A hatalommegosztás államelméleti előképei – Hatalomkorlátozás az európai állambölcseletben az antikvitás korától a felvilágosodásig

Absztrakt

There is extensive academic consensus in regard to the principle of separation of powers being the intellectual product of the Enlightenment, and we can find the sources of the separation of powers in the organic constitutional development and the rule of law principle, which were formed in the political and social milieu of the 17th century England. On the field, however, there is no consensus among various scholars whether we can look to the ancient Greco-Roman theories of state and the medieval, furthermore the renaissance political philosophical ideologies as the preludes or alternative theoretical expressions of the separation of powers doctrine. Contrast to Albert Takács, we ourselves agree with János Sári, according to him “It is possible to put together the modern structure of the separation of powers from the mosaics of the ancient elements”.

The main hypothesis of this paper, that the principle of separation of powers has its preludes, as a result of an organic philosophical, institutional, moreover social historical progress, which happened in the Western Christian civilization during several centuries. And we can find the foundations of this progress in the philosophies of the antique Greco-Roman authors. Such historical milestones catalysed the development of the principle of the separation of powers as the medieval investiture conflicts, the wars of independence of the Italian city-states (from the Holy Roman Empire) and the Reformation, furthermore the clash between the absolute monarchs and the estates, moreover the revolutions of the 17th–19th centuries.

One of the conclusions of this paper, which would be applicable nowadays, that the principle of separation of powers is not a universally adaptable “recipe” or ideology (e.g. Democracy promotion), but also a complex theoretical framework and its practical adaptation (best practices) in a typical geographical space, as well as in a typical Christian religious and Western cultural milieu.

This would be an answer to the question, why has democracy promotion not been successful in the Middle East, especially in the Muslim Arab countries, which have a totally different legal system, religious and social traditions and historical features, than their Western European and Northern American counterparts. Based on Huntington’s well-known Clash of Civilizations (COC) hypothesis, the transition to democracy has caused serious hardships in the post-soviet and post-socialist countries, which belong to the Eastern Orthodox civilization. Historic reasons, such as the Byzantine despotic tradition, the tyranny of the Mongolian and Ottoman invaders, as well as bureaucratic tyranny are the determinative historical experience in this region instead of the impact of the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment on the Western world.