Pierre-Antoine Antonelle and representative democracy in the French Revolution

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines the political thought of Pierre-Antoine Antonelle, a prominent democrat during the French Revolution. In pamphlets and newspaper articles between 1795 and 1799 he put forth an elaborate theory of ‘representative democracy’ which was a novel and radical vision of political reform and republican international order. His political and economic plan for a democratic future was focused on conceptualizing a realistic transition path to a genuinely republican society. In the wake of historians who pointed out the existence and importance of the idea of ‘representative democracy’ during the Directory, this article delves into the content of this idea by placing it in the context of Antonelle and his fellow travellers’ political struggle to consolidate the Republic while avoiding both anarchy and aristocracy.