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Law and Political Power Structure: Justice in Early Imperial China and Rome
Wang, Zhiqiang
Wang, Zhiqiang
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Abstract
Law and politics are closely related. The differences and changes in
political factors have direct and profound impacts on law. As a fundamental
political element, the political power structure basically has two typical
forms, namely, a centralized system and a decentralized system. A
centralized system means concentration of political power in both
horizontal and vertical dimensions: horizontally, power is held in the hands
of chief officials, while vertically, in the central government. By contrast,
in a decentralized system, power is dispersed in a manner of pluralism in
both dimensions. Through an empirical study of the history of early imperial
law, this article compares the different facets of the judicial process that
were under the influence of these two typical forms of power structure in
ancient societies, tests the thesis in various forms, and thus explains the
close relationship between law and politics.
The Chinese Qin-Han and Roman Empires co-existed and developed in
parallel at the two ends of the Eurasia continent, leaving remarkable
legacies on human civilizations, including political and legal systems.
Meanwhile, the Roman regime, especially during its imperial period, covers
a vast territory comparable to that of early imperial China and shares
similarities in terms of size, population, and level of economic
development. Therefore, these two systems are ideally comparable in the
analysis of causation between politics and law as it is easier to control
variables by excluding potential influences from factors other than the
political system, which is presumably a key variable in this study.