寻求“有限”与“有为”的平衡——20世纪西方宪政发展趋势

在20世纪以前,强调政府权力"有限"一直是西方宪政理论研究和实践探索的主旋律.经过世世代代的经验积累和理性思考,人们终于在近代初期摸索出一套以分权制衡为主体构架的限权机制,权力滥用与腐败的潜能受到有效遏制.与此同时,政府"有限"论作为一种政治信仰和政策选择也被推到了顶峰,政府"有为"的作用和意义被严重忽视,结果导致诸多负面效应.于是,从20世纪起,西方各宪政国家纷纷摒弃了片面强调"有限政府"的"消极宪政"模式,转向努力寻求"有限"与"有为"平衡的"积极宪政".这种发展趋势至今势头不减.

Seeking the Balance of"Limited"and"Promising"--The Developmental Tendency of the Western Constitutionalism in the 20th Century

Before the 20th century, it has been the themes of theoretical research and practical exploration in the movement of western constitutionalism all the time that the government power would been "limited". After accumulating the experience and rational thinking from generation to generation, people found out a set of mechanisms of limiting power that take the dividion of powers and checks and balances as main framework in modern initial stage at last, the latent energy of the power abuses and the corruption is contained effectively. Meanwhile, the theory of"limited" government has to be pushed to top as a kind of political conviction and policy, government's "promising" function and meaning are ignored seriously, the result causes a great deal of negative effects. Then, from the 20th century, every country of constitutional government of the west abandoned the mode of "passive constitutionalism" of putting undue emphasis on "limited government" one after another, changed the direction and seeked the "positive constitutionalism" in witch "limited" and "promising" is balanced. This tendency has not been weakened in the slightest degree so far.