Power Separation and Inter-faction Check:The Principal Line of National Governance in the North Song Dynasty
The North Song Dynasty(960-1127)saw the emergence of a unique governance system foundamentally similar to the modern responsible government where a set of customary laws established by unwritten laws(ancestral laws)were promoted to courtly political codes.Meanwhile monarchs be-came figureheads of the state and the prime ministers had to invariably assume responsibility for any er-ror in running the country.At the very beginning of the North Song Dynasty a series of political princi-ples were established,including:1)"scholars and bureaucrats sharing the country with the emperor"was an unchangeable political custom while"monarch acting as the figurehead while prime minister running the country"became a governance structure with highly effective check on the imperial power;2)the re-sponsible government made sure that"the emperor reigns but not rules"as it separated political power from sovereignty with the prime minister weighing more in the balance of executive power;and 3)cen-sorship had high position in the North Song Dynasty,exercising greater restriction on executive power than in any other historical periods to guarantee balance of the power trio-the emperor,the prime minis-ter and the censorship.
North Song Dynasty(960-1127)figurehead monarch and real-power prime ministerresponsible governmentpower separationimpeachmentrefutation
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