From Liberalism to Interventionism
Over the course of the nineteenth century, a constitutional model of the state took hold in the western world in which power (sovereignty) was posited not only in the king, as was the case under the preceding model of absolute monarchy, but in the nation, conceived of and envisioned as the entire citizenry.
Under this new order, the organization of the state and the relationship between the people and the governing powers was based on and governed by an agreed-upon text, a constitution, whose approval established the legal framework according to which all power was to be exercised. State power was, in addition, to be limited by declarations stipulating the citizens’ fundamental rights, which were not to be violated by the law or the government.It is true, however, that while in theory the state was controlled by the nation— meaning the whole body of citizens—through its parliamentary representatives, this national representation was not entirely democratic. As explained earlier, power remained in the hands of a new ruling oligarchy, essentially made up of the industrial and financial bourgeoisie, which had supplanted the traditionally privileged classes that had prevailed under the Ancien Regime. This new ruling class controlled European parliaments in large measure by virtue of censitary suffrage systems, which required a certain level of wealth for one to vote and enjoy political representation. The more constitutions curtailed states’ capacities to intervene in the economic and social spheres, the more absolute was the hegemony of the new elite.
It must be said, nevertheless, that the policies pursued by the ruling classes that now controlled the legislative, executive and judiciary powers, thanks to their commitment to laissez-faire policies, did bring about, in most liberal European states, an era of unprecedented economic prosperity and expansion,[965] with spectacular demographic growth because of higher standards of living, and breakthroughs in nutrition, health, hygiene and medical science. As a result, Europe moved from a focus on the individual to a “mass culture”, which prompted a radical transformation in Europe’s social structure. This shift led to major alterations in the West’s legal and constitutional systems, upon which we shall focus in this chapter.
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