Karsten Fischer.

Zeitschrift fur Politik, Vol. 56, No. 1, Mar 2009, pp. 19-34.

Montesquieu's step from normative political theory towards political sociology includes elements of a theory of social differentiation, which also determine his idea of separation of powers. Together with his liberal concept of the public sphere, this theory provides Montesquieu's differentiation of the democratization problem, resulting from his scepticism towards modernization. This is relevant for the understanding of and the relation both between democracy and statehood and between comparative government, political sociology and political theory. Thus, it is Montesquieu's political idea, equally distant from the antipodeans Aristotle and Hobbes as well as from Rousseau's radicalism, which facilitates liberal constitutionalism. Adapted from the source document.

Ana J. Samuel.

American Political Science Review, Vol. 103, No. 2, May 2009 2009, pp. 305-321.

One of the perennial puzzles of Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws is whether it has a coherent design. Although the dominant line of thinking is that this work has no unified structure, another believes it to have some organizing principle, even though proposals as to what it may be have failed to convince for lack of ability to account for various features of the work. I propose that The Spirit of the Laws is organized in a dialectical way, juxtaposing the antitheses of human freedom and determination. The tension between these is manifest in the first half of the work and resolved in the middle, and human freedom worked out and advanced in the second half. This article solves the long-standing question of the design of The Spirit of the Laws and reveals that the work's ultimate purpose is to champion human liberty over determination, contrary to the views of those who read the work as deterministic.

Rebecca E. Kingston.

2009

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.; Summary reprinted by permission of State University of New York Press

J. Priban.

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2009, pp. 179-195.

The Spirit of the Laws is a symbol reflecting the ontological status and transcendental ideals of the system of positive law. The article analyzes historical links between the romantic philosophy of the spirit of the nation (Volksgeist), which subsumed Montesquieu's general spirit of the laws under the concept of ethnic culture, and recent politics of cultural and ethnic identity. Although criticizing attempts at legalizing ethnic collective identities, the article does not simply highlight the virtues of demos and the superiority of civic culture against the vices of ethnos and the regressive nature of ethnic politics of identity. Instead, the author argues that the civil democratic concept of political identity is part of the more general process of social differentiation—unlike the prepolitical ethnic concept of identity, it can be converted to generalized democratic procedures and thus dismantle the totalitarian claims of cultural identity politics.

James Frederick Loucks III.

Thesis, 2001.

This dissertation explores how Machiavelli and Montesquieu's contrary conceptions of human nature lead to radically divergent political prescriptions. Montesquieu intends to liberate the modern world from the legacy of antiquity, particularly Roman antiquity, because ancient republics violated human nature and thus were inexorably caught in a cycle of empire, corruption, and decline. Montesquieu takes aim at Machiavelli, who argues that the ancient Roman republic best accommodated human nature. For Machiavelli, there is a bestial element within human nature--characterized by the desire to dominate others, and selfishness--that cannot be exorcized, but that must be disciplined if political order is to exist. The Roman republic represents the perfect disciplining, harnessing, and expression of this bestial element. The Romans, by pursuing empire without and establishing free institutions within, created a republic of unparalleled power and enviable longevity while at the same time turning otherwise selfish humans into citizens. Although Rome eventually fell, its fall exposes the limits of political order. To elevate human nature, as political order does, is both a difficult and a temporary feat. Thus, Rome's decline does not discredit its incredible success. Montesquieu acknowledges tension between natural human passions and political order. However, he believes that Machiavelli made cardinal errors both in identifying these natural passions, and in believing that the Roman republic accommodated them. Republics do not forge unity through the modification and expression of the primordial desire to dominate. Rather, republican institutions themselves create this desire, which humans do not naturally have. Montesquieu contends that republics must squelch individuality, which is at the core of human nature, and prevent the satisfaction of all natural passions in order to produce the unity of purpose necessary to their existence. The quintessence of virtue, the "spring" of republican government, is the suppression of these passions. The sacrifice of one's dearest interests, one's individuality itself, can be vindicated only through empire. But empire leads to the republic's self-destruction, as the fruits of empire swiftly erode the conditions necessary for virtue to flourish. To imitate Rome would be to violate human nature once again, subjecting humans to a form of government that is both violent and unstable. A new politics, based upon both the individual's natural passions and commerce, the "spirit" of modernity, is Montesquieu's alternative to the ancient republic.