An Analysis On The Causes Of Predicament Of Democratic Constitutionalism In The Early Years Of Republic Of China

The thesis sets the main line in the history from the foundation of the republic ofChina in January1912to Yuan Shikai’s announcement of abolishing the republicanregime and resuming monarchy in1915and attempts to explore the predicamentduring the implementing of democratic constitutionalism as well as its embodiment.Furthermore, this thesis considers the political, economic and cultural conditions andanalyzes the causes of the predicament of democratic constitutionalism with the aimto give reference to contemporary government construction.This thesis contains four parts: the first part combines the concrete situation andanalyzes the embodiments of the predicament in the process of implementing thedemocratic constitutionalism at that time in order to reach two facts: one is the chaosin the practice of election and the other is the transitoriness of party politics andparliamentary politics; the second part based on the political factors, investigates thepredicament of democratic constitutionalism and through the analysis concludes thatlack of substantive political parties and various political forces’ uncompromisinginteraction as well as Yu’s destructive military forces finally lead to the ruin of theframework of constitutionalism, the dilemma of democratic constitutionalism and theturning from democratic republicanism to dictatorship; The third part based on theeconomic factors, analyzes the economic situation of the early years of the Republicof China and concludes that on one hand the economic depression at that time couldnot offer appropriate economic conditions for constitutional democracy and on theother hand the society of early Republic of China lacked the economic environmentfor the growth of civizens; The fourth part from the cultural factors researches thecultural structure of society at that time and explores the influences of culture ondemocratic constitutionalism.