Aux origines d’un militantisme transnational ? Bouleversements politiques en Allemagne et réseaux intellectuels entre 1806 et 1849

Abstract

Sidney Tarrow used the term “Transnational Activism” to deal with a contemporary phenomenon to which he also ascribed historical roots. The aim of the article is to check the relevance of this concept for the intellectual networks that claimed political changes in the German-speaking area in the first half of the 19th century. Did these individuals succeed in combining local and regional interests with a larger European or transatlantic perspective in order to realize cross-border ideas? Or did the transnational approach prove to be an illusion?These questions are examined through three case studies which highlight the specificity of the period between 1806 and 1849: the support for Napoleon’s policy, the striving for a Europe-wide solidarity in the 1830s and 1840s and the political mobilization of German emigrants in the USA during the revolution of 1848/1849.