Theories of Federalism under the Holy Roman Empire

Bibliographic Data

ID9427849
AuthorsHeinz Eulau (University of California System, corresponding author), Heinz H F Eulau
Year1941
Volume35
Issue4
Pages643-664
Publication date1941-08-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1948073
OpenAlexW2131799041
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

A fact little appreciated by American political scientists is the relatively early emergence of federalism as a working concept of political theory in the Holy Roman Empire of the seventeenth century. But although these federal theories run ahead of corresponding theories elsewhere, it must be pointed out that political and legal conditions peculiar to the medieval Empire retarded an even earlier appearance. For centuries, the constitution of the Empire had retained its feudalistic structure. Many conspicuous changes, however, had taken place in the course of its development and had filled that structure with an entirely different content. The main result of the Empire's constitutional evolution had been its gradual transformation from an originally fairly unitary state into a federalistic organization of de facto sovereign states. It might be supposed, therefore, that the highly articulated territorial organization of the Empire would have easily served as fertile soil on which contemporary political theorists and jurists might have founded an elaborate theory of federalism

Constitution · Empire · Federalism · Political economy · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Unitary state · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Political Theory and Influence

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