Conference paper

Controlling Power by Power?

Eugen Pusić ; Proffesor emeritus, member of the CASA

Abstract

The author claims that the concept of separation of power was known to the writers in antiquity such as Tukidides, Plato, Aristotle, Polibus and Cicero, who dealt with the questions of the balance of power or the balance of different forms of government. In modern age, liberal thinkers such as Montesquieu, Locke, Madison and Hamilton postulated the principle of the tension between the opposing functions of the state as the foundations of liberal and democratic constitutional systems. The principle of separation or division of power has maintained its significance in the twentieth-century democracies, despite the relativization of the role of the national state through the interdependence of the global society as well as the development of other principles and mechanisms curtailing the power of the state (political parties, human rights, the autonomy of mass media and of various social sectors). The author asserts that the principle of separation of power is functioning today primarily as a form of labour division among various government institutions; this division gives rise to a miscellany of the participants' opinions and preferences.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

110919

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/110919

Publication date:

5.9.1994.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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