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Author Gordon, Scott, 1924- author.

Title Controlling the state : constitutionalism from ancient Athens to today / Scott Gordon
Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, [1999]
©1999

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Description 1 online resource (x, 395 pages)
Contents 1. The doctrine of sovereignty -- 2. Athenian democracy -- 3. The Roman republic -- 4. Countervailance theory in medieval law, Catholic ecclesiology, and Huguenot political theory -- 5. The Republic of Venice -- 6. The Dutch republic -- 7. The development of constitutional government and countervailance theory in seventeenth-century England -- 8. American constitutionalism -- 9. Modern Britain
Summary "This book examines the development of the theory and practice of constitutionalism, defined as a political system in which the coercive power of the state is controlled through a pluralistic distribution of political power. It explores the main venues of constitutional practice in ancient Athens, Republican Rome, Renaissance Venice, the Dutch Republic, seventeenth-century England, and eighteenth-century America. From its beginning in Polybius' interpretation of the classical concept of mixed government, the author traces the theory of constitutionalism through its late medieval appearance in the Conciliar Movement of church reform and in the Huguenot defense of minority rights. After noting its suppression with the emergence of the nation-state and the Bodinian doctrine of sovereignty, the author describes how constitutionalism was revived in the English conflict between king and Parliament in the early Stuart era, and how it has developed since then into the modern concept of constitutional democracy."--Book jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 363-386) and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
English
Print version record
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Separation of powers.
Authority.
Liberty.
Constitutional history.
Freedom
freedom.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Ideologies -- Democracy.
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Constitutions.
Authority
Constitutional history
Liberty
Separation of powers
Constitutionalisme.
Staatsvormen.
Constitutionnalisme.
Histoire constitutionnelle.
Séparation des pouvoirs.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 99030812
ISBN 9780674037830
0674037839