Papers by Annelien De Dijn
Modern Intellectual History
James Kloppenberg's Toward Democracy is a monumental achievement. To start with, Kloppenberg&... more James Kloppenberg's Toward Democracy is a monumental achievement. To start with, Kloppenberg's breadth and depth of knowledge are awe-inspiring. He begins his story in the late sixteenth century, at the height of the religious wars in France, with the philosopher Michel de Montaigne, who rejected democracy because he did not believe ordinary people were capable of the self-restraint it required. Kloppenberg ends his narrative three hundred years later, with the poet Walt Whitman, lamenting the rise of unbridled individualism in the post-Civil War United States. Even though much attention is devoted to intellectual developments in northern America—Kloppenberg is, after all, specialized in American history—his book places these in a much broader context, highlighting how both in the colonial period and beyond Americans participated in transatlantic “communities of discourse” (2). In that sense, Toward Democracy contributes towards the recent transatlantic turn in American hist...
Pluralism and the Idea of the Republic in France, 2012
History of European Ideas, 2002
In 1830, members of the Belgian National Congress asserted that they would not attempt to create ... more In 1830, members of the Belgian National Congress asserted that they would not attempt to create an ideal constitution. Rather, they wanted to frame a constitution which would take the existing order into account, which would be adapted to Belgian manners and customs. Their 'pragmatic conservatism', as it can be described in distinction to Burke's juridical conservatism, was to an important degree inspired by the writings of Montesquieu. Both the discussion on the monarchy and the debate on the senate were influenced by the Esprit des lois. Indirectly, the debates in the National Congress give evidence of the enormous influence of the Esprit des lois on political thought in the Restoration period.
Reading Tocqueville, 2007
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On 27 July 1794, Maximilien Robespierre stood up to address the National Convention. But before h... more On 27 July 1794, Maximilien Robespierre stood up to address the National Convention. But before he was able to finish his speech, he was shouted down by angry deputies, who had come to fear that he was planning another purge after his attacks on the Dantonists and the Hé bertists. A struggle for power ensued, which was won by the Convention, and Robespierre and his followers were arrested. The next day, 9 Thermidor, he was summarily executed. Robespierre's death signaled the end of the reign of Terror, which had started with the expulsion of the Girondins. The ensuing power-vacuum was quickly filled by a close-knit group of politicians and intellectuals, who went on to rule France during the Directory and the early years of the Consulate. These new power-brokers remained influential until 1804, when Napoleon Bonaparte, whose rise they had made possible, stamped out all opposition. In that brief period of time, the Thermidorians valiantly attempted to establish a middle ground between the despotism of the Old Regime and Jacobin anarchy. 1 Andrew Jainchill's important new book, Reimagining Politics After the Terror, focuses on the particular political culture created by the 'republican center', as he describes the group of politicians and intellectuals in power between 1794 and 1804. Spurred by a common determination to re-found politics and to turn the Republic away from the Terror, the Thermidorians set out to create a property-based political system and to re-educate the citizenry, while overseeing the military conquest of Europe. They were supported by famous intellectuals such as Benjamin Constant and Germaine de Staë l as well as by now forgotten but fascinating thinkers like Charles Thé remin. While the republican center had its heyday from 1794 to 1799, it fractured, as Jainchill shows, after the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. Some of its members, like Sieyè s and Pierre-Louis Roederer, became propagators of Napoleon's authoritarianism, while others, such as Benjamin Constant or Charles de Villers, created, in response, a liberal opposition which would form the basis of French Liberalism in the nineteenth century. The result is a book destined to become staple reading for any student of modern political thought. The conclusions proposed by Jainchill far surpass his seemingly narrow focus on the Directory and the Consulate. Instead, his book must be seen as a contribution to the long-ranging debate about the relationship between Old Regime republicanism and modernage liberalism. Jainchill uses his research on political culture between 1794 and 1804 to make a case for 'the republican origins of French liberalism', as he puts it in the subtitle to his book. The post-Terror period, he argues, was a 'watershed,' during which the classical republicanism of Old Regime Europe was transformed into a mode of thinking which still had many of the familiar tenets of classical republicanism, such as an emphasis on active political participation, but which combined these with a recognizably modern or liberal emphasis on civil liberty. 2 Jainchill argues that this merger of republicanism and liberalism had a profound impact on nineteenth-century French Liberalism, which remained long characterized by the liberal-republican tenets of the post-Terror period. In making this argument, Jainchill draws upon a growing body of research, mostly by Anglophone scholars, which points to the influence of classical republicanism on the political debate in revolutionary and post-revolutionary France. 3 In his seminal book Inventing the French Revolution, and more recently in an article on the 'Transformations of Classical History of European Ideas 36 (2010) 130-133 1 Long neglected and even vilified, Thermidor and the Directory have recently attracted renewed attention from historians, for instance: Bronislaw
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... Contributors: Antoine, Agnès Audier, Serge Benoît, Jean-Louis Cliteur, Paul De Dijn, Annelien... more ... Contributors: Antoine, Agnès Audier, Serge Benoît, Jean-Louis Cliteur, Paul De Dijn, Annelien Geenens, Raf Ossewaarde, Ringo Pitts, Jennifer Siedentop, Larry Swenden, Wilfried Welch, Cheryl. Issue Date: 2007. Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-0-230-52746-1. ...
Liberty in a Levelled Society?, 2008
Liberty in a Levelled Society?, 2008
Liberty in a Levelled Society?, 2008
Pluralism and the Idea of the Republic in France, 2012
Republicanism and the Future of Democracy. Edited by Yiftah Elazar and Geneviève Rousselière., 2019
Rousseau was arguably one of the most important and influential of eighteenth-century republican... more Rousseau was arguably one of the most important and influential of eighteenth-century republican thinkers. However, contemporary republican theorists, most notably Philip Pettit, have written him out of the republican canon by describing Rousseau as a “populist” rather than a republican. I argue that this miscasting of Rousseau is not just historically incorrect but
that it has also led to a weakening of contemporary republican political theory. Rousseau was one of the few early modern republican thinkers to take seriously the problem of the tyranny of the majority and to attempt to formulate a cogent answer to that problem. Ignoring his contribution to republican political thought therefore cuts off contemporary republicans from an important resource for thinking about this problem.
The Review of Politics
This paper sets out to criticize Thomas Pangle's and Paul Rahe's reading of The Spirit of the Law... more This paper sets out to criticize Thomas Pangle's and Paul Rahe's reading of The Spirit of the Laws as a contribution to liberal republicanism, arguing instead that Montesquieu's text is better understood as a defense of liberal monarchism. Pangle's and Rahe's interpretation of The Spirit of the Laws as an unequivocal defense of the English modern republic is wrongheaded. Montesquieu in fact spent much more of his time and energy outlining another and very different political model, moderate monarchy, embodied not by England but by the government under which he lived-France. This conclusion has profound implications for our understanding not just of The Spirit of the Laws but also of the history of early modern political thought more generally speaking, showing that the political debate of this period cannot be reduced to a struggle between classical and modern republicans.
The Historical Journal
According to the textbook version of history, the Enlightenment played a crucial role in the crea... more According to the textbook version of history, the Enlightenment played a crucial role in the creation of the modern, liberal democracies of the West. Ever since this view – which we might describe as the modernization thesis – was first formulated by Peter Gay, it has been repeatedly criticized as misguided: a myth. Yet, as this paper shows, it continues to survive in postwar historiography, in particular in the Anglophone world. Indeed, Gay's most important and influential successors – historians such as Robert Darnton and Roy Porter – all ended up defending the idea that the Enlightenment was a major force in the creation of modern democratic values and institutions. More recently, Jonathan Israel's trilogy on the Enlightenment has revived the modernization thesis, albeit in a dramatic new form. Yet, even Israel's work, as its critical reception highlights, does not convincingly demonstrate that the Enlightenment, as an intellectual movement, contributed in any meaningful way to the creation of modern political culture. This conclusion raises a new question: if the Enlightenment did not create our modern democracies, then what did it do? In answer to that question, this paper suggests that we should take more seriously the writings of enlightened monarchists like Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger. Studying the Enlightenment might not allow us to understand why democratic political culture came into being. But, as Boulanger's work underscores, it might throw light on an equally important problem: why democracy came so late in the day.
History of Political Thought
This article draws attention to the importance of early eighteenth-century debates about the natu... more This article draws attention to the importance of early eighteenth-century debates about the nature of the French monarchy for our understanding of Montesquieu's masterpiece The Spirit of the Laws. By contrasting and comparing Montesquieu's views with those of, amongst others, Henri de Boulainvilliers and Gilbert-Charles Le Gendre, this article shows that The Spirit of the Laws defended an orthodox monarchist position. The evidence presented in this article therefore has important implications for the ongoing debate about Montesquieu's place in the history of ideas, suggesting that The Spirit of the Laws was written to bolster rather than to undermine the regime under which he lived.
Political Theory
This essay draws attention to the importance of Montesquieu's earliest and unpublished writings o... more This essay draws attention to the importance of Montesquieu's earliest and unpublished writings on liberty for our understanding of the famous eleventh book of the Spirit of the Laws. Montesquieu's investigation of the nature and preconditions of liberty, the author argues, was much more polemical than it is usually assumed. As an analysis of his notebooks shows, Montesquieu set out to wrest control over the concept of liberty from the republican admirers of classical antiquity, a faction that he believed to be dangerously populist and revolutionary. In order to do so, Montesquieu came up with a redefinition of the concept of liberty that allowed him to argue that monarchical subjects could be just as free as republican citizens. This conclusion has important implications not just for our understanding of Montesquieu's writings but also and more broadly for our understanding of the intellectual history of liberalism.
Ethical Perspectives
This paper focuses on the reception of Bertrand de Jouvenel's Du Pouvoir in post-war America. I s... more This paper focuses on the reception of Bertrand de Jouvenel's Du Pouvoir in post-war America. I show how Jouvenel drew on a firmly established tradition of 'aristocratic liberalism' in French political thought, which in turn allowed him to develop a pessimistic outlook on modern Western political culture as inherently conducive to totalitarianism. This profound pessimism allowed Du Pouvoir, which fell relatively flat in France itself, to become a critical success in the Anglophone world. Jouvenel's jeremiad resonated in particular with Cold War warriors such as Friedrich Hayek.
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Papers by Annelien De Dijn
that it has also led to a weakening of contemporary republican political theory. Rousseau was one of the few early modern republican thinkers to take seriously the problem of the tyranny of the majority and to attempt to formulate a cogent answer to that problem. Ignoring his contribution to republican political thought therefore cuts off contemporary republicans from an important resource for thinking about this problem.
that it has also led to a weakening of contemporary republican political theory. Rousseau was one of the few early modern republican thinkers to take seriously the problem of the tyranny of the majority and to attempt to formulate a cogent answer to that problem. Ignoring his contribution to republican political thought therefore cuts off contemporary republicans from an important resource for thinking about this problem.
The conception of freedom most prevalent today—that it depends on the limitation of state power—is a deliberate and dramatic rupture with long-established ways of thinking about liberty. For centuries people in the West identified freedom not with being left alone by the state but with the ability to exercise control over the way in which they were governed. They had what might best be described as a democratic conception of liberty.
Understanding the long history of freedom underscores how recently it has come to be identified with limited government. It also reveals something crucial about the genealogy of current ways of thinking about freedom. The notion that freedom is best preserved by shrinking the sphere of government was not invented by the revolutionaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who created our modern democracies—it was invented by their critics and opponents. Rather than following in the path of the American founders, today’s “big government” antagonists more closely resemble the counterrevolutionaries who tried to undo their work.
Adding this term to the debate, I would argue, helps to make sense of the Enlightenment. First, I would argue that it allows us to pinpoint a distinct strand of Enlightenment thinking that is not captured by the radical/moderate/religious Enlightenment distinction. More specifically, by labeling this distinct brand of Enlightenment thought, I hope to draw attention to an argument about religion made by enlightened thinkers that has escaped attention so far. Second, I think it is important to do so, because, as I would argue, we today are the heirs of that ‘complacent’ Enlightenment far more than we are the heirs of a radical, moderate or religious Enlightenment.