ESTABLISHMENT OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY IN THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION OF EUROPEAN STATES: FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATE OF THE SECOND HALF. XIX CENTURY – TO THE BEGINNING XX CENTURY

Abstract

The publication reveals the problems of theory and practice of the origin and development of democracy, participation in public administration since the VIII century. – to the beginning XX century, from the formation of the first states in Western and Eastern Europe – to the establishment of the doctrine and practice of building a constitutional state. It is noted that the so-called The «golden age» of democracy during the time of the Athenian Republic did not provide for the division of democracy into direct and representative democracy. In addition, Aristotle’s doctrine of democracy became known in Europe only in the thirteenth century, after the translation of the works of this Greek thinker T. Aquinas and other thinkers of the Middle Ages. At the same time, for the then European monarchs, clergy and scholars in the works of Aristotle, the provisions of the state were more interesting than the doctrine of democracy. The position on the powerful traditions of primitive democracy in the Germanic tribes that conquered Western Rome, as well as the traditions of democracy in the Slavic peoples, which found their expression in the so-called «Veche democracy», the custom of bringing to the discretion of the community all important issues, as well as issues of justice. However, then traditions of democracy were destroyed by the invasion of the Tatars in the Slavic principalities and the strengthening of the Catholic Church in Western European countries in the IX-XV centuries. There was interest in ancient democracy during the Renaissance and Reformation, but attempts to establish democratic institutions in medieval Europe were made in the context of secularization and attempts to limit the omnipotence of monarchs by aristocratic «parliaments». The development of the doctrine of the natural rights of peoples and nations, as well as constitutionalism, in combination with the bourgeoisdemocratic revolutions of the XVIIXIX in the Netherlands, England, and France, contributed to the doctrine of popular sovereignty and its direct implementation through referendums and popular initiatives (J.-J. Rousseau), as well as the formation of the doctrine of parliamentarism (S.L. Montesquieu), which found its enshrined in the first European constitutions and constitutional acts. With the formation of the doctrine and practice of building a constitutional state and civil society acquired the concept of participatory democracy, which, in contrast to elections and referendums, provided for the constant participation of the public in the management of public affairs. The basis of the principle of participatory democracy and the form of its enshrinement in the constitutions of Kin. XIX – XX century.