Podjela moći u Sparti: nedovoljno za opstanak
Separation of Power in Sparta: Insufficient for Survival

Summary/Abstract: The separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial branches is a fundamental assumption of modern political systems of democratic states. The key intention of the separation of powers is to distribute functions and persons in order to avoid the concentration of power and the possible tyranny of a small group or one man, as well as the survival of the community. Anticipations of this theory are in the ancient Greek polis, where there were mixed constitutional types that included elements of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy – a specific example of such a constitutional mixture is Sparta. The Spartan highly developed and sophisticated political system included forms of mixed rule, with mutual control of office holders and persons in power, and a clear political goal of preserving the existing socio-economic position of members of different social classes. Spartan society was based on unjust inherited relations in which one class enjoyed the results of the work of other classes, in the end such a system led to a shortage of population, especially soldiers from the ruling class, and Sparta collapsed. The thesis that the downfall of Sparta was caused by unjust relations is not easily provable, nor is the thesis that the division of political power is useless for the survival of the state – the author considers the thesis that a mixed form of government, the division of power, is a useful political tool that does not guarantee the preservation of a political community even when it is just, more convincing – but rather that the ontogeny and genealogy of a specific political community and the historical context necessarily lead to a political end for every form of political association in a concrete historical sense, because such is always by its nature temporary.

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