Polybios von Megalopolis

In his ‘Histories’, the Greek historian Polybius, a hostage of Rome for about 17 years, pursued the question of ‘how and thanks to what kind of constitution the Romans … [had] subjected nearly the whole inhabited world to their sole government’. His main merit for political science was that he analysed the history of his world under the hermeneutic primacy of constitutional thought, thereby uniting historical empiricism and political theory. The articles collected in this volume elaborate a multifaceted profile of this political thinker between the world of Greek poleis and the Roman res publica. His main concepts and narratives are thoroughly investigated in terms of themselves as well as their political reception from Polybius’ own time to the 21st century’s High Theory. With contributions by Frank Daubner, Boris Dreyer, Martin Gronau, Lisa Hau, Felix K. Maier, Stefano Saracino, Philipp Scheibelreiter and Jonas Scherr.

Liberalism of the Third Force in Republican China: Carsun Chang and Zhang Dongsun

<p>This study investigates the liberal thought of Carsun Chang and Zhang Dongsun who were core figures of the “Third Force”, those parties who did not align themselves either with the KMT or with the Communists in the 1940s. They developed a distinctive Chinese form of liberalism that contained elements of socialism, German idealism (Hegel and Kant), and the British tradition of liberty (Mill). Though similar in many respects to New Liberalism represented by the British thinker L. T. Hobhouse, this form of liberalism was specifically adapted to Chinese conditions. Like Hobhouse, Chang used German idealism to reconcile liberalism with socialism but he aimed to address Chinese problems including poverty, national sovereignty, and authoritarianism. Zhang subscribed to Chang’s views and agreed that these problems were the obstacles to Chinese democracy and state-building. I use Michael Freeden’s theory of ideological morphology to establish the distinctive character of Chinese liberalism represented by Chang and Zhang. As an alternative to conventional approaches, it centres around the semantic meanings of a cluster of political concepts which constitute liberalism and socialism rather than specific definitions of those ideologies. This approach successfully explains the variations within liberalism, socialism, and their complex relationship in different cultures and regions, but has not yet been used by other scholars to discuss Chinese political thought. In addition, I also discuss specific textual and contextual aspects of the Chinese liberalism of Chang and Zhang. Recognising the liberal tradition Chang and Zhang established helps develop a new understanding of Chinese liberalism and Chinese socialism past and present which are conventionally excluded from the narrative of Chinese political history. The Chinese liberalism identified in my research had an overlap with social democracy. It was not a single concept of liberty but a particular configuration of a few concepts such as liberty, equality, progress, justice, welfare, and limited power. This form of liberalism continues to exist in contemporary China. Chinese thinkers of this liberal tradition were and are actively involved in the debates over socialism, liberalism, and their relationships to Chinese problems such as modernisation, democratisation, and social transformation. In addition, this study reveals an ideological cause of a divided Chinese liberalism in the 1940s. Chang was a new liberal whereas Zhang was a representative of left liberalism. Furthermore, this research enables us to understand the continuing influence of the liberalism of Chang on the constitutional thought in Taiwan and its implications for the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China. Chang drafted the Constitution of the Republic of China. His liberal thought had an impact on this constitution that was initially intended to cover mainland China but was only enforced in Taiwan.</p>

Liberalism of the Third Force in Republican China: Carsun Chang and Zhang Dongsun

<p>This study investigates the liberal thought of Carsun Chang and Zhang Dongsun who were core figures of the “Third Force”, those parties who did not align themselves either with the KMT or with the Communists in the 1940s. They developed a distinctive Chinese form of liberalism that contained elements of socialism, German idealism (Hegel and Kant), and the British tradition of liberty (Mill). Though similar in many respects to New Liberalism represented by the British thinker L. T. Hobhouse, this form of liberalism was specifically adapted to Chinese conditions. Like Hobhouse, Chang used German idealism to reconcile liberalism with socialism but he aimed to address Chinese problems including poverty, national sovereignty, and authoritarianism. Zhang subscribed to Chang’s views and agreed that these problems were the obstacles to Chinese democracy and state-building. I use Michael Freeden’s theory of ideological morphology to establish the distinctive character of Chinese liberalism represented by Chang and Zhang. As an alternative to conventional approaches, it centres around the semantic meanings of a cluster of political concepts which constitute liberalism and socialism rather than specific definitions of those ideologies. This approach successfully explains the variations within liberalism, socialism, and their complex relationship in different cultures and regions, but has not yet been used by other scholars to discuss Chinese political thought. In addition, I also discuss specific textual and contextual aspects of the Chinese liberalism of Chang and Zhang. Recognising the liberal tradition Chang and Zhang established helps develop a new understanding of Chinese liberalism and Chinese socialism past and present which are conventionally excluded from the narrative of Chinese political history. The Chinese liberalism identified in my research had an overlap with social democracy. It was not a single concept of liberty but a particular configuration of a few concepts such as liberty, equality, progress, justice, welfare, and limited power. This form of liberalism continues to exist in contemporary China. Chinese thinkers of this liberal tradition were and are actively involved in the debates over socialism, liberalism, and their relationships to Chinese problems such as modernisation, democratisation, and social transformation. In addition, this study reveals an ideological cause of a divided Chinese liberalism in the 1940s. Chang was a new liberal whereas Zhang was a representative of left liberalism. Furthermore, this research enables us to understand the continuing influence of the liberalism of Chang on the constitutional thought in Taiwan and its implications for the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China. Chang drafted the Constitution of the Republic of China. His liberal thought had an impact on this constitution that was initially intended to cover mainland China but was only enforced in Taiwan.</p>

Disruption

Disruption is about radical change—why it happens and how. Drawing on case studies ranging from the fourth century AD through the twentieth century, we look at how long-established systems of government and thought are challenged, how new institutions are created, and new ideas become powerful. While paying attention to the underlying political, intellectual, economic, and environmental sources of social disruption, we will see that no matter what similarities there might be between forces that shake different societies, these underlying factors do not dictate specific outcomes. The human actors are ultimately the most important; their decisions drive the conclusions that we see over time. Through our case studies, we can explore successful and unsuccessful decision making, and the emergence of the ideas that conditioned human actions. We’ll explore the development of Islam and of Christian doctrine, of constitutional thought, of socialism, and social Darwinism. We’ll look at how these ideas, all of them emerging on the fringes of society, became central. We’ll also have our eyes set on whether the sorts of disruptive forces we’ve seen in the past are present at this time. We’ll look at the issues confronting the liberal democracies that have been the dominant political/economic forces on our planet in the last half century and see how they have come under stress in the last few decades. And we will look at the possibility that we’re facing a new period of disruption and at what we can learn from the past about how change can be constructive rather than destructive.

Popular Sovereignty

Chapter 4 explores how the same set of ideas about ideal constitutions resulted in two radically different outcomes: the American Constitution, and the French Revolution and its numerous, failed constitutions. The chapter traces the development of constitutional thought from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth, focusing on the work of Bodin, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau. Again we explore the importance of media for the spread of ideas and then the adaptation of those ideas by practical politicians to very different ends.

De la segregación racial al constitucionalismo neoliberal: hacia una historia conceptual de la discriminación

Resumen: El presente artículo esboza los supuestos y estrategias de una historia conceptual de la discriminación, aproximación al estudio histórico de esta problemática que ilustra identificando usos discursivos de dicha palabra que muestran que el origen del concepto en cuestión se encuentra en el Estados Unidos de la posguerra civil, donde adquirió un renovado significado conceptual a partir de la experiencia de la segregación racial, para posteriormente abordar las circunstancias que permitieron la constitucionalización del concepto de discriminación en el Chile de Augusto Pinochet, donde fue empleado como medio para codificar una comprensión neoliberal de los derechos fundamentales.Absytract: This article contributes to the production of a genealogy of the concept of discrimination by reviewing some of the lineages that make up its biography. To that end it focuses on its absence from Chilean constitutional thought during most of its history, identifies the emergence of its two senses –“arbitrary” discrimination and “structural” discrimination– in 19th century United States, and examines the way that it was inscribed in the text of the 1980 Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile where it was employed as a means to codify the economic rationality of market decisions and to protect an understanding of human nature based on Catholic natural law.

The Adoption of Written Constitutions

This chapter traces the effect of 19th-century constitutional thought on the decline of natural law. Written constitutions were an American innovation with no direct parallel in the English legal tradition. Natural law had long been understood as a constraint on legislation, but constitutions served the same function, which raised the question whether American judges had the authority to invalidate legislation that conflicted with natural principles rather than written constitutional text. In the course of this debate, American lawyers voiced their first sustained critiques of the use of natural law within the legal system. The adoption of written constitutions in the late 18th century thus lay the groundwork for the eventual disappearance of natural law from the legal system.