Rousseau Sovereignty Of The People Thinking Of Interpretation

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the outstanding representatives in the 18th-century French Enlightenment. As the core of his political thought, Popular Sovereignty Theory has an impact on both the western democracy practice and the democracy theory. Analysizing and discussing his Popular Sovereignty Theory systematically is of significance to understand the political thought of Rousseau and the sequence of western democracy political theories. This research, based on Rousseau's texts, uses the method of comparative analysis to probe into the implication in the depths of the theory and try to give an objective and fair evaluation to it.The first part of the paper mainly discusses the theoretical and historical background of Rousseau's Popular Sovereignty Theory. The democracy nutrient of ancient Greece political thinking, the legal jurisdiction political thinking of ancient Rome and since the modern times, the political thinking of Bodin, Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu have prepared the thought materials for Rousseau's sovereignty theory from different aspects. In the 18th century, the rapid development of capitalism, the deepening of the feudal autocracy contradiction as well as the Enlightenment on the idealical level, all of these consist of the historical background of Rousseau's Popular Sovereignty Theory.The second part of the paper mainly elaborates the basic principles and the primary coverage of.. Rousseau's Popular Sovereignty Theory. Rousseau insisted that the people are the sovereignty holders and the government belongs to the popular sovereignty. Whether in national sovereignty's ownership or the sovereignty exercise, he stresses that the people are main body in the political life. The popular sovereignty,characterized by the four principles, which are untransferable ,undividable, unrepresented as well as absolute and supreme. The legislative power and the executive power are different and the legislative power is the main manifestation of popular sovereignty. Entrusted by the people, the government exerts the executive power which derives from the legislative power. Government officers are people's servants. People have the revolutionary power of overthrowing the existing government.The third part is to review the relation among Rousseau's Popular Sovereignty Theory and his other thoughts as well as the rethinking of the theory. It is correlated with the theories of social contract and general will. Social Contract Theory is the theoretical access to construct the Popular Sovereignty. General Will idea is theoretical foundation. Resting on the different angles, some scholars hold two completely different views of democracy and totalitarianism on Rousseau's Popular Sovereignty Theory. The author believed that we should return to Rousseau's texts and the specific historical perspective to appraise his Popular Sovereignty Theory. On one hand, the theory sparkles the glory of democracy. Although appears idealism, it was rooted in the society historical situation of the time. On the other hand, the theory itself also has some flaws limited by the foundation of the general will theory and etc.