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The People's Two Powers

The People's Two Powers

The People's Two Powers

Public Opinion and Popular Sovereignty from Rousseau to Liberal Democracy
Arthur Ghins , Université Libre de Bruxelles
January 2026
Not yet published - available from January 2026
Hardback
9781009688826

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£90.00
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Hardback

    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 associated with the idea of rule by public opinion by liberals 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.

    • Provides a chronological and contextual approach to the emergence of modern democracy and liberalism in France
    • Identifies an overlooked conceptual distinction between public opinion and popular sovereignty
    • Explains how, when, and why the term 'liberal democracy' was invented, and how it was historically redeployed against shifting opponents

    Product details

    January 2026
    Hardback
    9781009688826
    320 pages
    229 × 152 mm
    Not yet published - available from January 2026

    Table of Contents

    • 1. 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
    • Biliography
    • Index.
      Author
    • Arthur Ghins , Université Libre de Bruxelles

      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.