Page 105 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes built a nation, achieved a standard of living the highest the world has ever known, given the
masses greater opportunities educationally and economically than any other people, preserved
the great freedoms, renounced imperialism, successfully fought two world wars and has today
assumed international leadership and international obligations unparalleled in history.”

A constitutions is a set of Laws on how a country is governed.

A study of the Russian political system in an advanced study of the major political systems of the
world has its own reasons. Russia is the biggest country of Europe that had the credit of being a
super-power of the world until a few years ago. A liberal democratic system has now come into
being after the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. The ‘socialist
system’ established by Lenin in 1917 and consolidated by Stalin withered away to the astonishment
of all. A new order came into being under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin. What was the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) as a unit of the Soviet Union became a fully sovereign
State with the name of Russian Federation committed to the norms of a liberal-democratic order.
As President Yeltsin, in his message to the Federation Council on 21 December, 1996, reiterated: “I
have no doubt that all of you are committed to the creation of a law-governed State. Many tasks
are yet to be carried out for the idea of a law-governed State to triumph in our country. Among
these goals is the criterion of a truly independent and authoritative judiciary.”
A study of the French political system in a work on major modern political systems is governed by
certain pertinent reasons. It is the country where the Great Revolution took place in 1789 for
realising the boons of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ and where the Great Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen was adopted by the National Assembly that marked the inauguration
of representative democracy. However, in the period following the Great Revolution, the people
of this country made several important experiments with a republican system off and on tempered
with the entry and exit of the remnants of an autocratic government like that of a Directory under
Napoleon Bonaparte and the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, until the notorious monarchy
had its final termination in the revolution of 1848. Revolutionary trends continued with the result
that one republic was replaced by another and the people continued their struggle to solve the
problem of bringing about a workable reconciliation between the existence of an effectual parliament
vis-s-vis the authority of a strong executive. As a result, since the Revolution of 1789, this country
has had 16 constitutions under which many experiments took place all revealing the conviction of
the people in this political axiom that “a parliamentary government is a representative government,
whereas monarchical government is not. Democratic government must be both parliamentary and
republican. The student of comparative government must, therefore, be prepared to assume that
in France political democracy, the parliamentary system, and republicanism are, for practical purposes,
three interchangeable concepts.”
A study of the Chinese political system in an advanced study of the major modern political
systems is not without certain pertinent reasons. The Chinese civilisation is one of the oldest
civilisations of the world. To a student of religion and philosophy, China represents a very old
system of its own. Likewise, to a student of politics, she is important not as much for its centuries-
old religious or cultural traditions but because of her inherent potentialities of a world power.
When China was like a moribund entity in the 19 century, Napoleon Bonaparte could visualise:
th
“There lies a sleeping giant. Let it sleep, for when he wakes, he will shake the world.” The whole
world is aware of the fact that the Chinese rulers have ever been obsessed with the idea of world
domination. However, what has attracted the attention of the world at large towards the political
system of this country is the fact of its becoming ‘red’ in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Tsetung
the Red Father of China. The progress that this country made under this supreme leader and after
him coupled with political developments that have taken place ever since the advent of communism
unmistakably lead to this impression that “an ignorance of the nature and aims of this rising

100 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY