Read more
Liberal democracies are under constant threat in the twenty-first century, and there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. In
Democracy Tamed, Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history,
Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their "new democracy" to combat universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1."Representation With Real Force": Benjamin Constant and the Direct Vote
- 2. François Guizot and Democracy's "Capable" Aristocracy
- 3. Tocqueville's Other Democracy: On the Franchise in America and France
- 4. Édouard Laboulaye's Enlightened Democracy
- 5. "The Regular Representation of Opinion": Duvergier de Hauranne and Political Parties
- Conclusion
- Notes
- References
- Index
About the author
Gianna Englert is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Southern Methodist University. Her work focuses on the history of liberalism, citizenship, suffrage, and political economy.
Summary
Does good democratic government require intelligent, moral, and productive citizens? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish or need to have? With recent arguments "against democracy" and fears about the rise of populism, there is growing scepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. Some even question whether democracy is worth saving.
In Democracy Tamed, Gianna Englert argues that the dilemmas facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment, but have existed since the birth of liberal political thought in nineteenth-century France. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert shows how nineteenth-century French liberals championed the idea of "political capacity" as an alternative to democratic political rights and argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to something that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.
Understandably, scholarly treatments of political capacity have criticized the idea as exclusionary and potentially dangerous. Englert argues instead that political capacity was a flexible standard that developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy without abandoning their first principles. She reveals a forgotten, uncharted path of liberalism in France that remained open to political democracy while aiming to foster citizen capacity. Overall, Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the "new democracy" to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would appropriate their predecessors' antidemocratic arguments to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them.
Additional text
The marriage of liberalism and democracy is in trouble, weakened by ideological infidelities on both sides. In a series of original and keenly observed studies focusing on key nineteenth-century French thinkers, Gianna Englert reveals how the emergence of a distinctive egalitarianism among liberals made the fusion of liberal and democratic commitments more than simply a marriage of convenience. Her impressive narrative breathes new life into forgotten debates over suffrage and electoral laws to illuminate both enduring tensions and elective affinities between majoritarian democracy and liberal values.
