Jean-Jacques Rousseau on women and citizenship

The aim of this article is to shed light on the eighteenth-century Italian reflection on luxury and consumption in a comparative perspective, clarifying, on the one hand, the complex significance that it assumed and, on the other, the specificity of the Italian context, marked by the immense political value of the debate on the subject. In particular this objective will be pursued through the analysis of specific cases among the many offered by the Italian context and through different research strands. These are: the debate on the evaluation of luxury; the transition from the notion of luxury to that of consumption; and the discussion on luxury and consumption in the revolutionary context. This article intends to outline the particular contribution made by Italian thought, which conveyed a multifaceted discourse of social reform, critique and understanding built on more even foundations, and at the same time to clarify what contribution can be made to current historiography by the study of this theme within eighteenth-century Italy.     

A New Model of Executive Power: A Montesquieuan Explanation of the Obama Presidency

Abstract

The perennial concern over executive overreach continues well into Obama's presidency, leading many to wonder if the “unitary executive” is here to stay. Discussions of executive war powers focus on three models. The Hamiltonian perspective gives presidents the lead position in foreign affairs; the second model, following Madison, presents Congress as the leader when initiating hostilities. Finally, Jeffersonians present emergency powers as extra-legal, giving presidents a sphere of actions that cannot be contained within constitutional discussions. Problematically, current scholarship implicitly or explicitly grounds these explanations in Locke's political philosophy. This occurs despite a dearth of references to Locke during the Constitutional Convention and infrequent references to his thought during early debates over executive-congressional divisions of war powers. Comparatively, all of these seminal American figures frequently mention Montesquieu, often fighting over the specifics of his theory. While scholars widely acknowledge this influence, they rarely mention him during discussions of war powers or the nature of executive power in general. This article examines the Montesquieuan understanding of executive power and shows how this model represents a viable alternative to the Lockean one. Most importantly, examining the executive from a Montesquieuan perspective provides solutions to current problems that the Lockean perspective does not.     

The foundations of modern political thought

This paper aims at setting Montesquieu's 1729 sojourn in the Dutch Republic within its specific Dutch context whilst reconsidering the impact this short period may have exerted on his work. Based on a wide variety of Dutch, English and French sources, the article offers a study of Montesquieu's Dutch networks and contacts, a comparative Franco-Dutch approach to taxation and fiscal policy and an insight into the history of the stadholderate under William IV. The main argument made in the paper is two-fold: first, that the Dutch Republic was a mirror Montesquieu held up to the French monarchy, allowing him to put a number of ideas of government to the test; secondly that, owing to the fluctuating nature of Dutch political events between 1729 and 1748, the Dutch model remained somewhat elusive in Montesquieu's broader understanding of the paradigm of republican regimes.     

Montesquieu's anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, mentions Niccolò Machiavelli by name in his extant works just a handful of times. That, however, he read him carefully and thoroughly time and again there can be no doubt, and it is also clear that he couches his argument both in his Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline and in his Spirit of Laws as an appropriation and critique of the work of the predecessor whom he termed ‘this great man’. In this paper I explore the manner in which the Frenchman redeployed the arguments advanced by the Florentine for the purpose of refuting the latter's conclusions.     

A pragmatic conservatism. Montesquieu and the framing of the Belgian constitution (1830–1831)

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.     

Adam Ferguson on the Perils of Popular Factions and Demagogues in a Roman Mirror

For the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) and many of his time, the history of the Roman Republic furnished the best case study for discussions of internal threats to a mixed system of government. These included factionalism, popular discontent, and the rise of demagogues seeking to concentrate power in their own hands. Ferguson has sometimes been interpreted as a ‘Machiavellian’ who celebrated the legacy of Rome and in particular the value of civic discord. By contrast, this article argues that he is better understood as a disciple of Montesquieu, who viewed Rome as an anachronistic and dangerous ideal in the eighteenth century, the era of the civilized and commercial monarchy. The greatest fear of Ferguson was military despotism, which he believed was the likely outcome of democratic chaos produced by the levelling instincts of the ‘common’ people and demagogues prepared to harness their discontent. In such a scenario, a legitimate order in a mixed government would be turned into a faction putting the constitutional balance at risk, undermining intermediary powers, and ending liberty for all.     

The concept of causality in presocratic philosophy

One of the key concepts in XVIII century political thought was despotism. Also Diderot utilised this complex idea. According to him, who followed Hobbes and Montesquieu, despotism was the result of the love of power, which was able to bring forth the passion of fear in the society. In this sense, Machiavelli belonged to this line of reflection: like that of Hobbes, his system was intended to show the danger of despotism and to learn the true foundation of natural law. But rethinking this paradox Diderot was led to elaborate a new theory of despotism, no longer based on the mechanism of power. His interpretation of Machiavelli – and Hobbes – had opened up a new perspective, which did not move from the enigma of power – Machiavelli's and Hobbes’ chief concern – but from the nature of subjection. Along this path Diderot came across de la Boëtie's Discours de la servitude volontaire, which explained the origin of despotism in a different way. Despotism was not the result of the passion of fear, but of that of interest. The discussion of these two different ideas of despotism led Diderot to a new perspective from which he answered the problem of liberty in an original way.     

Montesquieu's Shadow: Debating reform in the Austrian Netherlands

Under the pressure of governmental reform, beginning in 1740 and intensifying from the 1770s, opponents of reform in the Austrian Netherlands employed arguments derived from The Spirit of the Laws to contest the need for reform. However, reform had also been advocated by local powers using truisms publicised by The Spirit of the Laws, and during the political upheaval of 1789–1790, democrats and traditionalists clashed bitterly over the form of the new Belgian state, both citing Montesquieu to suit their purposes. This article seeks to trace and account for the influence and use of Montesquieu's thought in the Belgian context.     

Montesquieu's gentle prince: the law of majesty and the moderation of despotism in The Spirit of the Laws

Apart from its introductory chapters, Book 12 of The Spirit of the Laws has generally been disregarded by scholars of Montesquieu as a series of historical digressions with few significant implications. As a result, some important dimensions of Montesquieu's political thought have gone unacknowledged. Book 12 is particularly concerned with the punishment of crimes against God and of actions that wound sovereign majesty. Montesquieu presents his view on these subjects through an extended commentary on some aspects of Roman law and, more briefly, on the law of the Pentateuch. This article shows that Montesquieu attributes the criminalization of both kinds of offences to the vengefulness of certain rulers and to the eagerness of their ministers to avenge them. By his assessment, the desire to punish such crimes leads to excesses that undermine political liberty and give rise to despotism. Through this emphasis on the psychological factors that drive the corruption of moderate regimes, Montesquieu reveals a greater concern with the personal qualities of rulers than is often acknowledged. As he identifies certain rulers with absolute power who have nonetheless disavowed vengeance, Montesquieu points to the possibility of reforming despotism through a change in the character of the prince.     

Rousseau,Diderot and the Spirit of Catherine the Great's Reforms

In the Social Contract, Rousseau predicted that Europe would experience a cycle of increasingly intense wars, culminating in invasion from the east: first, Russia would conquer Europe's exhausted and war-torn states; then, Russia would itself become overextended and Europe would ultimately be overrun by the Tartars. The future of the modern state would be a version of the fall of Rome. The present essay provides an explanation of why Rousseau held such apocalyptic views by placing them in the context of projects to reform Europe's political economy in the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War. In 1767, when Catherine the Great was planning a major revision of the Russian legal code, she outlined her goals in a manifesto called the Grand Instruction, key sections of which were derived from Montesquieu's analysis of depopulation of the countryside caused by uncontrolled industrialisation. The Grand Instruction became the subject of a critical exchange between the Physiocrat Le Trosne and Diderot, who, drawing upon Rousseau, was by turns both sympathetic to and sceptical of Physiocracy. This discourse reveals a triangular debate about the possibility of stabilising the international order by imposing a balance between the agricultural and manufacturing sectors of Europe's rapidly growing economies.