SEPARATION OF POWER IN SPARTA: INSUFFICIENT FOR SURVIVAL

Abstract

The separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial branches is
a fundamental assumption of modern political systems of democratic states. The key
intention of the separation of powers is to distribute functions and persons in order to
avoid the concentration of power and the possible tyranny of a small group or one man,
as well as the survival of the community. Anticipations of this theory are in the ancient
Greek polis, where there were mixed constitutional types that included elements of
monarchy, oligarchy and democracy – a specifi c example of such a constitutional
mixture is Sparta. The Spartan highly developed and sophisticated political system
included forms of mixed rule, with mutual control of offi ce holders and persons in
power, and a clear political goal of preserving the existing socio-economic position
of members of diff erent social classes. Spartan society was based on unjust inherited
relations in which one class enjoyed the results of the work of other classes, in the
end such a system led to a shortage of population, especially soldiers from the ruling
class, and Sparta collapsed. The thesis that the downfall of Sparta was caused by
unjust relations is not easily provable, nor is the thesis that the division of political
power is useless for the survival of the state – the author considers the thesis that
a mixed form of government, the division of power, is a useful political tool that
does not guarantee the preservation of a political community even when it is just,
more convincing – but rather that the ontogeny and genealogy of a specifi c political
community and the historical context necessarily lead to a political end for every form
of political association in a concrete historical sense, because such is always by its
nature temporary.