French Liberalism Research Articles

Afterlives of Saint-Simonianism: Michel Chevalier and nineteenth-century French liberalism

ABSTRACT This article examines the evolution of nineteenth-century French economist Michel Chevalier’s reputation and self-understanding as a Saint-Simonian. Despite only having served two years as chief editor of the famous Saint-Simonian Globe, Chevalier’s attempt to re-integrate himself into liberal intellectual circles following his split from the Saint-Simonian movement was consistently hindered by his perceived adherence to its illiberal principles. This article mobilizes Chevalier’s reputation as a means to explore the porous boundary between Saint-Simonianism and French liberalism at a time when the contours between the two traditions were still not clearly defined. I also argue that the economist’s continued prioritization of economic development over political liberty grounded a variety of liberalism that many political liberals found intolerable, notably in its willingness to endure Bonapartist authoritarianism for the sake of economic growth. Mobilizing new archival material from the Second Empire, this article illuminates how Chevalier and others understood his relation to Saint-Simonianism and liberalism in the moment when he was at the apogee of his power and influence.

Nineteenth-Century French Liberal Economists and Women's Work: The Dark Side of Industrialization

This article reconstructs the debates on the woman question in which nineteenth-century French liberal economists participated: it aims at showing that their analysis contradicted their conviction that, in Bastiat's words, “men's interests, when left to themselves, tend to . . . work together for progress and the general good.” Indeed, French liberals are usually labeled optimistic: they denounced the pessimistic and fatalist character of the “English school of economics” based on Ricardo's rent theory and Malthus's law of population. On the contrary, they attempted to prove that economic development improved the situation of all, especially that of workers. However, their optimism did not extend to their analysis of the situation of women: most of them recognized that women were not benefiting from the general improvement in terms of wages, labor conditions, and social mobility. The article then shows that the reasons they gave to explain the bad situation of women present many challenges, linked respectively to the issue of state intervention and wage theory. Moreover, it is unlikely that the only solution they proposed for improving it, that is, the promotion of female education, could have worked.

Mining for meaning: how text mining can uncover the French Liberal School’s key ideas

Abstract This investigation shows that through word embedding and co-occurrence, a researcher can deduce key concepts within a corpus that, with adequate academic contextual knowledge, can guide the investigator to conclude if the corpus belongs to or has been influenced by a particular school of thought. Specifically, we have conducted an extensive analysis of the Journal des Economistes, a prominent platform for the dissemination of ideas within the French Liberal School which run from 1841 to 1936, to demonstrate the effectiveness of these tools in the context of distant reading. We have thus shown how the concepts discussed within the journal, reflect the concerns of the French Liberal School for the concepts of value, commerce, freedom of exchange, freedom, and labor, through statistical methods, as opposed to a close reading of the text.

On the Question of the Views of A.S. Pushkin on the Insurrection in Poland in 1830-1831

The article deals with the political ideas expressed by A.S. Pushkin, first of all, in the poem "To the Slanderers of Russia", as well as in personal correspondence and notes from the period of the Polish insurrection of 1830-1831. An overview of the prehistory and prerequisites for the insurrection is given, the historical context is shown, which determined the formation of the poet's views on the "Polish question". Pushkin's worldview was influenced by the "History of the Russian State" by N.M. Karamzin and, in particular, the story about the occupation of Moscow by Polish troops in 1610-1612. In addition, the poet, like his contemporaries, retained direct impressions of the Patriotic War of 1812, in which the Poles participated on the side of Napoleon. The ode to "Slanderers of Russia" was Pushkin's answer to members of the French Parliament, who raised the issue of supporting the Poles. For the French liberals, the events in Poland were of international significance and were characterized as the struggle of one of the emerging European nations for rights and freedoms. For Pushkin, the Polish rebellion was exclusively an internal affair of Russia, an encroachment on its integrity. The article presents the statements of some representatives of Russian culture who were part of Pushkin's circle of friends, among whom were both supporters and opponents of the state-patriotic position of the poet.

What Is French Liberalism?

It has become commonplace to argue that Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville form a distinct French liberal tradition going back to Montesquieu. Yet Tocqueville showed little interest in Constant, and early nineteenth-century French liberals did not recognize Montesquieu as the father of French liberalism. Based on these observations, this essay demonstrates that the French liberal tradition is a belated construction and explains how, when, and why it was invented. Exhuming the origins of the French liberal tradition, I argue, is important for our understanding of the history of liberalism and the mechanisms behind ideology formation.

Debates on the falling birth rate in France at the beginning of the twentieth century

The theme of population is recurrent in economics, particularly in France. The literature in history of economic thought related to these issues is extensive, especially, in the case of French liberal economists, from the period starting with the writings of Malthus up to the middle of the 19th century. Few studies, however, focus on the position of economic liberals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The purpose of this paper is therefore to extend the analysis and provide an account of the key debates amongst the French liberal economists of this period concerning what they referred to as “the problem of population”. We shall first see that this “problem” consisted in a stagnation of French population levels due to a drop in the birth rate, leading to negative consequences for the economy and elsewhere. This led economists to name causes and solutions to this decline on which the French liberals were divided. For some authors, the causes arose from a change in lifestyles, for others to increasing intervention by the state. Lastly, we will present the contrasting ideas for solutions to allow the birth rate to increase again. For some, the solution was a moral one: what was needed was a change of mindset. For others, the solution was economic, i.e., the human condition could be improved by free trade. For others, the solution lay in legislation: the state should encourage individuals to have more children.

The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century, by Helena Rosenblatt

Helena Rosenblatt proposes ‘a word history’ (p. 3, emphasis original) of liberalism in three neat acts: its invention in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century France, its transformation in mid-nineteenth-century Germany, and its adoption by the USA in the early twentieth century. The methodology is influenced by Quentin Skinner and the Cambridge School and, accordingly, Rosenblatt rigorously contextualises the word ‘liberalism’, interrogating its shifting meanings across time and space. But the book is more than simply a history of the word liberalism: it provides a lucid overview of the development of liberal thought in France, Germany and the USA across the long nineteenth century. However, there are some frustrating omissions and the book is somewhat marred by its author’s insistence on ‘rescuing’ liberalism and restoring its putative core values. The book begins with a chapter on liberalism’s ‘prehistory’ in Ancient Rome and early modern Britain. Here Rosenblatt establishes her vision of liberalism, grounding it in ideas about generosity and duty to the common good as well as freedom. Thereafter the book proceeds chronologically through the long nineteenth century, beginning with the French revolutionary era and its impact on the emergence and spread of liberalism. Rosenblatt’s endpoint is a little less clear, and the final chapter on liberalism becoming a ‘creed’ in the USA condenses the history of twentieth-century liberalism up until the Second World War into just under twenty pages. Throughout the book, the analysis ranges across politics, religion, education and the ubiquitous nineteenth-century ‘social question’; there are also sections on Gladstone and the British Liberal Party alongside the core material from French, German and American political thinkers, leaders and actors. The breadth of the work creates a rather tricky balancing act, however, and the analysis is repeatedly pulled back to French liberalism, the focus of much of Rosenblatt’s previous work. At times, there is a sense that the author cannot quite escape the pull of France, even while insisting on the contribution of often overlooked German liberals, and on the significance of liberalism’s reformulation in the USA.

What is French liberalism?

What is French liberalism?

Kindness as the Foundation to Community: For a ‘Radical Equality Tempered by Benevolence’. Joseph Rey of Grenoble (1779-1855)

Abstract This article examines the work of the jurist and political and social theorist, Joseph Rey. It explores Rey’s role within a French and international network of intellectuals and conspirators who sought to overthrow established monarchies and replace them with popularly elected democratic republics. The article shows how Rey’s extensive writings on legal, political, social and educational questions give a unique insight into France’s political, intellectual, social and ideological life in the first decades of the nineteenth century. We argue that Rey’s contribution to the debates that defined the modern ideological categories of liberalism, republicanism and socialism was significant in its endeavour to reconcile all three. This attempt at reconciliation was motivated by a powerful desire to end the internecine struggles that marked France in the aftermath of the Revolution and Empire. This led Rey to draw on the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and the Philosophical Radicals in order to nourish a French republican liberalism rooted in the work of the Idéologues and combine this with his profound reading of Robert Owen’s work on co-operation. It goes on to show how Rey became known as France’s principal representative of Owenism, and sought to shape the debates between the dominant schools of French Socialist thought, Fourierism and Saint-Simonianism, by introducing into those discussions a radical conception of equality and the idea of co-operation. Rey’s attempts to reconcile the liberal-republican preoccupation with liberty and self-governance with socialist considerations on equality and social justice stand out from the works of his contemporaries. It is this unique, and long-forgotten, contribution to French and European political and social thought that makes Rey worthy of renewed attention.

La Santa Alianza de los pueblos: liberales franceses y españoles en el Trienio Liberal

En 1820, los liberales franceses acogieron con entusiasmo la aceptación de la Constitución por parte de Fernando VII y ensalzaron a Quiroga y a Riego masivamente. Desde el primer momento, emprendieron una inmensa labor de divulgación de la carta magna, traducida al francés, y de textos relacionados con la misma. Varios autores resaltaron el carácter universal de la Constitución española. Otros propusieron mejoras. La intensa vigilancia ejercida por la policía francesa respecto a los contactos entre liberales de ambos países prueba sobradamente la existencia de tales relaciones. Sin embargo, la gran desilusión de los constitucionalistas tuvo su origen en el ejército galo, que se mostró mucho menos adicto a la causa de la libertad de lo que esperaban. Los liberales franceses no pudieron impedir la intervención militar de 1823. Tuvieron que soportar el triunfo de los serviles y lo único que pudieron hacer fue rendir a Riego el culto que se merecía como mártir de la revolución.

African Kings and Black Slaves: Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic

African Kings and Black Slaves: Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic

Helena Rosenblatt, The Lost History of Liberalism, from Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century

A specialist of French liberalism, Helena Rosenblatt has written extensively on some essential figures of the French Enlightenment like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or, more at length, on Benjamin Constant, whom she identifies as the philosopher who theorised contemporary French liberalism. Liberalism is therefore no uncharted territory to her, albeit in the much narrower framework of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France. Her 2018 book, The Lost History of Liberalism, aims both at continuing ...

The ‘science of education’ and Owenism: the case of Joseph Rey (1779–1855)

ABSTRACT This article examines the impact of Robert Owen’s educational ideas in France. It traces how his ideas attracted the attention of French liberals, particularly Charles de Lasteyrie, Alexandre de Laborde and Joseph-Marie de Gérando, and republicans associated with Marc-Antoine Jullien’s Revue Encyclopédique. The article focuses in particular on the work of one of Owen’s early French followers, the leading radical egalitarian political and social theorist Joseph Rey (1779–1855). The article examines how Owen’s reflections on education served as the foundation for Rey’s own theoretical and practical contributions to educational philosophy and pedagogical reform. Drawing extensively from unpublished archive material, the article describes and analyses Rey’s detailed egalitarian critique of the work of educational theorist Joseph Jacotot, and explores how Rey advanced a far more ambitious philosophy of education that, when translated into practice, eliminated the traditional divide between manual skills and intellectual ability, resulting in a genuinely inclusive and comprehensive educational system.

La Jaquerie: une tragédie romantique juste avant la « fin de l’histoire »

The Jaquerie is one of the lesser-known dramatic works of Prosper Mérimée. However, it is a very important work to understand the aesthetic and political stakes of romantic theatre on the eve of the July Revolution. The Jaquerie also helps us to understand the cul-de-sac of the theatre of French liberalism which had, however, dominated the theoretical debate about a new dramatic form during the 1830s.

Against the orthodox: Walras and Laveleye’s reluctant alliance

What is the purpose of economic science? Is it about discovering general laws of economic behaviour? Is it about policy-making? And how do those objectives tie in with political views and normative preferences? In 1882–1883 a debate about the existence of economic laws arose between the French Liberal School and Émile de Laveleye, who had just published his Éléments d’économie politique. The debate concerned the form and meaning of economic science and it was bound up with the political views of both sides. A third party to this debate, Léon Walras, was having great difficulty in finding institutional and political support. Although he was closer to the French Liberals in terms of method, he was more inclined to Laveleye’s views concerning the purpose of political economy and in his political outlook. Based on unpublished letters, we will trace the imbroglio between method and purpose of political economy in the triangle formed by Émile de Laveleye, Léon Walras and the “orthodox” French Liberal School.

France and the American Civil War: A Diplomatic History by Stève Sainlaude

Reviewed by: France and the American Civil War: A Diplomatic History by Stève Sainlaude David Brown (bio) France and the American Civil War: A Diplomatic History. By Stève Sainlaude. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. xviii, 285. $45.00 cloth) The internationalization of the study of the American Civil War shows no sign of slowing. The field took a transatlantic approach in the 1920s, in major works by Ephraim Adams and Frank Owsley among others, that broadened into consideration of the wider European response. Nowadays, culture and ideology are as important as foreign policy and trade. This wide purview is welcome but Stève Sainlaude, associate professor of history at the University of Paris IV Sorbonne, reminds us that there is much still to be learned about traditional Civil War diplomacy in a country where it might be thought there was little left to be discovered. Sainlaude’s revisionist interpretation of Franco-U.S. relations, based on two monographs previously published in French, will become the standard account for years to come. It is remarkable that no historian has until now examined the full range of diplomatic records generated by the French Foreign Ministry at the Quai d’Orsay, especially the bird’s-eye view provided by consuls in the U.S., but Civil War historians will be thankful for Sainlaude’s diligence. [End Page 519] France and the American Civil War is divided into three sections. The first considers French responses to the war and the diplomatic and legal problems that it caused. It probes conversations with Great Britain regarding the blockade, intervention, and shipbuilding but concludes that the U.S. conflict “was not a priority” because both countries faced “more pressing concerns in the European theater” (p. 71). The second considers the political, cultural, and ideological ties between the American South and France, intervention in Mexico, and shifting attitudes toward the Confederacy during the war. It argues that slavery was not particularly significant to French thinking, a position at odds with the existing historiography which contends French liberals were strongly antislavery. Confederate emissaries in Paris, such as John Slidell, gained a reputation as “staunch expansion-ists” that did little to further their case for recognition (p. 124). The final section concentrates on relations with the Union. Like most Europeans, the French were unsure that the Union would endure and there were extended discussions over different kinds of future relations. As in the British case, however, the cotton famine was not as disruptive as feared at the beginning of the war. Other parts of the economy thrived in part to compensate for the downturn in textiles and the unemployed found work in other industries. Historians will learn much that is new in this book, particularly about French diplomacy at home and abroad, French public opinion, the effects of war on the French economy, as well as familiar episodes such as Mexican intervention. Sainlaude confirms that Napoleon was far more favourable to the Confederacy than the Union. Indeed, he believed that his “Grand Design” to check the spread of Anglo-Saxonism was well served by the breakup of the United States. However, Napoleon’s support for the Confederacy was rash and failed to deliver. This was not because he believed British cooperation was essential to intervention—one of this book’s major arguments is that French plans were far less dependent on the British than previously depicted. Confederate hopes were instead dashed by Edouard Thouvene, the Head of the French Foreign Ministry (until late 1862), and [End Page 520] his successor Edouard Drouyn de Lhuys. These very capable diplomats played a pivotal role in policy making. They believed an independent Confederacy would threaten plans in Mexico and that a divided U.S. was not an effective buffer against British imperialism. Both men deftly handled Napoleon’s outbursts during the war and always placed French strategic interests first and foremost. David Brown DAVID BROWN teaches U.S. history at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. He is co-author of A Concise American History (2020). Copyright © 2020 Kentucky Historical Society

What do "the Mother of Doctrine and the Mother of French Liberalism" mean?

What do "the Mother of Doctrine and the Mother of French Liberalism" mean?

Legitimacy of Power: the View of French Liberalism in the second half of the XIX century

The problem of the legitimacy of power is of great interest, both in domestic and in French legal science. In France over the past two centuries, there have been five republics, two empires, and various transitional regimes and forms of government. The end of the XVIII - first half of the XIX centuries in France is characterized by the most frequent changes in the state and legal sphere, which caused increased attention of researchers to the legitimacy or legitimacy of power. The contribution of representatives of the French liberal school of the second half of the XIX century is noted in the article in the development of the concept of legitimacy of power. The main approaches to this problem of the most prominent representatives of the French liberal school have been analyzed, whose work was significantly inf luenced by the conceptual formation of the concepts of legitimacy, in particular, and the legitimacy of power in general. It is noted that representatives of French liberalism of the second half of the nineteenth century considered the legitimacy of power in the discourse of the idea of justice, emphasizing the three elements that should be embodied in the state, which in turn should ensure the legitimization of power.

Representative democracy and the ‘spirit of resistance’ from Constant to Tocqueville

ABSTRACTThe role of resistance in the politics of modern representative democracies is historically contested, and remains far from clear. This article seeks to explore historical thinking on this subject through a discussion of what Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville had to say about resistance and its relationship to ‘representative government’ and democracy. Neither thinker is usually seen as a significant contributor to ‘resistance theory’ as this category is conventionally understood. But, in addition to their more familiar preoccupations with securing limitations on the exercise of political authority and averting majority tyranny, both thinkers wrote extensively on the nature and meanings of resistance in ‘representative governments’ or democratic societies. Both thinkers are examined in the context of revolutionary and Napoleonic discussions about the legitimacy of resistance or ‘right to resist’ oppression, and against eighteenth-century discussions of the ‘spirit of resistance’ since Montesquieu. The article notes conceptual distinctions between resistance, revolution and insurrection in the period, and addresses the broader question of the extent to which early nineteenth-century French liberals sought to ‘institutionalise’ principles of resistance within modern constitutional frameworks.

РОССИЙСКОЕ ТОКВИЛЕВЕДЕНИЕ ВО ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЕ XIX - НАЧАЛЕ ХХ ВЕКА

Russian Tocqueville studies cover the period from the 1830s till nowadays and are divided into stages; the criterion to identify them is the level of scientific and social interest for Alexis de Tocqueville’s heritage. The years of 1860-1917 are considered as the period of decreasing interest for Tocqueville. The paper tries to reconsider this viewpoint. The state of Russian Tocqueville studies in the second half of the XIX - at the beginning of the XX century - pubic interest for liberalism problems, re-edition of the famous Frenchman’s basic works, representation of his conclusions in fundamental works on Western history, appearance of specialized works devoted to Tocqueville - leads the author to the conclusion on stable interest for Tocqueville himself and his heritage in the mentioned period. Special attention is paid to the works of the young historian of the beginning of the XX century V. A. Butenko, who won reputation of an expert in the history of French liberalism.