In the western traditional research

The Historical Development of Western Political Science

Western political science originated in ancient Greece and was founded by Aristotle, an ancient Greek thinker. His "Politics" is recognized as the foundation work of western political science. Starting from political science, according to the historical order, the historical development of western political science can be roughly divided into four stages:

(1) Ancient Western politics?

In the 5th century BC, there were hundreds of slave cities along the Mediterranean coast. The formation and development of these city-states broke the blood relationship between primitive clan and tribal society, disintegrated the patriarchal clan relationship between people, established the rights relationship and contract relationship earlier, promoted the formation and development of urban civilization, commercial civilization and marine civilization, and provided fertile soil and cradle for the emergence of western classical political theory. It is against this background that ancient Greek thinkers Plato and Aristotle wrote The Republic and Politics, which opened up a new field of political science research. ?

Plato (427 ~ 347 BC) was an ancient Greek thinker. His main political thought is the description of "Republic", and his main works include three dialogues: Republic, Politician and Law. He believes that the "best" regime is a "state of justice", that is, an "ideal country". In this small city-state, there are three levels, namely, philosophy king, warrior and laborer. The king of philosophy is a respected philosopher who governs the country. Soldiers defend their country and laborers produce. This is Plato's ideal regime. However, if these three levels are chaotic, the model of ideal regime will be disrupted and replaced by military regime and oligarchy, which will lead to popular revolution and democracy. Plato's thought changed in the later period. He designed a "second-class" city-state: he replaced the philosopher regime that might lead to authoritarianism with a mixed regime; Replaced the public property and public wife system in the ideal country with the restoration of private property and family; Rank by wealth rather than talent. ?

Aristotle (384 ~ 322 BC), an ancient Greek thinker, was a student of Plato, and his masterpiece was Politics. He investigated and analyzed more than 150 different forms of city-states, and studied the basic theory of the state from the perspective of ethics and interests, that is, the origin, nature, purpose and task of the state. This paper studies the principles of dividing national political systems and compares various political systems. It studies how to establish and manage a country, laying a foundation for the study of western political science. The specific contents are as follows: ① The formation of a country is a natural product, just like the combination of men and women. "In the early days, social groups at all levels naturally grew up. Since all city-states are the completion of this growth process, they should also be natural products, which is the end of the development of social groups. " "The end of a thing, or its extreme cause, is bound to be perfect, so now this completely self-sufficient city-state is a perfect social group." Therefore, in Aristotle's view, the state is a natural and perfect social group. He believes that ethics studies the goodness of individuals, politics studies the goodness of people, and the purpose of the state as a social group is to achieve the noblest and most extensive "good cause." He pointed out: "The goodness of politics is justice, and justice is based on the public interest." "The polis takes justice as the principle ... justice is precisely the basis for establishing social order." (3) The distribution system of political power, that is, the regime, determines the similarities and differences of the city-states. Aristotle distinguished and studied various regimes, holding that monarchies, aristocrats, * * * and regimes can all take care of the interests of the public, and the only difference is that the number of people who hold the supreme sovereignty is different. Tyrants, oligarchs and civilian regimes will only benefit the rulers. (4) The best and easiest to achieve is the * * * and political power, especially the * * * and political power with the middle class as the main body is the most stable. ⑤ The change of political power is based on people's different understanding of "justice" and "equality". Oligarch will think that the inequality of political power based on the amount of property is just, while civilians think that the equal distribution of political power based on individual freedom is just. ⑥ Private property and family are human nature and the nature of city-states, which cannot be abolished, but the polarization of wealth should be avoided. ⑦ The city-state practices the rule of law, and citizens take turns to govern. ?

In Aristotle's time, the slave city-state system in ancient Greece was facing a serious crisis. Therefore, Aristotle's task is to maintain and praise the city-state system as the best embodiment. At the same time, he tried his best to find a regime that could save the slave city-state. He thought that the regime with the middle class as the main body was the most stable, trying to resolve two extreme contradictions and maintain the stability of the country. It can be seen that the ancient western political theory has some characteristics: ① it started with the study of national issues, because it took the polis as the research and analysis object; (2) It emphasizes that the highest purpose and value orientation of politics lies in concrete ethics, because it believes that politics is the goodness of the research group and the state of the country is a perfect social group; (3) maintaining the rule of slave owners and slave countries; (4) Plato and Aristotle have different research methods. Plato mainly used philosophical thinking to combine politics with philosophy, morality, education and family. In his view, politics is ethics. Aristotle mainly used the method of comparative analysis to compare more than 150 city-states, studied different types of governments, and began to separate politics from ethics, making the concept of political research systematic. Therefore, in methodology, the philosophical speculative research method represented by Plato and the empirical comparative research method represented by Aristotle have laid two major trends of western traditional political research methods.

(B) Medieval Western political theory

There are two obvious characteristics in medieval Europe. One is feudalism, whose economic basis is that feudal lords possess the means of production; The other is religion, and the church is the biggest feudal Lord. Therefore, in the Middle Ages of Europe, the dominant thought was theology, and all sciences became the handmaiden of theology, and political science was no exception. The political theory of this period is theological political view, and its representative figures are Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

Augustine (354-430) was a thinker and a representative of the godfather at the end of the Western Roman Empire. His main works are Confessions and City of God. His main political thought is the "two-state theory". Its contents are as follows: ① There are two countries in the world, namely the kingdom of God and the kingdom of custom. The kingdom of God is the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of custom is the kingdom of the world. (2) The kingdom of God is bright and eternal, composed of God's chosen people, represented by the church; The secular state is dark and short-lived, and it is made up of people abandoned by God. (3) In the final judgment, God will enjoy eternal happiness and the secular country will suffer eternal suffering.

Thomas Aquinas (1224 ~ 1274) was a theologian and scholastic philosopher in medieval Italy. His major works include The Complete Book of Theology and On Monarchical Politics. His political thoughts mainly include: ① national thoughts: He thinks that God is the origin and destination of all things, so faith is above everything else. Then, everything that exists is reasonable, including slavery and hierarchy, and it is providence. He said: "Everything that exists is arranged by God, and God wants to impose an order on everything." Therefore, in his view, the country is not only derived from human nature, but also the creation of God. (2) On the issue of political system: He believes that the best political system is monarchy, because it can promote social welfare, but the completion of this duty must rely on the rule of God, and God's agent on earth is the church, so the monarch must obey the Pope. Citizens have every right to kill tyrants with the support of the Pope. ③ Thinking about law: He thinks that the purpose of law is to arrange the public's happiness reasonably, which is rooted in human nature, but it is still the embodiment of God's will. Therefore, he believes that the essence of law is the will to accept moderation. He divided the law into four categories: eternal law (God's law), natural law (God's law in person), human law (state law) and God's law (church law). He believed that eternal law was the source of all laws and represented God's rule over the universe, and other people's laws must obey God's laws. ?

In a word, the basic characteristics of medieval political theory are as follows: ① Advocating faith over reason, and taking religious teachings as the standard to judge right and wrong; (2) emphasizing the divine right of kingship, believing that religious rights are greater than kingship, adding a sacred aura to kingship; (3) Advocating God's creation of hierarchy, flaunting the rationality of feudal hierarchy on the pretext that God created everything; ④ In terms of research methods, early research mostly resorted to mysterious intuition, while in the later period, namely Aquinas period, rigorous philosophical thinking and abstract conceptual analysis methods were used to deduce the existence of God and demonstrate the political thoughts of the country, regime and law. ?

(3) Modern western politics?

/kloc-in the 0/4th century, European feudal society gave birth to a new type of production relations, namely capitalist production relations. With the development of this kind of relations of production, a new stratum-citizen stratum rises rapidly and grows continuously. The new mode of production exchange and new class interests have produced sharp opposition and serious conflict with feudal theocracy. The emerging bourgeoisie began to demand its own political power and express its views on political and ethnic issues. /kloc-the bourgeois renaissance movement in the 0/6th century represented the forerunner of the bourgeois ideological revolution. In this movement, modern bourgeois political theory stood out. With the development of capitalist production, the bourgeoisie has more understanding and requirements for politics and put forward many different political opinions. In the following, the development of modern political theory is divided into three stages in chronological order and explained separately. ?

1,1Renaissance political theory in the 6th century?

Machiavelli and Bodan are the main representatives of political thinkers in this period. ?

Machiavelli (1469 ~ 1527) is an Italian politician, political thinker and the founder of modern western politics. His main work is The Prince, some of which have been translated into Ruling. Its distinctive feature is to study social politics from human nature rather than from god. Methods Based on facts and experience, scholastic dogmatic reasoning was no longer adopted. Machiavelli's theory of state is based on his theory of evil human nature. In his view, since human nature is evil, we can only rely on the powerful monarchy to achieve social stability. The monarch's power is based on the army and the law. In order to achieve political goals, the monarch can do whatever it takes without any moral constraints. He even emphasized that a successful monarch mainly has the functions of a lion and a fox. Therefore, in Machiavelli's view, the duty of the state is to stop the endless struggle caused by human greed, and the ultimate goal is to establish order. Machiavelli thinks that the ideal regime is * * * and regime.

Bodan (1530 ~ 1596) is a French political thinker and jurist, and the founder of modern bourgeois sovereignty theory. The main works are * * * and Six Theories. The main contributions in political thought are as follows: ① Advocating the study of ethnic issues from the perspective of people. ② Put forward the theory of sovereignty. It is considered that national sovereignty means that a center (or monarch or group) holds supreme power, which is a permanent absolute power. For citizens and subjects, it is the highest power without legal restrictions, the government can change, and sovereignty exists forever. National sovereignty is embodied by law, which maintains social stability and legitimizes the country. (3) According to the ownership of sovereignty, the regime can be divided into three types: democracy, nobility and monarchy, and praising the legitimate monarchy is the most stable and reasonable form.

The thoughts of political thinkers in this period fully reflected the requirements of the development of the times. For example, they began to respect people and the world, began to regard political power as the core orientation of research, made politics independent of ethics, and began to study it with empirical methods. These are the breakthroughs of the emerging bourgeoisie in feudal theological and political theory. Of course, their thoughts also have class limitations, such as Machiavelli's political theory-you can do whatever it takes to achieve your goals, which is a naked manifestation of bourgeois egoism.

2. 17 to 18 century political theory.

17 ~18th century is the prosperous period of western political science. During this period, due to the further development of capitalist mode of production, the bourgeoisie gradually gained the economic dominance, and then demanded the corresponding political dominance, so the bourgeois political revolution began to be put on the agenda of European social development, which greatly promoted the development of western political science. A large number of European and American thinkers have written books and expounded their understanding of politics, enriching and developing western political theory. The main representatives are Grotius and Spinoza in the Netherlands, Hobbes and Locke in Britain, Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau in France, Paine, Jefferson and Hamilton in the United States.

Grotius (1583 ~ 1645) is a Dutch political thinker, one of the founders of natural law school and the founder of modern international law theory. His main works are Freedom at Sea and Law of War and Peace. His political theory mainly includes natural law, sovereignty theory and international law. He believes that natural law is based on nature and human reason, embodies justice and fairness, and is used to maintain social stability, thus refuting the supremacy of providence; On the issue of sovereignty, it is proposed that sovereignty is a kind of power whose own behavior is not restricted by other powers, and it cannot be regarded as invalid by the will of others. But at the same time, in order to demonstrate the necessity of bourgeois rule, he opposed the view that "sovereignty belongs to the people" and thought it would lead to the chaos of the country and the destruction of order; In international relations, an independent sovereign state is the main body of international activities, and international behavior is bound by international law, which is based on natural law, adjusts the relations between countries and maintains international order. ?

Spinoza (1632 ~ 1677) is a Dutch philosopher and political thinker. His main works are Theological Politics, Ethics and Political Science. The theoretical basis of his political thought is the theory of human nature, which holds that the right to subsistence is the fundamental principle of human nature and the highest natural power of human beings. His main political thoughts are state theory, regime theory and freedom theory. The state is formed by people rationally establishing contracts in order to ensure the safety of survival, so the state power must be strong to ensure the safety of human life and society; Democracy is the natural system that best conforms to people's freedom, but we should pay special attention to people's impulsive emotions, which may destroy democracy; Freedom of thought and speech is an inalienable right of everyone, but it must be restricted by law and cannot endanger the authority of rulers and national security. ?

Hobbes (1588 ~ 1679) is a British philosopher and political thinker, and a representative of modern natural law and social contract theory. His major works include Principles of Natural Law and State Law and On Citizens. It is necessary to establish a public power greater than individual power, so people reach a social contract and establish a country. The holder of state power, that is, the power of the monarch, is given by people through contracts. Once this power is given, it is absolute. ?

Locke (1632 ~ 1704) is a British philosopher and political thinker. His main work is On Government. His political thoughts are mainly based on natural law and social contract theory. He believes that human life, freedom and property, as innate natural rights, cannot be transferred and deprived, among which property right is the core and sacred; The existence value of the government is to protect private property, so the rights of the government should be restricted; In order to ensure the country to realize democracy and prevent autocracy, the state power should be divided into legislative power, executive power and external power, and each power should be strictly restricted. Locke systematically expounded the theory of natural human rights for the first time and laid the basic principles of liberalism. ?

Montesquieu (1689 ~ 1755) is a French enlightenment thinker, jurist and philosopher, and his main work is On the Spirit of Law. The spirit of law is the theoretical basis of his political thought, representing historical inevitability and objective regularity, specifically referring to the relationship between national laws, political power, natural environment, social mode, religious customs and other factors. The principle of government is a kind of spiritual strength, which promotes the activities of the country. Constitutional monarchy is the most rational regime. He further developed and perfected Locke's theory of separation of powers and systematically expounded his thought of separation of powers. He advocated that state institutions should be established according to the principle of separation of legislative, judicial and administrative powers. Among them, the parliament exercises legislative power, the monarch holds administrative power, and the court specializes in judicial power, so as to ensure that they are not abused through mutual restraint between powers. He believes that only by governing the country according to law can this goal be achieved. ?

Rousseau (17 12 ~ 1778) was a French enlightenment thinker. His major works include The Origin and Basis of Human Inequality and The Theory of Social Contract. He strongly criticized private ownership and thought that feudal autocracy was the peak of private ownership development. He put forward "people's sovereignty theory" and "social contract theory", and advocated the establishment of a bourgeois democratic republic with people's sovereignty and the rule of law on the basis of a new social contract. ?

Paine, Jefferson and Hamilton were all American political activists in the18th century. Their political thoughts have many common characteristics: ① they serve American political practice with ready-made political theories in Europe, and rarely make abstract theoretical arguments, but most of them are pragmatic; Few books are huge and systematic, and most of them appear in the form of pamphlets, political papers and documents. (2) The independence of the United States and the establishment of a federal republic. Prove that everyone's ability and opportunity to pursue happiness are equal with the popular theory of natural rights in Europe. ④ Take the balance of power as the basic principle of constructing the federal government, and think that the federal government established according to this principle is a perfect government. However, their thoughts have their own characteristics, and they have played and innovated western political thoughts from different angles and made their own contributions. Paine is the first thinker in the history of western political thought to expound the relationship between natural rights and civil rights. He believes that "natural rights are the rights that people have in their existence" and civil rights are the rights that people have as members of society. The former is the foundation of the latter, and the realization of the latter must rely on the power of the state, government or law. Jefferson is the founder of American bourgeois democratic tradition, and his democratic autonomy thought is more concrete and realistic than other democratic thoughts. In order to ensure the realization of people's autonomy and prevent tyranny, he put forward the principles of limiting the power of the central government, decentralized governance between the central and local governments and people's participation in politics. Hamilton's political thought is characterized by his theory of evil nature and elitism. Based on the selfishness of human nature, the theory of evil nature demonstrates the necessity of relying on a strong central government to maintain national order, which is the inheritance and development of Hobbes' view. Elite theory excludes the rich and people with status from the category of evil human nature, thus affirming the rationality and legitimacy that political power should be held by these people. ?

The political thought in this period was basically based on the theory of human nature and natural law, and combined with the needs of political practice, the political system was constructed and the political scheme was designed. Although the angles and issues discussed by these political scientists are different, and their political attitudes are different from radical and conservative, as bourgeois political thinkers, their political thoughts have certain similarities, which are mainly manifested in: ① Strongly and comprehensively criticizing the feudal autocratic political system and social concepts. (2) From the perspective of human nature, he founded the theory of natural law, emphasizing that all people are born equal, further exposing and criticizing theocracy and feudal hierarchy. ③ Affirm people's pursuit of justice, equality, freedom, democracy and happiness, and form the theory of justice, equality, freedom, democracy and natural human rights. ④ It is believed that the state is the result of people concluding contracts, and once the contracts come into effect, the state power is supreme. ⑤ Analyze the categories, characteristics and functions of political power, and put forward the principles of political power allocation and political system construction. ⑥ Attach importance to the role of law, advocate building the country and governing the country according to law, and handle the relations between sovereign countries according to law; The realization of rights such as justice, equality, freedom and democracy must rely on the protection of law, and the scope of activities of these rights must also be based on law. The essence of these thoughts and theories is the projection of the economic and market rules of liberal capitalism on political thoughts. ?

3./kloc-political theory from the end of the 8th century to the middle of the 9th century?

From the end of 18 century to the middle of 19 century, the task of bourgeois revolution in Europe and America has been basically completed, and the bourgeoisie has become the ruling class politically. At the same time, with the development of the proletariat, the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat has become the main contradiction in society. The main political task facing the bourgeoisie is to safeguard and realize its own interests. The change of historical theme has changed the research theme of western political science, from expounding and advocating bourgeois values such as equality and democracy to discussing and analyzing the relationship between bourgeois personal interests and political power, and between bourgeois interests and society. Therefore, some political scientists began to study these issues with a sociological worldview. Representative figures are Bentham, Mill, Comte and Spencer. ?

Bentham (1748 ~ 1832) is a British political thinker, jurist and economist. His main works are about government films, morality and legislative principles. His political thought is based on the principle of utility. He believes that happiness and pain are the two masters of human beings, and it is human nature to seek happiness and avoid pain, which is the origin and purpose of all human behaviors. The content of happiness is survival, prosperity, security and equality; The realization of everyone's interests and happiness will promote the development of the whole society's interests and happiness, so it is justified to pursue personal interests and happiness; The only criterion for judging national systems and laws is whether they can promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people; Oppose the theory of natural rights, social contract and natural law, think that the state is evil, which will limit individual freedom, and advocate that the state is laissez-faire and does not interfere in economic life; It is believed that the legal system and decentralized representative democracy should be implemented; Put forward a series of ideas to reform the parliament, such as legislative power controlling executive power, members not holding administrative posts, members not being controlled by the government, and expanding adult men's voting rights. These political thoughts established Bentham's position as the main representative of utilitarianism school, and his parliamentary reform plan directly became the guiding principle of British parliamentary reform in 1832. ?

Mill (1806 ~ 1873) was a British philosopher and political thinker, and was the main representative of liberalism in19th century. His works include On Freedom and Utilitarianism. Liberalism is the core of his political thought, which advocates the maintenance of individual freedom and the development of individuality. It is proposed that we should not only oppose the oppression of the state and ensure political freedom, but also oppose the slavery of social customs and public opinion and safeguard individual freedom in social life. He pointed out: personal freedom is not absolute. Only when personal behavior does not involve the interests of others can individuals have complete freedom of action without being responsible to society; When personal behavior harms the interests of others, such behavior should be controlled by society, and individuals should also be punished by society or law. He also discussed freedom from a broader social field for the first time and defined the relationship between individual freedom and social control. In addition, Mill developed Bentham's utilitarianism theory and revised the laissez-faire principle of traditional liberalism, holding that the implementation of laissez-faire principle should be limited, and state intervention has its positive effect, which can provide people with more opportunities to create happiness and pursue freedom. In the aspect of government theory, Mill expounded the general principles and specific problems of bourgeois parliamentary democracy, holding that parliament has two functions of controlling and criticizing the government, emphasizing the authoritative role of knowledge and intelligence in parliamentary democracy, and advocating the rule of "elites". In his later years, Mill advocated the nationalization of natural resources, mines and railways, and put forward such ideas as "limited socialism". Mill's political thought embodies the transformation from traditional liberalism to modern liberalism, which is a sign of great changes in British liberalism, and he himself has become one of the most influential representatives in the history of liberalism. ?

Comte (1798 ~ 1857) is a French thinker and the founder of positivism. His main work is Positive Political System. His political thought is mainly composed of positivism system and social solidarity thought. In the positivism system, it is pointed out that scientific knowledge must be based on "empirical facts", that is, empirical facts and empirical phenomena, and the essence and ultimate reasons other than phenomena cannot be understood. It advocates that the development of human knowledge can be divided into three stages: theology, metaphysics and positivism. Accordingly, the development of human society should be divided into three stages: the military age of theology, the legal age of metaphysics and the industrial age of science. Therefore, Comte thinks that the previous politics is speculative politics based on imagination and advocates empirical politics based on observation. In the aspect of social unity, it is pointed out that society originates from human social instinct, the spiritual power of society should be exercised by scientists, and the secular power should be mastered by capitalist groups. The main responsibility of the government is to cultivate and improve people's social feelings, ensure social order and progress, and achieve social harmony and unity. Comte's positivism is widely spread and has a far-reaching influence on modern political science. ?

Spencer (1820 ~ 1903) is a famous British sociologist, philosopher, political thinker, the main representative of social evolution theory and social organism theory, and his works include Social Statics. He explained human social phenomena with the concept of natural science, and put forward influential social evolution theory and social organism theory, which are the core of his political thought. He pointed out that human society is essentially an organism, and the cooperation between different classes is the basis of human life, thus forming a balanced state of society; The principle of biological competition is completely applicable to human morality, and the survival of the fittest is the embodiment of human morality. So he thinks that capitalist society is the highest stage of social evolution and the most perfect society. Based on the theory of social evolution and the theory of organism, Spencer thinks that the state and the government are the inevitable result of social evolution, and the state is the combination of natural units or individuals. The only law of personal synthesis is the law of equality and freedom, that is, everyone's freedom is only limited by the necessary freedom of others, thus developing the principle of the greatest happiness of liberal thinkers. He views the country and the government with a laissez-faire view, and thinks that the government is a necessary evil, but he also advocates that the government, as a necessity of moderation, should intervene in the economy as little as possible to avoid the failure of natural law selection. ?

The political thoughts in this period are concentrated on the requirements of the industrial bourgeoisie for the free development of commodity production and commodity exchange. By establishing the ideological and theoretical basis of utilitarianism and liberalism, applying the sociological world outlook and relying on the concepts, logic and methods of natural science, western political science has been pushed to a new stage of development. Of course, during this period, with the development of the capital movement and the prominent contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the interests and political demands of the proletariat gradually condensed into their own political theory, which is the utopian socialist political theory represented by French Saint-Simon, Fourier and British Owen. These political thoughts mainly expose the shortcomings of the real society, criticize capitalist private ownership, and expect to achieve social progress and harmony through social change; Reform plans include, for example, the establishment of social ownership, the establishment of a working Republic, and so on. These theories have become an important ideological source of Marxist political theory. ?

(4) Modern western politics?