Samuel Pufendorf: majority rule (logic, justification and limits) and forms of government

Abstract

The article analyses one of the first and more important doctrines of majority rule and its relationship with forms of government, the one presented by Samuel Pufendorf in his De jure naturae et gentium , the most popular work of political theory in the 17th and 18th centuries. It also considers some of the objections raised in the contemporary debate concerning its limits.