The Demands of Liberty: Civil Society in France since the Revolution

by Pierre Rosanvallon, Arthur Goldhammer (Translator)

How does France reconcile the modern movement toward pluralism and decentralization with a strong central governing power? One of the country's most distinguished political historians offers a radical new interpretation of the development of democracy in France and the relationship between government and its citizens.

Since the publication of Tocqueville's "Ancient Regime and the Revolution," French political structures have been viewed as the pure expression of a native Jacobinism, itself the continuation of an old absolutism. This interpretation has served as both a diagnosis of and an excuse for the inability to accept pluralism and decentralization as norms of a modern democracy, as evidenced in such policies as the persistence of the role of prefects and the ban on headscarves in schools.

Pierre Rosanvallon, by contrast, argues that the French have cherished and demonized Jacobinism at the same time; their hearts followed Robespierre, but their heads turned toward Benjamin Constant. "The Demands of Liberty" traces the long history of resistance to Jacobinism, including the creation of associations and unions and the implementation of elements of decentralization. Behind the ideological triumph of the state lies the conflicting creation of an active civil society.

In exploring these tensions, Rosanvallon takes the debate far beyond traditional views of liberalism versus republicanism and offers an innovative analysis of why the French system has worked despite Jacobinism.

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Pierre Rosanvallon (b. 1948, Blois) is a French intellectual and historian, named professor at the Collège de France in 2001. He holds there the chair in the modern and contemporary history of the political. His works are dedicated to the history of democracy, French political history, the role of the state and the question of social justice in contemporary societies. He is also director of studies at the EHESS, where he leads the Raymond Aron Centre of Political Researches. Rosanvallon was in the 1970s one of the primary theoreticians of workers' self-management in the CFDT trade union.

He is diplomed from the HEC management school. In 1982, he created the Fondation Saint-Simon think-tank, along with François Furet. The Fondation dissolved in December 1999. Since 2002, Rosanvallon is member of the Scientific Counsel of the French National Library, and has the same functions, since 2004, at the École Normale Supérieure of Paris.

Rosanvallon created in 2002 La République des Idées, an "intellectual workshop" which he presides. The group publishes a review and books.

Reviews

[angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book, but found it incredibly dissatisfying for my purposes. Rosanvallon paints a detailed historical picture of the evolution of the French political model when it comes to conflicts between centralization and decentralization, generality and plurality, republicanism and liberalism, etc. but I found it really lacking in its account of civil society. It describes the situation with incredible depth, but there is little attention paid to how the lack of civil society has impacted the political model (the feedback mechanism is largely missing) or how the unique French civil society effects citizens. In addition, the book is left open-ended on all accounts and was quite dissatisifying on that account as well.