Introduction to the Legal System

Introduction to the legal system – Module II

Forms of the State and Forms of Government

The form of the state defines the relationship between the state that can legitimately exercise coercive power, on one hand, and the citizens taken individually or as a community on the other.

The notion of form of government refers to the set of rules concerning the distribution of power among the branches of government, or the relationship between constitutional bodies.

The form of the state can be defined through a diachronic or synchronic method.

The diachronic method looks at the forms of the state over time, at its historical evolution. In this way we can distinguish five main types: the feudal society, the absolute state, the liberal state, the totalitarian state and the democratic pluralistic state. The synchronic method classifies the forms of the state at a given moment in time.

Feudal State: it existed in Europe from the 8th Century with the beginnign of the Carolingian Empire up until the 12th Century. We cannot really talk of a state stricto sensu because there was a total identification of the feudal lord with the property of the land and the power he could exercise over the peasants. The main aim of the state were meeting the needs of the lord and his manor and protecting the land and its related possessions from external attacks.

The Absolute State: beginning in the 14th Century we have the gradual passage from a feudal system to an absolute state. It was determined by the progressive unification of certain territories under the power of a single monarch as occurred in England, France and Spain. The power shifted from the feudal lord to the King and from land to money. State became more interventist and to a limited extend it tried to fulfil the general interest of people.

One of the symbols of the absolute state was Louis XIV who became King at the age of five. The strenght of the absolute state could be seen in the large centralised...