽  
Civil State ◽  
Political Class ◽  
The People ◽  
To Come

This chapter addresses the Puritan version of a “reformation of manners” or moral reform, situating it within a larger anxiety about “decline.” As those who signed the Covenant of 1596 surely knew, perceptions of “decline” had prompted fast days in Scotland ever since the 1560s. Several of these exercises in repentance and covenanting were means to the end of a firmer alliance between a Protestant state church and a monarchy (or civil state) susceptible to Catholic or more moderate tendencies. This was the purpose of the Negative, or King's, Confession of 1580/81, when the young James VI and most of the political class pledged never to allow “the usurped tyranny of the Roman Antichrist” to return to Scotland. John Knox had organized a similar event in 1565 at a moment when the political fortunes of Mary Stuart were on the mend. Knox had called on the General Assembly to institute a countrywide fast directed against “idolatry,” with the queen as its implied target. Responding to Knox's sense of crisis, this assembly endorsed a “reformation of manners” and “public fast” as the means of “avoiding of the plagues and scourges of God, which appeared to come upon the people for their sins and ingratitude.” Simultaneously, it urged the queen to suppress “the Mass” and other “such idolatry and Papistical ceremonies.”

European Integration in Context: Lessons in Political Organization?

2001 ◽  
Vol 2 (15) ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm MacLaren
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The European Union ◽  
American Constitution ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Post War

The French are rightly proud of having spawned the Enlightenment. Their philosophers made a profound contribution to modern theories of government, which heavily influenced, inter alia, the Founding Fathers in the drafting of the American Constitution. (Montesquieu's arguments for a separation of powers, for example, are clearly reflected in the design of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the US government.) The French political class have also largely determined the nature of post-war European integration. The edifice in Brussels reflects above all their habits, interests and vision of Europe. (For example, the European Union is run by a bureaucratic elite like France itself.) This latter conception of government is, however, unlikely to prove to be as successful over the long term as the former. Indeed, the way in which European integration has so far proceeded raises serious questions about both its sustainability and its transferability.

Mrs Gandhi’s Personalisation of Power, 1966–1975

2021 ◽  
pp. 275-312
Author(s):  
Christophe Jaffrelot ◽  
Pratinav Anil
Keyword(s):  
Power Structure ◽  
The Political ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Authoritarian Personality ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Congress Party ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government

This chapter focuses on the internal factors that led to the declaration of the Emergency. It primarily explores Mrs Gandhi’s authoritarian personality and the deinstitutionalisation of the Congress Party. The power structure within the Congress, especially after Mrs Gandhi split the party in 1969, meant that checks and balances ceased to exist. This factionalism enabled her to impose her authoritarian tendencies on the government as safeguards were dismantled. The chapter further explores the relation between authoritarianism and populism. It uses the political situation in India from the late 1960s to the early 1970s as an illustration. Mrs Gandhi, like other populist leaders, was convinced that she was the people of India. This idea was epitomised by D. K. Barooah’s slogan: ‘Indira is India and India is Indira.’

scholarly journals Ustav, populizam i kraj liberalne demokracije - "referendumanija" ugrožava temelje ustavnog poretka

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-784
Author(s):  
Branko Smerdel
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
The People ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Parliamentary Supremacy ◽  
Political Groups

Democracies are at risk to be strangled by the populist demagogues, posturing as the only and true leaders of 'the people', while disregarding constitutional "structure of liberty", meaning that, the parliamentary supremacy, judicial review and, above all, the constitutional limits to the very direct decision making by the voters' constituencies. Referenda are being used ever more, often to push certain decision, which could not pass the parliament. The claim is that there must not be any limits to the power of the people. That phenomenon the most esteemed liberal magazine "The Economist" nicknamed coining the word "referendumania", apparently combining 'a mania' with 'referenda'. It has been received with a lot of sympathy by the general public, in circumstances when the television and the Internet shows all the misery of the numerous assemblies, not only in a new but also in the mature democracies. After the referendum on the Brexit has been used as an instrument of the political struggle in the mother of parliaments, Great Britain, which lead to the ongoing "melting down" of the highly valued British political system, it seems that the worst of prophecies are realized by advancing populist forces in a number of Euroepan states. Republic of Croatia has been for a long time exposed to such treats, by the political groups extremely opposed to governmental policies, first by the Catholic conservatives and most recently by the trade unionists. Due to the very inadequate regulation of the referenda on civil initiatives, whereas the decision is to be made by a majority of those who vote, without any quorum being provided, the posibilites of manipulation are enormous. In the lasting confusion, a number of politicians has already proclaimed their intention, if elected the president of the Republic, to use such a referendum in order to remove all the checks and balances between the chief of state and "the people". Taking such treats very seriously in the existing crisis of democracy, the author emphasizes hi plead for an interparty agreement which would enable the referendum to be properly regulated and thus incorporated into the system of a democratic constitutional democracy.

Japan

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-132
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Rubber Stamp ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government

This chapter looks at the Japanese experience with judicial review. The Supreme Court of Japan does not enforce those parts of the Japanese Constitution, like Article 9, which prohibits war making; Article 21, which protects freedom of speech; or Article 89, which forbids taxpayer money from being used to hire Shinto priests. The Supreme Court of Japan thus refuses to enforce important articles in the Constitution of Japan. It does rubber stamp and thus legitimize actions taken by the political branches of the government. Why has judicial review of the constitutionality of legislation failed to take root in Japan? Japan does not need either a federal or a separation of powers umpire, since Japan is, firstly, a unitary nation-state with no need for a federalism umpire; and, secondly, a parliamentary democracy with a weak upper house of the legislature. Moreover, Japan has never atoned for the wrongs it committed during World War II nor has it truly admitted to even having done the horrible things that Japan did. A nation cannot get rights from wrongs judicial review and a Bill of Rights unless it admits it has done something wrong. Finally, the Japanese Constitution contains an inadequate system of checks and balances. As a result, the Supreme Court of Japan may not have the political space within which it can assert power.

scholarly journals Reform and Political Impunity in Kenya: Transparency without Accountability

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mwangi wa Gīthīnji ◽  
Frank Holmquist
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
History Of

Abstract:Kenya has been going through a period of political reform since 1991, when section 2A of the constitution, which had made Kenya a de jure one-party state, was repealed. This reform followed a prolonged struggle on the part of citizens both inside and outside the country, and their call for democracy was one that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was embraced by Western countries. Via diplomatic pressure and conditionality on aid, Western donors played an important role in the repeal of section 2A, the return of multiparty elections, and the creation and reform of a number of political institutions and offices via a separation of powers. But although these changes were supported by the political opposition and much of civil society in Kenya, they did not rise organically from the national struggle over political power. Nor did these reforms lead to a determination in the country to hold the political elite accountable for their transgressions. This article argues that modern Kenya's history of economic and political inequality has resulted in a population whose very divisions make it difficult for politicians to be disciplined. Accountability has two dimensions: the horizontal accountability among branches of government that is assured by checks and balances, and the vertical accountability of the state to its citizens. Vertical accountability depends on a constituency of like-minded citizens defending broad national interests, or an electorate with a collective identity or set of identities attached to the Kenyan nation. But in the absence of such shared goals and demands, narrow personal and local interests prevail, and politicians remain unaccountable to the nation as a whole.

The Political Instrumentalization of Violence in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic: The Case of Ibadan

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Keyword(s):  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The People ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
Protection Of Human Rights ◽  
General Elections

From May 29 1999, Nigeria joined the comity of ‘democratic’ nations once again, with the commencement of the Fourth Republic. Whereas, democracy is expected to be a platform for order, fairplay, justice, equality, the protection of human rights, etc., Nigeria’s democracy has, however, not been devoid of violence, which invariably seemingly negates its very essence. Focusing on happenings during the 2007 general elections, the paper investigates the political instrumentalization of violence in Ibadan, Nigeria. Both secondary and primary data were collected for the study through the review of relevant literature and oral interview with selected political actors identified through purposive sampling method. The signal that political events in Ibadan show is that of a pseudo-democratic system ‘sustained’ by violence rather that one primarily aimed at improving the welfare of the people. It is a system the political class craves for in order to gain access to state resources to finance patronage, patrimonialism and for personal gains. This is why violence has to be used to silence the opposition and actualize primitive and exploitative acquisition. Thus, what the 2007 General Elections have brought forth for Ibadan in particular, and Oyo state in general, is a system sustained by hoodlums for the sake of the political class and not the electorate.

Separation of Powers in African Constitutionalism

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Constant Friction ◽  
Common Problems ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This book examines one of the critical measures introduced by African constitutional designers in their attempts to entrench an ethos of constitutionalism on the continent. Taking a critical look at the different ways in which attempts have been made to separate the different branches of government, the book examines the impact this is having on transparent and accountable governance. Beginning with an overview of constitutionalism in Africa and the different influences on modern African constitutional developments, it looks at the relationship between the legislature and the executive as well as the relationship between the judiciary and the political branches. Despite differences in approaches between the various constitutional cultures that have influenced developments in Africa, there remain common problems. One of these problems is the constant friction in the relationship between the three branches and the resurgent threats of authoritarianism which clearly suggest that there remain serious problems in both constitutional design and implementation. The book also studies the increasing role being played by independent constitutional institutions and how they complement the checks and balances associated with the traditional three branches of government.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document