Review article
The Idea of the Minimal State in Modern Political Theory
Marko Dokić
orcid.org/0000-0002-6328-4683
; Faculty of Law, University of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro
Abstract
The author analyzes the idea of the minimal state in modern political theory, as well as its development in the socio-historical context. Since the idea of the minimal state concerns the question of the role of government, which is primarily an ideological question, it is analyzed through the ideological prism of liberalism. Further, changes in the liberal tradition (classical liberalism, social liberalism, neoliberalism), transformations of the state and the feasibility of the theoretical concept of minimal state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are presented and scrutinized in more detail. The central part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of the characteristics of this political idea – its anthropological and philosophical basis, ideas that are inseparably linked with it (negative freedom, the rule of law, procedural conception of justice, spontaneous order of the market) and the problem of the proper sphere of government. Finally, the shortcomings and perspectives of the minimal state in modern political theory are examined.
Keywords
minimal state; limited government; liberalism; laissez-faire doctrine; the rule of law
Hrčak ID:
169103
URI
Publication date:
7.11.2016.
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