The Developmental Logic of Rule-of-Law Thought: From Limiting State Power to Modern Governance and Its Implications for Viet Nam's Socialist Rule-of-Law State

The Rule of Law constitutes one of the foundational ideas of legal civilization and the modern state, providing the normative framework for the organization and exercise of state power based on the supremacy of law, justice, and the protection of human rights. Although the historical development of Rule of Law thought has been extensively examined, existing scholarship has primarily focused either on the legal and political ideas of individual thinkers or on the chronological evolution of Rule of Law doctrines. Consequently, insufficient attention has been paid to explaining the internal developmental logic of Rule of Law thought as an evolving body of legal reasoning responding to the changing challenges of organizing, limiting, and controlling state power. Against this background, this article examines the developmental logic of Rule of Law thought by analyzing the driving forces behind its evolution, the governance problems addressed at successive historical stages, and the gradual formation of the conceptual foundations of the modern Rule of Law. The study employs an integrated methodological approach combining analytical and synthetic methods, historical analysis, comparative legal analysis, and systems analysis to examine the evolution of Rule of Law thought from Ancient Greece and Rome through the Medieval and Enlightenment periods to contemporary conceptions of the Rule of Law. The findings demonstrate that the development of Rule of Law thought has not followed a pattern of discontinuity or theoretical replacement; rather, it represents a continuous process of inheritance, accumulation, and expansion of normative principles in response to increasingly complex demands for the organization, limitation, and control of state power. Throughout this historical trajectory, the enduring driving force has been the need to constrain public power in order to secure justice, protect human rights, and enhance the quality of public governance. The article's principal contribution lies in proposing an analytical framework for understanding the developmental logic of Rule of Law thought, whereby each historical stage is interpreted through three interrelated dimensions: the governance problem arising from the exercise of state power, the legal reasoning developed to address that problem, and the new normative values incorporated into the evolving concept of the Rule of Law. This framework offers a new theoretical perspective for the study of the history of Rule of Law thought while providing a scholarly foundation for the interpretation and application of Rule of Law values in the ongoing development of the socialist rule-of-law state in Viet Nam.