People''s Two Powers - Public Opinion Popular Sovereignty From Rousseau to Liberal

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.

List of contents

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.

About the author

Arthur Ghins is a Chargé de Recherches FNRS at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His work on historical and contemporary debates about democracy and liberalism has appeared in journals such as Political Studies and The Journal of Politics.

Product details

• Authors: Arthur Ghins, Arthur (Universite Libre De Bruxelles) Ghins
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 31.01.2026
• EAN: 9781009688826
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0968882-6
• No. of pages: 320
• Series: Ideas in Context
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, History of Ideas, France, European History, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / European, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Political structures: democracy, c 1789 to c 1799 (French Revolutionary period), C 1700 To C 1800, Political structures / systems: democracy