Order, Power, and Legitimacy : The Rise of Constitutionalism in Southern Song (1127-1279) Political Thought

Through new commentaries on the polemical Confucian classic, the Rituals of Zhou, Southern Song (1127-1279) political thinkers redefined good government through a fundamental re-interpretation of the ancient classics. They changed the constitutional schemes in the Rituals of Zhou and formulated concrete plans for reorganizing state society relations for later imperial China. They also developed an original countervailance theory of checks and balances by articulating the division of power between kingship and ministership. They argued the prime minister ought to perform the laws of government (rule of law) whereas the king ought to realize circumstantial justice by intervening in non-regular matters of state (rule of man). Southern Song treatises on the Zhouli represent the rise of constitutionalism in the Chinese tradition