Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T08:24:21.685Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 3 - The French Revolution and the Liberal Parliamentary Turn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2019

William Selinger
Affiliation:
University College London
Get access

Summary

One of the great legacies of the French Revolution was that it made parliamentarism the preeminent constitutional ideal of European liberalism. This chapter begins by examining the early constitutional debates of the Revolution when the English practices examined in previous chapter were rejected across the French political spectrum. I then examine Germaine de Staël and Jacques Necker, two of the most influential champions of these practices in 1790s France. Finally, I return to Britain, consider key advocates of parliamentarism there who were writing during this period and highlight the parallels between their arguments and those of de Staël and Necker. In both France and Britain, advocates of parliamentarism claimed that it was the only political framework that could enable a nation to be safely and durably governed by a representative assembly. But in both contexts, authors continued to grapple with the dilemmas of parliamentarism–above all, the dilemma of corruption.

Type
Chapter
Information
Parliamentarism
From Burke to Weber
, pp. 83 - 114
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×