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The People's Two Powers - Arthur Ghins

The People's Two Powers

Public Opinion and Popular Sovereignty from Rousseau to Liberal Democracy

(Autor)

Buch | Hardcover
320 Seiten
2026
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-009-68882-6 (ISBN)
CHF 165,85 inkl. MwSt
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Examines the emergence of democracy and liberalism in modern France, exploring the distinction between public opinion and popular sovereignty. Arthur Ghins considers how democracy was first rejected, then associated with the idea of rule by public opinion by liberals, culminating in the invention of 'liberal democracy' in the 1860s.
The People's Two Powers revisits the emergence of democracy during the French Revolution and examines how French liberalism evolved in response. By focusing on two concepts often studied separately – public opinion and popular sovereignty – Arthur Ghins uncovers a significant historical shift in the understanding of democracy. Initially tied to the direct exercise of popular sovereignty by Rousseau, Condorcet, the Montagnards, and Bonapartist theorists, democracy was first rejected, then redefined by liberals as rule by public opinion throughout the nineteenth century. This redefinition culminated in the invention of the term 'liberal democracy' in France in the 1860s. Originally conceived in opposition to 'Caesarism' during the Second Empire, the term has an ongoing and important legacy, and was later redeployed by French liberals against shifting adversaries – 'totalitarianism' from the 1930s onward, and 'populism' since the 1980s.

Arthur Ghins is a postdoctoral researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He has taught at Brown University and Yale University, and has held a British Academy Fellowship at King's College London. His work on historical and contemporary debates about democracy and liberalism has appeared in various intellectual history, political theory, and political science journals.

Introduction; 1. Rousseau's democracy; 2. Representative democracy during the French revolution; 3. The liberal response: Madame de Staël and representative government; 4. Bonaparte and his collaborators: 'democracy purged of all its drawbacks'; 5. The liberal response: Benjamin Constant's representative government; 6. Tocqueville's democracy; 7. The first theorists of liberal democracy; Epilogue: liberal democracy in the twentieth century.

Erscheint lt. Verlag 31.1.2026
Reihe/Serie Ideas in Context
Zusatzinfo Worked examples or Exercises
Verlagsort Cambridge
Sprache englisch
Gewicht 500 g
Themenwelt Geisteswissenschaften Geschichte Regional- / Ländergeschichte
Sozialwissenschaften Politik / Verwaltung Politische Systeme
ISBN-10 1-009-68882-0 / 1009688820
ISBN-13 978-1-009-68882-6 / 9781009688826
Zustand Neuware
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