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The genesis of this article may be found in Benjamin Constant’s assertion, at the end of ‘The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns’, that freedoms must be combined before they can be separated. Possible means to bring about such a union may be found in his works. First, he examines the need for action on the part of citizens and how such action could occur in modern conditions, both from the point of view of the individual and of class. The second part of the text analyzes how moral sentiment, patriotism and well-understood interests are the central components of a union that would guide both action and participation. The formal dimension of the combination of freedoms within institutions is explored, as well as the theoretical aspects of neutral republican power as contrasted with its monarchical counterpart. I conclude that, despite modern and liberal constraints, Constant does not completely abandon the republican tradition, expressed in the active life of citizen and institutions, in the fight against arbitrariness and in the defense of collective self-government by means of laws. This leads us to the observation that the neo-republican view of Constant as insensitive to participation in modernity is gravely limited.
History of European Ideas
Beyond binary discourses on liberty: constant's modern liberty, rightly understood2022 •
It is fruitless to interpret Constant's modern liberty from the binary perspective of either the negative/positive freedom opposition or the liberal/republican freedom opposition. Both oppositional perspectives reduce the relationally complex nature of modern liberty to one or another component of the relation. Such reduction inevitably results in an incomplete and, therefore, inadequate interpretation of Constant's modern liberty. Consequently, either of these binary frames of interpretation obscures rather than illuminates the full nature of Constant's modern liberty. Boxed into their irreconcilably opposed alternatives, both binary perspectives fail to appreciate that Constant's conception of modern liberty is a complex achievement irreducible without loss to either liberal negative liberty as non-interference or republican freedom as non-domination. Nor does combining liberal negative freedom and positive freedom (in the sense of ancient liberty), as Holmes well establishes, adequately tells the whole story of Constant's modern liberty. As a complex achievement, Constant's conception of modern liberty, I shall argue, blends negative freedom as associated with neo-Roman republican freedom as non-subjection to arbitrary power, negative freedom as non-interference, associated with the liberal tradition, positive freedom in the sense of inner self-development, and positive freedom as collective self-government or civic republican freedom.
Sovereignty, Civic Participation, and Constitutional Law: The People versus the Nation in Belgium, Routledge
Benjamin Constant and the limits of popular sovereignty2021 •
The political theory of Benjamin Constant (1767 – 1830) is nowadays read and understood in light of one central claim: that it represents the commonsensical position that governmental authority can (and should) be at once popularly grounded and limited by more fundamental rules and norms. As a result, Constant’s conception of limited popular sovereignty, the idea that popular sovereignty has a limited rather than an absolute extension, and that certain fundamental rights are by definition outside its scope, has taken center stage. The positive flipside of that conception, i.e., what Constant took popular sovereignty to mean within those limits, has remained underdeveloped. This chapter develops, on the basis of Constant’s 1815 Principles of Politics, a reconstruction of and reflection on Constant’s positive conception of popular sovereignty. The main claim is that Constant distinguishes between ‘governmental power’ and ‘sovereign power’. The latter concerns the particular political power to establish or withdraw the legitimacy of governmental power through assent. It is not a collective power; it is exercised by the individual and consists of critical judgment.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy (forthcoming)
Constant's Liberal Theory of Popular SovereigntyIn Principes de Politique (1815), Benjamin Constant offers a blueprint for later liberal attempts to retain a commitment to popular sovereignty while moderating its absolutist tendencies and associations with arbitrary political power. This paper examines some notable tensions, still relevant today, in Constant's domesticated liberal concept of popular sovereignty. These tensions, I contend, all point to the conclusion that Constant's project of limiting popular sovereignty by appeal to a sacrosanct domain of rights rests on a liberal interpretation of the general will which is in fact constitutive for the enjoyment of individual liberties. Section 1 argues that Constant's location of popular sovereignty in the legislative general will, as determined by elected representatives, does not overcome the problem of the potential arrogation of the popular will by a partisan minority. Section 2 then examines Constant's views on rights and the implications of his acknowledgement that the enjoyment of liberties depends upon the institutional guarantee provided by constitutional enactment. Finally, in section 3, I demonstrate that Constant's valorisation of individual self-development is inseparable from an idea of political liberty which reflects the priorities of a liberal elite.
History of European Ideas
Ancient history and contemporary political theory: the case of liberty2018 •
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