On Aristotle’s Constitutional Government

Aristotle lived in the times when the cities were at a full range of decline. In the face ofsuch decline, he, as a noble, has written the book Politics based on previous scholors’ and hisown researches on regime and provided theoretical solutions to the salvage of Greek cities.In his opinion, constitutional government is an excellent regime that could be achieved inall states of Greece. And the standing characteristics of this regime are as follows: first, itenjoys high stability for it is a mixed regime consisting of both civilians and oligopoly;second, it takes the middle class as its foundation; third, it centres on the rule of law. In orderto explore these three characteristics, this paper has discussed constitutional government fromits political, social and legal structure. In the perspective of its political structure, the authorhas mainly covered the meaning and organizational characteristics of constitutionalgovernment, the proper way for the establishment of it, the major reasons for its transform,and its overturning and protection measures; In terms of its social structure, the author hasmainly discussed the bourgeois property and their occupational characteristics as well as theirmild, self-controlled, rational, less ambitious, friendly, and stable features; as for its legalstructure, the author has mainly stated the connotation of the rule of law, the definition ofstatutory law and customary law, the modification of them, the relationship between law andregime, and the characteristics of the rule of law. Actually, the rule of law is the underlyingstandard for the distinguishing of all kinds of regime.Aristotle’s thought of the constitutional government has a major impact on futuregenerations. To be specific, his influence mainly lies in: first, his thought of constitutionalgovernment as a mixed regime has a great impact on western theories of regimes; second, histhought of the middle class as the most important class for the constitutional government cancontribute a lot to the modern theories of social stratification and social construction; thirdconstitutional government has provided an excellent regime model that can be achieved inreality for human beings; fourth, the rule of law of the constitutional government has alreadybeen embedded in modern regime theories and become an indispensable part of today’sregime.From Polybius to James Stuart Mill, the influence of Aristotle’s regime theory andthought of the constitutional government is far-reaching. It is not until Webber was theclassical classification of regime theory represented by Aristotle exceeded. In spite of that, wecan safely say that Aristotle’s thought of the constitutional government is in no way outdated.His theories of the middle class, thought of ruling by law, and the principle of mixed regimewill continue to deeply influence the development of political practice and regime.