Separation of powers doctrine originated from Montesquieu’s reading of England and shaped modern constitutions

Evidence

The doctrine developed by Montesquieu in his Esprit des Lois on the basis of the contemporary bourgeois political system in England as he saw it whereby executive, legislative and judiciary functions are exercised independently of each other. The principle inspired the American Constitution and others modelled on it. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2316

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• DEFINE: Grounds the separation-of-powers concept in its Montesquieu origin, foundational to how the modern state distributes authority.
• XREF: Connects forward to how liberal-capitalist states formalize state power — relevant grounding before Gramsci’s hegemony analysis of the same bourgeois state.

Related

• Montesquieu’s separation of powers shaped the American Constitution (similarity 0.96)