Explain and evaluate Locke's theory of government

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Explain and evaluate Locke's theory of government During the mid and late 1600's England was in a political confusion. Kings were being assassinated, the legitimacy of the power was under threat, and there was a need for changes. One of the most enthusiastic approaches for those problems was done by John Locke. His theory of government just puts a new page into the history of political theory by establishing the liberalist views, and opening the prologue to the modern day democracy. In Locke's theory of government people are the main source of the political power and he doesn't accept the Hobbes' view about the rule of hierarchy. The whole evolution in Locke's theory of government is that he is the first political theorist to see the people as the main source of power and to give them the right to legitimize the government. The main question about this proposal is whether people can be able to dissolve the government and make a rebellion. The government is strong, and has many political and economical tools to be able to manipulate the people or even not to let them to dissolve it. ...read more.

Middle

It was allocated with the right to publish the laws, applying sanctions, and to use force of a society for observance of these laws. However, the state should not encroach on these rights, as the limit of its authority at all forms of rule is the natural rights of its citizens. The government cannot incur the right to rule by means of any despotic decrees; on the contrary, it is obliged to create justice and to define the rights of citizens by means of declaration of constant laws and representatives on that judges. Locke considered that the government itself should obey to the laws established in a society; otherwise citizens have the full right to return to their initial rights and to transfer them to a new authority, and people should be judges when the government disobeys the set rules (Locke J., Two Treatise of Government, Yale University Press, p. 207). Locke emphasizes, that the person is not born as a citizen of one or the other state. The person chooses under what authority of the government, which citizen of the state it wishes to become, 'Every man being, as has been showed, naturally free, and nothing being able to put ...read more.

Conclusion

All these powers are precisely defined and adjusted by laws, strictly supervised by parliament. Locke also acknowledges the federative, which is responsible for representing the commonwealth in foreign countries. Locke's theory of knowledge and social philosophy has rendered deep influence on history of culture and a society, in particular on development of the American constitution. He is considered as the founder of the liberalist views, and the basic theorists of a democratic state system. His ideal is English constitutional monarchy, in which there is balance of interests of the person, and the government. Locke does a great job by putting the people over the government, and making them the creators of the latter. The way in which people can disobey the rules is still a question, but their right to revolt is absolutely justified, from the author's perspective. By making the society be more important than the government in his theory, Locke actually writes one of the first amendments of the constitution stating that the Supreme power is the people and all the power belongs to it. Formation of the checks and balances through differentiating the executive and legislative power just proves how crucial it is in modern world, where every country tries to maintain the balance. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Politics section.

Found what you're looking for?

Start learning 29% faster today
150,000+ documents available
Just £6.99 a month

Join over 1.2 million students every month
Accelerate your learning by 29%
Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Related GCSE Politics essays

&quot;The Unknown Citizen&quot;: Auden's Satire of the State&quot;

However, statistics do not show peoples feelings and emotions, but in this government that does not matter. Throughout the poem Auden evidently expresses his feelings towards our society and government, thus creating a sense of critism, and irony. Through this poem, the reader can patently distinguish how Auden, the poet, feels towards this subject.

Citizenship - participating in society

the PowerPoint a couple of times and this showed how much they enjoyed it. I chose to talk about smoking in our project as lots of young children start smoking at an early age as they think that they are cool.

Devolution is not a &quot;constitutional settlement&quot; but a dynamic (and potentially destabilising) process. ...

With this issue still relatively new, many are undecided on how effective it is. However, both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly have produced little scandal and have been fairly pro active in policy making. In its first year alone, the Scottish Parliament passed 7 bills and had 11 statues under consideration.

Select And Explain The Most Important Turning Points In Nelson Mandela's Life

The withdrawal of funds had an immediate effect. The South African government was forced to declare bankruptcy. The countries debts were also rescheduled; this caused South Africa to be shunned economically, financially and diplomatically. In August 1986, US Congress enacted the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.

How successful was the government of King Philip II of Spain?

Philip responded positively to this revolt. The military had to assert his authority but Philip was sympathetic to legal niceties. Philip could have viewed all Aragonese as guilty but this would have left the region in anger and could have led to further problems in the future.

The development of political thought - John Locke

but the people have the right to oppose, rebel and overthrow the tyrannical rule. His treatise, therefore, is dedicated to establishing that the authority of governments derives from those whom they govern -- a proposition which it succeeded in establishing so well that less than a hundred years later we

Public Law

the people, as the people have the power not to re-elect that government. This is true to an extent, as shown by the fall of the Thatcher government of the 1980s, due to the increased public dissatisfaction with their conservative rule.