Any form of human society must have an order, even in every politically organized society, there are things we call legal order. "[1] This indispensable social order is essentially a minimum order. It means that individual activities are always objectively drawn by an existing order, and whether people realize it or not, the role of this traction always exists. Obeying this traction, "people can not only use their knowledge effectively, but also foresee the cooperation they can get from others with great confidence." [2] Otherwise, it will be difficult to move.
The same is true in the political field. Any form of politics is conditional on a certain order, otherwise, politics almost does not exist. In reality, all political orders are, in the final analysis, power orders; Therefore, all forms of political development, in the final analysis, are based on a relatively stable power order; The disorder of power means the disorder of politics.
From a static point of view, power order means the balance of power structure. Therefore, the power order is essentially a structuralist concept, and only in the power structure can we examine the basic situation of the power order [3]. Structuralism holds that everything is not an isolated existence, but an organic part of the whole structural system; A certain existence and its essence can only be recognized in a relatively closed structure and its relationship with other components in the structure; Just as the existence and significance of a structure can only be proved by people in a larger structure.
As a structure, regime has the ability of self-adjustment, which brings the conservation and self-sufficiency of regime structure. In this self-sufficient and conservative structure, order is the need of the regime itself, and it must obey the needs of the regime. For example, in a * * * regime, the power order must meet the needs of * * *, just as in an authoritarian regime, the power order must meet the needs of an authoritarian regime. Because of this, there are different forms of power order in different political structures-this order is often characterized by different relationships between legislative, administrative and judicial powers, as well as different relationships between central power and local power, sovereignty and autonomy.
From a dynamic point of view, power order also means functional coordination between different powers. Functionalism, as a research method of social science, can be traced back to the works of Comte and Spencer, and was systematically expounded by Durkheim, Radcliffe Brown and Malinowski. Functionalism regards the whole society as a functional system, and each part of the system contributes to the maintenance of the system because of its specific function-the basic condition for the sustainability of this system is to maintain the coordination or balance between the various parts of the system; In order to maintain this functional balance or coordination, when one part of the system fails or fails, another part needs to take over this function, otherwise the whole system will fall into an unbalanced or even collapsed state due to functional obstacles.
From the perspective of functionalism, the government is a typical functional model. In this model, the coordination and full play of the three major functions of legislation, administration and justice, just like the coordination and full play of the functions of central power and local power and the functions of sovereignty and autonomy, is the basic condition for the sustainable development of the system. Only when the functions of these different powers are coordinated and fully played can the overall functions of the government as a system be properly played.
First, the cognitive perspective of power order
In Bodenheimer's view, the so-called order "refers to a certain degree of consistency, continuity and certainty in the natural process and social process" [4] and Hayek believes that order refers to "a state in which countless and various elements are closely related, so we can learn to make correct expectations for the rest from the understanding of a certain space part or a certain time part of the whole, or at least learn to make expectations that hopefully prove to be correct. [5] Power order is the usual stipulation of power operation. To understand the power order, we must first understand the relationship between power resources and power-power resources are the root of power disputes and therefore the real enemy of power order. Power relationship is the basic perspective to understand power order.
(A) the source of power: the root of the power order dispute.
Power is an ancient concept, and it is also the most familiar concept for ordinary people. However, we don't have a universally accepted definition of what power is. Max Weber, a German scholar, said: "Power means any opportunity to carry out one's will in a social relationship, even in the face of opposition, no matter what basis this opportunity is based on." [6] China scholar peter michael blau believes that "power is the ability of individuals or groups to impose their will on others. Despite resistance, these individuals or groups can do this through deterrence. " [7] Former French President Mitterrand said in response to a question from Jewish writer elie wiesel about power: "The definition of power in the dictionary is power: it has countless forms. It affects people's private life and family internal structure; It appears in residential areas from rural areas to big cities, and it is displayed in rural areas; It also appears in the mind through education, writing, art and so on. It is always the ability of individuals or groups to impose their will and ideas on a wider group of people and determine the fate of the group. " [8]
I believe that in reality, power is not only a derivative of social resources, but also a scarce social resource. As a derivative of social resources, power is parasitic, and its effectiveness comes from the practicality of social resources-power is power because it controls the dominant share of limited social resources; The reason why the power counterpart actively or passively accepts the influence or domination of power is not the power itself, but the scarcity of social resources controlled by power. People can despise all those in power, but they can't survive for a moment in an environment with scarce social resources! In this sense, the so-called power is the power that a specific subject has to influence or even dominate the behavior and consciousness of others because of its superiority in social resources. In the final analysis, power is the ability to achieve a certain result, and the premise of its existence is the existence of various resource control structures [9]. Therefore, all power struggles are essentially social resource control and anti-control; Just as all power dependence is resource dependence.
But once power is formed, it has the characteristics of an independent social resource, such as it can be exchanged, it is scarce, and it can meet some needs of those in power [10]. With power, powerful people can control or regulate the operation of social resources much larger than their own scope, and can effectively influence or control the consciousness and behavior of others. Therefore, power itself is also a social resource [1 1], in which public power is the core component of modern social resources, and the resource relationship in modern society is mainly around public power resources. Therefore, the school of institutional economics represented by Kang Mangsi pointed out that the decisive factor in the allocation of social resources is not the market, but the power structure in the social institutional arrangement. For example, the state obtains fiscal revenue by controlling power resources, and controls the basic pattern of resource allocation in the whole society through finance [12].
Public power itself is a social resource with public characteristics, and it is a power to adjust other social resources purposefully. It contains three basic elements: violence, financial resources and intelligence. Public power is often manifested as one of these three basic elements. Among them, the simplest form of public power is violence, which is a low-quality form of power. Lack of flexibility, can only be used for punishment, with great risks. The advanced performance of public power is financial resources, which can be used not only for threats and punishments, but also for purchases or rewards. It is much more flexible and less risky than violence. Therefore, when public power must do something, if the problem can be solved through financial resources, it is best to avoid using violence. The highest expression of public power is intelligence, which includes not only legal and institutional factors, but also the power of culture and technology. It can be used for punishment and reward, as well as for persuasion, influence or enlightenment. High-quality public power effect can only come from intelligence, which can not only provide legal space for the expansion of force and financial resources, but also reduce the amount of force and financial resources necessary to achieve a certain goal [16].
Publicity is the basic attribute of public power. The publicity of public power lies in that it exists not for a specific person, but for everyone and everyone. It is this publicity that determines the maintenance and development of public resources as one of the basic symbols of public power and establishes its monopoly position on public resources. And this monopoly on public resources makes it have the potential ability to allocate the whole social resources for the needs of public interests. This potential ability of public power keeps its endless temptation to human beings and inspires human beings' strong desire for public power-people without power are always looking for opportunities to enter the field of public power, and extremes often resort to unscrupulous means. People who have mastered this power often try their best to seek the infinity of their own power space and the eternity of this power position in time.
The history of mankind so far shows that it is impossible and foolish to eliminate human desire for power. Because human's desire for power is actually an innate instinct, and it is the most important expression of human's desire to conquer and create. Therefore, to stifle human's desire for power is to stifle human itself. Therefore, since modern times, or even more distant times, the efforts made by human beings in the system are not so much to put an end to this desire of human beings (which we often understand), but rather to be kind to this desire of human beings, to provide more opportunities for all people to release this desire of power in the system, and to provide them with a broader space for release-to a considerable extent, the evolutionary history of the human system, It is the process of the transformation of this release opportunity from privilege to equality, and how to set up this release opportunity and the path to obtain this opportunity, how to set up this release space and the qualification to enter this space have become the core elements for us to compare different systems horizontally or compare the same system vertically.
(b) Power relations: a new perspective of power order.
Theoretically speaking, "power order" is essentially a category of relations, and only in "power relations" can we grasp the basic connotation of power order. Just as we can only grasp the essence of power in the category of relationship. In reality, even power itself is a category of relationship. Max Weber's classic definition of power is a model that defines power from the perspective of relationship [17]. According to Weber's classic definition, we can say that as long as there is social relationship, there will be power that can influence individuals in this society.
If we understand the concept of power in the broadest sense, we can see that most relations in human society revolve around power. Because of the social relations in the world, we can rarely get rid of the fate of being influenced and influenced, or even dominating and being dominated. When we strictly limit the extension of power within the scope of public power, we can still clearly see that most of the most important social relations in this society are closely related to power.
Michael mann, a British scholar, even thinks that "society is composed of multiple overlapping and staggered social space power networks"; Therefore, studying the source and relationship of power is the best angle to understand society, its structure and history. [18] Therefore, power is an important link connecting certain social relations, and it is the maintenance condition for the existence and continuation of a large number of social relations [19]. The world we live in is a world of power relations. We were born in it and died in it. We ordinary citizens are just a small link in the network of public power. Without this network, these small links will become fragmented. Without these links, this network will never be a network. Therefore, for most ordinary citizens, their lifelong goal is not how to escape from power, nor how to control power, but how to find their own coordinates in the power network. In the power network, the personal lifestyle and quality of life mainly depend on the position of personal coordinates. Generally speaking, the closer a person's coordinate position is to the power core, the more opportunities he has to share power resources or seek his own well-being with the help of power resources, and the greater the free elements in his lifestyle, so the greater the space for choice and the higher the quality of life. On the contrary, the farther a person's coordinates are from the power center, the less likely he is to occupy or use power resources, so he is doomed to be marginalized in the resource allocation of the whole society.
It is precisely because the proximity and possession of power resources determine people's life opportunities [20], so all people in the society with power relations will consciously or unconsciously set a coordinate for themselves in this huge power network. The difference is that in an authoritarian society, the main coordinates in the power network are fixed. If an ordinary citizen wants to change his coordinate position, he must first break this fixed power relationship, which will cost a lot, so most people choose "it is the responsibility to keep the soil". When most people in a society choose to "keep their duty", "grade" becomes the most important system to maintain this society. In a hierarchical society, not only is the network of power relations hardened due to the lack of necessary fresh blood, but the whole society also loses its indispensable innovative function due to the lack of impulse to change its destiny-perhaps the ultimate change of personal destiny always depends on social change. However, any form of social change, without exception, is out of the need to change their own destiny. In a society where most individuals have lost the desire to change their own destiny, any social change will be impossible due to lack of motivation.
On the contrary, in a free society, the coordinates in the power network are mostly mobile. This is an open network. An ordinary citizen can find his relative ideal coordinate position through his own efforts, without resorting to the external advantages of birth, property or other forms, let alone breaking the inherent pattern of power. In such a society, everyone is the master of his own destiny, and everyone is a reformer of power relations. Because of these energetic reformers, the power network has avoided moving towards dictatorship and centralization.
As mentioned above, power relationship is a kind of resource relationship in its reality. All resources have a quantitative stipulation, and social resources also have a total stipulation. It is this quantitative stipulation of social resources that determines the position of different social subjects in the whole resource relationship. Generally speaking, the greater the share of a particular subject in the social resource system, the greater its potential ability to influence or even dominate other social subjects. When a specific subject occupies an absolute dominant share in the whole social resource system, this subject has the potential to dominate the whole society.
According to logical relations, power relations can be divided into two basic types: internal power relations and external power relations. Among them, the internal power relationship refers to the structure of public power, or the relationship between the organic components that constitute public power. In this relationship, the power order "is not a pressure imposed on the government from the outside, but a balance built from the inside"-this balance is not only structural, but also functional and psychological. Generally speaking, the structural balance of power is often reflected by the balance of power function, and the balance of power function will inevitably be transformed into the balance of social mentality. In a society with unbalanced power mentality, the power structure will never be balanced, so it is impossible to have a stable power order. Therefore, the legal basis of the relationship between public and public power seems to lie not in the exquisiteness of power structure, but in the balance of power mentality.
External power relationship refers to the function of public power, or the relationship between public power and its organic molecules and the objects they act on. In this relationship, the power order is often an external guidance and a "responsibility state" that obeys the rules-this state not only means that the government is granted power and enjoys all the convenience brought by exercising power, but also means that the government must bear the consequences of exercising power.
According to the historical order, the evolution process of power relations can be roughly divided into three main stages, namely, from attachment stage to oppression stage, and then to cooperation stage.
Dependent power relations mainly existed in early human society. At present, the controller of public power is in a weak position in the total social resource system and must rely on other powerful resources to maintain itself. The most powerful social resource in this era is religion. With the help of attachment to religion, early social power holders gradually exerted their influence and control by touching religious networks in all corners of human society. Therefore, most of the early power relations in human society are intertwined with religious relations-secular power on the one hand carved up a complete religious power order, on the other hand, it completed the construction of its own order with the help of religious forces.
When public power gradually gets rid of its dependence on powerful social resources such as religious order and occupies a strong position in the social resource system, the relationship between public power changes from "dependence" to "oppression". In an oppressive power relationship, power monopolizes everything, so it can also dominate everything. Other social subjects actively or passively become handmaids of power, and must actively or passively serve those who hold power. Otherwise, it will be swallowed up by power resources.
Perhaps, a dominant subject can exercise oppressive rule over other social subjects by virtue of its own dominant position, and minimize its independent development space, and even devour the subject itself. However, these oppressed subjects will always find a way to get rid of oppression and then grow tenaciously along their own inherent laws. Even people who are swallowed up will grow tenaciously in the gap of the powerful subject inadvertently or even under its complete control according to its inherent logic. When these stubborn social forces become stronger and stronger enough to offset or divide the powerful trend of public power monopoly, it means that the power monopoly has been formed. With the improvement of decentralized power, that is, the bargaining ability of society and power monopolists is improved, a cooperative power order that breaks the control of oppressive power has the possibility of germination.
(C) the rule of law of power: the inherent law of the evolution of power order
Political order is power order in its fundamental sense [2 1]. "Power" is owned by all political societies, and all human political life is carried out under a certain power order, whether it is spontaneous, artificial or ruled by law-the power order of human political society has generally experienced three stages: spontaneous power order, artificial power order and ruled by law. In the early days of political society, the power order was mainly a spontaneous order. In this order, the power structure and operation rules basically followed the customs and practices of clan society-there were different power institutions in the same body, but the division of authority between these institutions was not obvious, and even different institutions exercised the same power alternately. For example, in ancient Greek political society, the Senate and the people's assembly exercised legislative power at the same time. In the era of autocratic rule, because most of the power resources are monopolized by the supreme ruler, the monarch integrates all kinds of supreme powers such as national legislation, administration and justice, and the formation and maintenance of the government power order depends to a certain extent on the interests and uncertain emotions represented by the monarch. Therefore, although this kind of power order can not completely abandon the natural nature of power and go its own way [22], it can still be called artificial power order [23]. The constitutional state minimizes the influence of people's subjective arbitrariness on the state power order, and emphasizes power legalism and exercising power according to law. Therefore, this kind of power order is the power order of the rule of law-both the power order of the rule of law and the spontaneous power order exclude the subjective arbitrariness of the power holders, so it is an objective power order.
According to the different ways of its formation, the power order can be divided into two basic types. One is repressive order, that is, seizing power through violence, which is the main means to maintain and construct order. This is a "cynical order based on violent oppression of members of society." On the one hand, members of society have lost their doubts and resistance to violent rule, leaving only passive obedience; On the other hand, members of society are highly atomized, living in isolation and losing any contact with each other. "[24] The second is a coordinated order, a power order established through democratic means." In this order, all despicable and cruel selfish desires will be suppressed, and all good and noble desires will be encouraged by law. In this order, fame is to win honor and serve the motherland; In this order, differences only arise from equality itself; In this order, citizens obey public officials, public officials obey the people and the people obey justice; In this order, the motherland guarantees everyone's happiness, and everyone is proud to be happy for the prosperity and glory of the motherland. "[25] modern constitution is to meet the needs of this order construction. Its basic feature is to pursue the rule of law and emphasize the restriction of state power. It is a social order confirmed and protected by constitutional norms, and a harmonious and orderly state of social relations formed after constitutional norms guide and restrain people's behavior.
From the development process of power order, the system construction of early society mainly focused on the internal power order. In order to overcome the inconvenience caused by the diversity of spontaneous power order to the stability of the government, almost all institutional efforts before the emergence of modern constitution revolved around how to construct and consolidate a unified power order. However, this long-awaited unified power order not only brought about the unity of the country and the nation, but also shaped an authoritarian government for them. In addition, the benefits of national unity [26] are often diluted by the suffering of living under an authoritarian government. So the spontaneous power order has gone to its "negation of negation", that is, a new type of pluralistic power order has been formed, which is concentrated in the decentralization of power in the modern constitution.
Because decentralization is aimed at the centralized monopoly of public power and the arbitrary power it brings, the direct purpose of decentralization is to break the centralized monopoly of power and control the abuse of public power resources.
However, the development of social things makes people's consumption demand for power services far beyond the scope that modern constitutionalists may imagine, and it is gradually an objective need to give full play to the efficiency of power resources. Modern constitution conforms to this need, promotes the cooperation between powers within the framework of respecting the established decentralization, and pays attention to the construction of external power order.
The democratization of power order, like the legalization of power order, is a basic trend of modern political development. However, compared with the rule of law, the democratization of power order needs more patience. Because any political development is not abstract, it is based on the development of real society, and its mission is to solve real problems and promote the all-round development of society. Therefore, democratization is the core goal of political development, but political development is not democratization for the sake of democratization, but according to the realistic social development logic and possibility, it accumulates and creates various political resources for the development of democratization of power order.
Second, the basis of power order
Perhaps different times, different societies, different classes and different people have different needs or explanations for the power order, but I think that in all cases, any power order means the relative stability of political structure, the relative coordination of political relations, the predictability of the consequences of political actions, and the stability of the whole society and the safety of people and property. Therefore, the power order is a situation in which the various elements that make up politics are so coordinated that "we can form our correct expectations of other parts from our understanding of some time and space of the whole, or there are many opportunities to prove that they are correct expectations." [27]
(A) the legitimacy of the power order-the basis of the construction of political authority
"People with power are the masters of the world. If they persist, they will fail, and if they persist, they will fail. " . The authority of the power order does not depend on the amount of power held by politicians, but on the legitimacy of the source of political power, that is, whether this order has "legitimacy". In the constitutional sense, the so-called legitimacy of power order refers to the positive degree of people's general recognition, acceptance and trust in politics, and correspondingly, the conscious degree and willingness of an ordinary citizen to pay the necessary price or obligation to maintain this power order.
Historically, the legal basis of power order has changed. In early human society, God and God were the legal basis of power order. Modern social contract theory regards people's consent as the basis of the legitimacy of power order. People in modern society have clearly realized that with the help of illusory social contract, the problem of government legitimacy cannot be really solved, and the real foundation of the legitimacy of power order can only be found from the real constitution and laws. Therefore, the legitimacy of power order in modern political society.