Explore the vast range of titles available.

Essays on Montesquieu and the influence of his thought from the eighteenth century to today. Montesquieu (1689–1755) is regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment. His Lettres persanes and L'Esprit des lois have been read by students and scholars throughout the last two centuries. While many have associated Montesquieu with the doctrine of the \"separation of powers\" in the history of ideas, Rebecca E. Kingston brings together leading international scholars who for the first time present a systematic treatment and discussion of the significance of his ideas more generally for the development of Western political theory and institutions. In particular, Montesquieu and His Legacy supplements the conventional focus on the institutional teachings of Montesquieu with attention to the theme of morals and manners. The contributors provide commentary on the broad legacy of Montesquieu's thought in past times as well as for the contemporary era.

The distinction between manifest and non-manifest delicts, and the differentiated regime of punishment attached to it, is attested in all ancient legal systems. And yet, already in antiquity, it assumed the status of a mystery: why punish more severely, only because the criminal had been caught in flagrante? This article examines the extant evidence on the flagrant delict through the prism of a cross-cultural legal rite of ligation and in close conjunction with conceptions of judicial vision, secrecy, and crime to suggest that the distinction is expressive of the legal power of sight: the crime seen to be done is worse.

Eighteenth-century French fiction containing episodes on abortion are influenced by the seventeenth-century scandal of La Voisin, and by the 1731 legal suit involving the Jesuit Priest Père Girard and Catherine Cadière. Two observations may be derived from eighteenth-century French novels: women's abortions are monitored, instigated, and decided by fathers, husbands and lovers, who select for them, if they are to remain celibate, and whose children they bear. And as well, abortion tests or reveals the limits of a woman’s individual freedom and right to care for herself.

Although most scholars are aware that, at least in theory, Thomas Jefferson opposed slavery for most of his life, even the leading Jefferson experts have not attempted to discover whether any specific writers inspired or influenced his antislavery views, apparently accepting them as part of what Carl Becker called the ‘climate of opinion’. This article reveals that the French philosophe , Charles, Baron de Montesquieu, likely influenced his antislavery attitudes. Jefferson formed these ideas during his first years in politics, as revealed by numerous excerpts from Montesquieu’s discussions of slavery in Spirit of Laws included in Jefferson’s Legal Commonplace Books (textual selections and abstracts he jotted down). Jefferson’s legal defence of slaves’ lawsuits for freedom, the antislavery statements in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, and his legislative proposals against slavery as a state assemblyman in the 1770s and congressman during the 1780s perhaps emerged from Spirit of Laws’ doctrines.

CEL NAUKOWY: W artykule podjęto problematykę statusu ustrojowego samorządu terytorialnego z perspektywy ustanowionej w Konstytucji RP zasady podziału władz. Podjęto trzy problemy badawcze: Czy w tradycyjnych koncepcjach podziału władz wyodrębniano władzę samorządową? Czy w świetle konstytucyjnej zasady podziału władz można samorząd terytorialny uznać za władzę? Co oznacza pojęcie czwartej władzy w odniesieniu do samorządu terytorialnego? PROBLEM I METODY BADAWCZE: W badaniach wykorzystano metody badawcze z dyscypliny nauki o polityce i administracji oraz nauk prawnych: metodę analizy i krytyki piśmiennictwa naukowego, metodę językowo-logiczną, metodę teoretyczno-prawną oraz metodę instytucjonalną. PROCES WYWODU: W artykule przedstawiono wybrane tradycyjne koncepcje podziału władz, w tym teorię Monteskiusza będącą podstawą dla współczesnej zasady podziału władz, wyodrębniono trzy stanowiska dotyczące relacji zasady podziału władz i samorządu terytorialnego oraz wskazano, co oznacza pojęcie czwartej władzy w odniesieniu do samorządu terytorialnego. WYNIKI ANALIZY NAUKOWEJ: Samorząd terytorialny może zostać uznany za czwartą władzę w znaczeniu nieformalnym. Określenie „czwarta władza\" jest stosowane w celu zaakcentowania znaczenia i dowartościowania określonych instytucji, natomiast w świetle zasady podziału władz nie można samorządu uznać za jedną z władz w państwie. WNIOSKI, INNOWACJE, REKOMENDACJE: Koncepcja podziału władz Monteskiusza stanowi podstawę organizacji współczesnych państw demokratycznych, ale nie obejmuje całej ich złożoności. Dlatego coraz popularniejsze stają się propozycje uzupełniania tego podziału o podziały dodatkowe, tj. pionowy podział władz i multi-level governance.

How did the U.S. judiciary become so powerful-powerful enough that state and federal judges vied to decide a presidential election? What does this prominence mean for the law, constitutionalism, and liberal democracy both in America and internationally? In The Cloaking of Power, Paul O. Carrese provides a provocative and original analysis of the intellectual sources of today's powerful judiciary, arguing that Montesquieu, in his Spirit of the Laws, first articulated a new conception of the separation of powers and of strong but subtle courts. Montesquieu instructed statesmen and judges to \"cloak power\" by placing the robed power at the center of politics, while concealing judges behind citizen juries and subtle reforms. Tracing Montesquieu's conception of judicial power through Blackstone, Hamilton, and Tocqueville, Carrese shows how it led to the prominence of judges, courts, and lawyers in America today. But he places the blame for contemporary judicial activism squarely at the feet of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and his jurisprudential revolution-which he believes to be the source of the now-prevalent view that judging is merely political. To address this crisis, Carrese argues for a rediscovery of an independent judiciary-one that blends prudence and natural law with common law and that observes the moderate jurisprudence of Montesquieu and Blackstone, balancing abstract principles with realistic views of human nature and institutions. He also advocates for a return to the complex constitutionalism of the American founders and Tocqueville and for judges who understand their responsibility to elevate citizens above individualism, instructing them in law and right. Such judicial statesmanship, moderating democracy's excesses, Carrese explains, differs from an activism that favors isolated individuals and progressive policies over civic duties, communal principles, and constitutional tradition. Students of political theory, law, constitutionalism, and the American founding will find The Cloaking of Power an invaluable resource.

Often these policies allow for anonymity.1 Anonymous accusations are often particularly favoured because, even when there are laws protecting whistleblowers from professional reprisal, people often remain hesitant to denounce corruption where powerful interests are involved. Since corruption functions with the powerful colluding to intimidate the powerless, the solution of having secret accusations appears quite attractive. The secret vote, for instance, allows voters to express themselves politically at the ballot box, free from intimidation or bribery. Secret denunciations (both anonymous denunciations and signed denunciations in which the accusers' identity remained secret) set in motion the investigation by a powerful office, the Council of Ten, and an even more powerful one-because more secretive-the three State Inquisitors. \"7 The Venetian regime had been so angry at this presentation of their government institutions that they complained to the French authorities, and Amelot spent time in French prison as punishment.8 Venice employed the charge of lese majesté to silence its critics, and it placed great weight on protecting its reputation as the most serene government of laws, not men, a reputation endangered by the public discussion of the arcana imperii.