On The Development Of The Idea Of Popular Sovereignty

Sovereignty theory is a fundamental issue of law and democratic politics, the present of the concept of sovereignty has brought on a lot of controversy and contradictions. In view of this,the article does not attempt to impose the sovereignty of any concept or function definitions, but to focus on the study of sovereignty literature and debate on the concept of sovereignty of the evaluation carried out, meanwhile,to clarify the basic elements of sovereignty category by several groups of theoretical analysis tools.According to Foucault's understanding of the evolution of knowledge development, sovereignty doctrine can be divided into the classical era and modem stage. Sovereignty doctrine of classical era was represented by the first sovereignty concept advocates Bodin and his loyal follower Hobbes. To the modern stage, affected by nationalism and constitutionalism, the two main political ideologies, the classical doctrine was separated to nation-state sovereignty and constitutional sovereignty, furthermore, it extends to the Rousseau line of Kant, Hegel and Marx, and Locke line of Montesquieu and American Federalists. Two concepts lies in the heart of the differences of the two different "states"---the "mutual entity" and "special subject", integrated or separated. National sovereignty, in order to find true expression of the national consciousness, perfectly synthesizes the two subjects in the name of nationality; while the constitutional sovereign expresses straightforward suspicions about this synthesis, and holds the view that the ownership of sovereignty authority---the presence of " mutual entity" is highly formalized, moreover, the key point is to design a reasonable constitutional system to stipulate "special subject" action.The concept of sovereignty, since late Middle Ages in Europe, has evoluted from the monarchical sovereignty, popular sovereignty to "national" sovereignty. As "God-given rights of people" replaced "Devine rights of monarchs", the people, replaced the monarchs and became a fundamental source of national sovereignty. The essence of "God-given rights of people" is "natural rights" theory, which became theoretical foundation of the rationality of popular sovereignty argument. Since rationalism, political liberalism and bourgeois revolution, the people became the subject of national sovereignty, from then on, the idea of popular sovereignty appeared. The basic meaning of popular sovereignty is that the highest political dominance of a group must have a legitimate foundation, and which can only come from the people. Of course, after the appearance of theory of popular sovereignty, both strong supporters and strong critic exist, but no matter how opposite the two views are, one can not ignore the fact that:since the concept of popular sovereignty was brought up, the legitimacy of nation comes from peoples agreement has become the consensus of constitutional theory.The concept of sovereignty came into being in the West, can be traced back to ancient Greece. Initially the concept of sovereignty is a characterization of the relationship between master and slave, which is an absolute power without legitimacy argument. In the process of tribal society to the city-state society, the concept creates new meanings:the abstract power of people, is absolute and supreme as well. The cultural traditions of ancient Greece was promoted in ancient Rome, and Rome in Republican era holds the same concept of sovereignty of Greece. Although there is no qualitative change, but the sovereignty vested in it by the people turned to the monarch. However, in the ultimate sense of the passage of Roman remains popular sovereignty theory, or at least, the people are the ultimate owner of sovereignty. To Middle Ages, sovereignty theory can be divided into three factions:the church sovereignty theory, the monarchical sovereignty theory and the popular sovereignty theory. Among which, the popular sovereignty theory, different from ancient Greece and ancient Rome, reflects the view of so-called "political theory" of popular sovereignty, which implies restriction of monarchical power and the protection of civil rights, and later provides an important ideological inspiration for the formation and improvement of social contract theory and popular sovereignty theory.Bodin's theory of sovereignty is a major event in the history of European political thought, his theory of sovereignty includes the definition of supreme authority, he advocates the theory of sovereign ruler. He gives five basic characteristics of sovereign authority, and demonstrates its sovereignty inseparable ideas by denying the hybrid form of government. Bodin prudently uses the word of "limited supreme power", and stipulates reasonable limitation on sovereignty through natural law, divine law, the rule of law and so on. But Bodin did not proceed the idea of "the rule of law" further, which made the original limited sovereignty larger defect. The British Hobbes continues the sovereignty theory of Bodin and developes it to maximize. He begins with individualism for discussion,but it results on the road of nationalism, even more radical than Bodin's nationalism. He created a new social contact theory and natural rights, which were supposed to be the restrictive conditions of absolute sovereignty, has become the legitimacy of absolute sovereignty. Hobes denied Bodin's reasonable limitation of sovereignty by his superhuman ability to exclude difficulties, and make the monarchical sovereignty and nationalism to near-perfect level. Another British social contract theorists with completely opposite sovereignty theory from Hobbes, is Locke. Similarly, beginning with individualism, Locke comes to a conclusion of parliamentary sovereignty and popular sovereignty. Also taking same social contrat theory as the theoretical basis, Locke comes to a conclusion of government ruled by law and the separation of powers. Unlike Hobbes, Locke's natural state is a version of the former political status rather than the former social status, his social contract theory also implies duality "social" contract and "political" contract. Locke has always been using the highest authority instead of sovereignty, the highest authority referred to legislative authority. It seems that there are two highest authority existing in Locke's theory, one is all the people, the other is, the majority of parliament, but the highest authority does not co-exist. Parliamentary sovereignty is exerted under normal parliamentary sovereignty, while people's sovereignty is exerted in very extremely cases. Parliamentary sovereignty is relative and constrained, while people's sovereignty is absolute and unconstrained.Rousseau's popular sovereignty theory begins with opposing the viewpoint that the traditional rational reason is better than natural emotion, and criticizes the different results under the same premise of Hobbes with the assertion in nature and goodness of human. Rousseau's social contract theory follows Hobbes's method of reasoning,but with Locke's theory of content, that is, social contract theory is based on the consent of all the governed. Rousseau's discussion of sovereignty combines the viewpoint which the predecessors never considered compatible with, consequently, it realizes the first major beyond in sovereignty history. His definition of sovereignty is as successful and clear as Hobbes, but the ownership and function of his sovereignty is consistent with Locke's proposition. The core ideas of Rousseau's popular sovereign are:people are sovereign, sovereignty is the exertion of public will, public will is the expression of public interest, public interest is the only value orientation of law. Sovereignty has four basic attributes:non-negotiable, indivisible, cannot be representatives and absolutely right. Government is the intermediate to link sovereign and subjects.Rousseau's theories exercises a great influence, his opponents are as fanatical as his followers. Some people blamed the outbreak of the French Revolution on Rousseau, some people considered him as the totalitarian, other people regarded him as the ancestor of the modern nation-state. These kinds of storming and criticism, if are not carefully reconsidered from Rousseau's popular sovereignty theory, cannot be classified a clearer theoretical threshold clues. The concept of public will is too vague, the disconnection of abstract sovereignty and specific powers, people tends to be underestimated significantly, these facts all lead to the inevitable self-contradiction of Rousseau's great doctrines. Rousseau's popular sovereignty is clearly integrated with but beyond Hobbes's concept of national sovereignty and Locke's concept of individualistic sovereignty. He evolves the monarchical sovereignty Hobbes into metaphysical sovereignty of people, with the same starting point for discussion and demonstration, he denies conclusion of Hobbes, and makes the sovereignty of people as absolute and divine as the monarchical sovereignty of Hobbes, cries out popular sovereignty passionately which is almost certain in Locke's theory. Similar to that of the ancient Greek, Rousseau's ideal form of government is direct democracy, but if the enthusiasm about ancient city-state were put directly into modern nation-state, the only result is that the citizenship of the city-state had uncritically applied to the modern stage. Thus, Rousseau's effort to idealize civilian moral soon produced a response in Kant's ethics, and after Kant, Rousseau's theory of public will and discourse in public life are fully reflected in the German national philosophy through Hegel's idealism.The strong contrast between guiding theory and the consequences of practice of French Revolution caused profound reflection among European political jurists, which led to the division of modern political philosophy after the French Revolution, and the most clearly reflection in Germany are Kant and Hegel. Kant stands on a more complete view than Hobbes and Locke, and provides liberal generalization an philosophical argument in the form of its principles and moral universalism. He overcomes the fundamental differences between the rationality(inevitability) and freedom(will), completes gentle and careful reasoning of the state sovereignty theory and popular sovereignty thought. Kant follows further Rousseau's clue along freedoms and rights, the state of nature and social contract theory. The transcendence and perfection of latter is just, through two moral law, that is,"the transcendental freedom self-discipline" and "people is the goal, not the means" to Rousseau's general will theory and individual, the political moral understanding to an unprecedented height,and the Rousseau radical people's sovereignty the theory of Kant's realistic correction. Kant advocated republican form of state structure, with its presentative system and decentralized as the two essential elements of the ideal polity. However, a very prominent feature of Kant's political philosophy is dualism, and the dualism of idealistic and realistic sovereignty are also reflected on the expression of popular sovereignty thoughts. Especially when Kant involves specific system design, it inevitably reflects the conservative tendencies, such as the active citizens and the passive citizens, the illimitable state power and the passive resistance of citizens.Compared with Kant's philosophy of law, Hegel's is very clear with nationalistic tendencies,he is opposed to natural rights and contract theory of liberalism, also opposed to Kant's purely self-starting which does not arise out of any of the provisions of abstract freedom. Hegel absolved the German monarchy from guilty and blame with an conservative attitude,and developed the "national" sovereignty theory to the summit with his unique new concept of rationality and freedom,thus, laid the philosophical foundation of constitutional monarchy. Hegel summarized and criticized the two typical natural rights theory, amended the traditional "contract" country with "ethical" country, therefore,"ethical" country has become the ultimate form of citizen special interest consuming and general ethical implementation. Hegel rethought the philosophical foundation of the French Revolution and its liberal laws, he shifted his research concentration on the spirit of the nation from the liberal individual rights, which meant that the attribution of national sovereignty was turned to the "state" from the "people". When the attribution of a country's sovereignty had the characteristic of national will "state", when "state" became legal personality in parallel with the monarch and the people, the sovereignty of "state" was eventually founded in Germany. Hegel combines Rousseau's sovereignty with Hobbes's monarch, makes the abstract sovereignty of "state" in line with the implementation of logic to the real monarch. Hegel made use of Rousseau's theory of public will, transformed it to suit the nationalism, and ultimately ran counter to the former popular sovereignty of Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and so on, with the form of "national"sovereignty but monarchical sovereignty in essence.In modern European, under the confronted background that the philosophy of law appears liberalism and nationalism, if Kant is regarded to provide individuals with categorical imperative on moral choice, Hegel is regarded to provide the overall social order that taking precedence over individual choice, while Marx has to demonstrate how this social order functions. In a sense, Marx's philosophy of law and the theory of sovereignty and state can be regarded as a combination of Kant's liberalism and Hegel's nationalism, his popular sovereignty is the second time of synthesis and transcendence of sovereignty theory. The basis of Marx's philosophy of law is materialism, which beyond liberalism and nationalism. He not only criticized Hegel's monarchical sovereignty, but also exposed the hypocrisy of bourgeois popular sovereignty. The country's sovereignty vested firmly in possession of the people,with the main subject are the proletariat. The core ideas of Marx's popular sovereignty are:people are the masters, self-management, meanwhile, there is a unity of such popular sovereignty of self-management and basic rights of citizens. Marx criticized the illusory democracy of bourgeois parliamentary and separation of powers, he regarded the socialist democratic republic as the form government of the popular sovereignty of proletariat, established the people's general election system and the representative government system,"unity of legislative and administrative"system, incorrupt and cheap government and many other democratic systems. In Marx's view, the only way to realize popular sovereignty of proletariat is to establish proletarian dictatorship through violent revolution, but it is just a transitional form of the proletariat leading to popular sovereignty.Marx's concept of popular sovereignty has become the basic guiding ideology and system of new democracy in China, which still has a profound significance and practical value to the contemporary China. As the theoretical solid backup force, Marx's thought of popular sovereignty has become a new Chinese national state system and regime, democratic participation system, civil rights constitutional protection system, service people's government and democratic system theory. In the new historical period, the requirements of Marx's popular sovereignty theory on contemporary Chinese democracy, will be in the political, legal,economic and cultural institutions, appeared not only political slogans stay in the propaganda level.