Democracy, Self, and the Problem of the General Will in Nineteenth-Century French Political Thought

In post-revolutionary France, ‘democracy’ came to be conceived above all as a social condition: the condition of equality that had resulted from the abolition of privilege during the revolutionary years. This chapter focuses on how French thinkers conceptualised the implications – psychological as well as social – of this condition. Many were concerned about an updated version of a classic problem: how to reconcile individual and general interest. Unlike the British, who were relatively relaxed about the pursuit of self-interest, the French continued to believe that the pursuit of the general will imposed significant demands on the self. Both liberals and socialists worried that modern democratic society, inasmuch as it was also characterised by materialism and social division, failed to nurture appropriate forms of self. In consequence, people in general were self-seeking, or the ruling classes specifically were self-seeking. Individuals suffered stress, and society was riven by tension and conflict.

Introduction

This chapter outlines trends in the way people thought about ‘democracy’ between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. It locates this collection of essays within the broader historiography. It reflects on difficulties in relating changes in thought to changes in activity, and explains how this book engages with that issue. It argues that though there were common trends, both thought and practice relating to democracy developed in different ways in different regions, such that a country-specific approach is appropriate - though certainly there were also important interrelationships, explored in the book's concluding chapter. Finally, the introduction reflects on the interaction between developing ideas and practices of democracy and of revolution.

‘Democracy’ and the Irish People, 1830–48

The mass movements led by Daniel O’Connell were perceived as ‘democratic’ not only within the British Isles but also on the European continent. O’Connell presented himself as a democrat – meaning by this that he championed the cause of the people, not that he advocated any particular form of government. In fact the emphasis in the Repeal movement was above all on a rather vaguely conceived national regeneration. O’Connell's control over his followers impressed some observers: it seemed that he had contained democracy's disruptive potential. When his unionist opponents called him a democrat they by contrast invoked the term's negative associations. ‘Young Ireland’ nationalists were initially cool about democracy, but warmed to it, especially from 1848. It is unclear whether the language of ‘democracy’ had currency among O’Connell's followers, though both words and imagery impressed upon them the idea that the movement promoted the cause of the Irish people.

Elections and Democracy in France, 1789–1848

When French revolutionaries abolished privilege, they undermined the traditional basis for representing society. Elections acquired a central role in the new political order, because they could be seen as expressing its fundamental legitimating principle: the sovereignty of the people. But what forms could elections appropriately take in a post-privilege society? The French experimented with answers to this question through the revolutionary and Napoleonic years, across the Restoration and liberal eras, into the Second Republic and beyond. Changes from time to time in who was allowed to vote provided only one element in a complex picture. Following a traditional model, revolutionary elections to national bodies were usually indirect, though in the early nineteenth century direct election came to be preferred. The physical and social context of the voting process provided another focus for experimentation.

Varieties of Democracy in the French Revolution

Though the French Revolution had a major impact on how people have talked about democracy ever since, the word was not initially central to revolutionary discourse, though it became more central when interest shifted from making government legitimate towards making it effective. When legitimacy was the key concern, popular sovereignty was a more important concept (though not one favoured by all revolutionary thinkers). Emphasis on will as the basis of legitimacy encouraged the view that the legislature was the most legitimate organ. ‘Democracy’ gained importance during the Terror, as discussion focussed on the challenge of making any form of authority in practice prevail over the people. Representation of the people and surveillance of government by the people were both mooted as solutions. In France (as elsewhere) democracy gained new negative associations in the course of the revolution, because democracy was experienced more as a problem than as a solution.

People and Power in British Politics to 1850

Although British institutions underwent less formal restructuring during this period than those of the United States and France (bar the limited ones instituted by the Reform Acts of 1832) yet there were changes in the way the political system functioned, and significant developments in popular interaction with politics. The people were increasingly perceived as independent actors, throwing up their own leaders, pressing upon governmental institutions from without, and trying to impose their own agendas upon the political classes. This chapter surveys these developments under three heads: voting (encompassing both changes in the impact of voting and demands for extensions to the franchise); petitioning and association. To complicate any simple notion of trends, it also sketches the character of popular political culture at two specific conjunctures, the 1790s and 1840s.

Languages of Democracy in America from the Revolution to the Election of 1800

Before and during the American Revolution, ‘democracy’ was relatively rarely invoked in American political discourse, and when it was, usually had negative weight. By contrast, in 1800, candidates who called themselves Democrats won control of the Federal Government. This chapter charts the emergence of the first advocates of democracy in the United States. During the Constitution debates, attacks on aristocracy were much more common than positive accounts of democracy. After 1790, a group of radical newspaper editors sympathetic to the French Revolution promoted the term as a political slogan. Its entry into mainstream political discourse thereafter was however accompanied by the shearing away of some of its more radical associations.

Synergies

This chapter explores the way in which the experiences of the different places surveyed was shaped by interactions between them, distinguishing patterns prevailing in the later eighteenth and mid nineteenth centuries. The survey covers the way in which the larger context was explored and conceptualised; practical interactions between political developments in different states; the movement of individuals and the transmission of ideas, and what it was about particular places studied here that particularly aroused interest elsewhere, in terms of what was thought to be revealed about democracy. It is suggested that people often referred to developments elsewhere, as reference points in their own debates, but that what they took from others’ experience was always conditioned by their local concerns and aspirations.

The Limits of Democracy: Ireland 1778–1848

Though ideas of democracy had considerable currency in Ireland, to understand of the longer-term development of this political culture their specificity needs stressing. United Irish leaders aimed chiefly to harness ordinary people for national liberation. O’Connell's mobilisations equally represented a tactical choice – about how best to promote the cause of Ireland, now understood in strongly Catholic terms. O’Connell's political vision involved some form of mixed constitution; Young Irelanders were still vaguer about the form of polity they hoped to create. The ability of a variety of leaders to mobilise a largely poor rural society is notable; this was a society whose poorer members were often assertive about their own interests, therefore representing both danger and potential to their social superiors. Such as it was, the Irish democratic tradition faltered after 1848: a local politics of clientelism and coercion reasserted itself. Subsequent mobilisations continued to emphasise nationalism over individual rights.

Constructing Democratic Thought in Ireland in the Age of Revolution, 1775–1800

During the 1790s, some keen radically to change the status quo in Ireland began to describe themselves as democrats. We can reconstruct what they thought a more democratic polity and society would be like. It would not be subordinated to Britain, but responsive to the aspirations of the Irish people; it would be more equal, not discriminating on religious grounds. Attempts would be made to address structures that inhibited national prosperity and kept many people poor. The terminology was new, but democratic political theory drew on existing traditions: on theories about rights, classical republicanism, Enlightenment ideas about toleration and political economy, and egalitarianism, as well as revolutionary internationalism. These were welded into a political outlook that was shaped by the distinctive Irish context. Democrats pitched what they had to say to relatively poor audiences, and strove to show the relevance of what was happening in France to their situation.