On Sartori’s "All Power Belongs To No One"

Popular sovereignty, an important concept in the modern western political philosophy, has not only played a key role in the development of modern democratic theory but also greatly promoted the civilization of human society. Popular sovereignty, whose central tenet is "all power belongs to the people", advocates that the sovereign power is from the people and of the people. Therefore it has been the basis for the legitimacy of modern political domination as well as the core of the modern western democratic theory. However, with the development of human society, the settlement of the legality problem of political power and the establishment of democracy in countries, the classical conception of democracy postulating "democracy is the rule of the people or the power of the people" has been questioned and the popular sovereignty theory has also been criticized because a huge gap between the specification of democracy and the actual democracy exists.As a master of modern democratic theory, Giovanni Sartori had been devoted his lifetime to the study of liberal democratic theory and political party system. His unique democratic theory perspective made him famous in political circles. Since he was deeply dissatisfied with the fact that the democracy has suffered chaos in reality and mainstream democracy theory has been hit, he wants to reshape liberal democratic theory. In the process of remodeling the theory, he challenged the etymological definition of democracy. In his opinion, the traditional theory of popular sovereignty had just pointed out the legitimacy of the source of power, but in fact the people have not and can not be personally involved in the exercise of political power and power remains in the hands of the minority. Therefore, the popular sovereignty is hypocritical and unrealistic. And more seriously, the traditional theory of popular sovereignty is prone to cause a series of problems in modern society including the tyranny of the majority, the despotism of the minority and the rise of decision costs. Therefore, he pointed out that democracy should be given a new definition with the evolution of the society; At the same time, the core of democracy——ownership and exercise of power——should also be made a fundamental shift. Through the argument, he believed that "all power belongs to the people" should be changed to "all power belongs to no one" in the modern society which implies putting the power into the rule of law and constitution so as to realize the impersonalization of power.Based on Sartori’s "The Theory of Democracy Revisited", the author has started from Sartori’s criticism of the popular sovereignty theory in the process of reviewing his democratic theory, This paper endeavors to clarify the inherent logic of the transition of his view of power as well as the impact and practical significance of his criticism on the popular sovereignty theory and to find out the basis of his criticism and analyzed the causes and effects of his transformation of the view of power. The limitations in the process of argument has also been mentioned. It is concluded that Sartori’s view of power has provided a reference for good implementation of power and has been of realistic significance to our country’s idea of putting the power into the cage. However, the theory dispelled the value foundation of democracy, making the political power lack of legitimacy foundation. So it is not advisable at this point. In order to ensure the benign operation of the political power, the exploration of the procedure design of systems should be on the premise of guaranteeing people’s status as a sovereign for the sake of realizing the unification between the ownership of the political power and the exercise effect of political power.