ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the principles that constitute the common political heritage of Western Europe were developed into effective principles of governance at the national level, but not at the European one. It explains how Catholic political theory, which did not originally allow the political division of Christianity, had to adapt itself to this state of affairs through its Counter–Reformation doctrine. The birth of the several political cultures is connected with the situation in Medieval Europe where different political authorities were competing for power. The significance of the Reformation, and of the birth of the three political cultures that it implied, can be illustrated through the ways in which it nourished the formation of modem States in Europe. The revolutionary effect of Catholicism emanated from the communitarian structures of Catholic political thinking and is based upon the significance that the Enlightenment had upon Catholic cultures.
