Tristan Grove (QMUL) - 2023-24 Students
t.l.c.grove@qmul.ac.uk

Reason, sovereignty and representative government in 19th century political thought

I am exploring the origins, theoretical grounding and influence of the 19th century French Doctrinaire theory of the sovereignty of reason, bringing to light its important role in the conceptualisation of both sovereignty and progress. While previous academic work has helped to make the liberal thought of the Doctrinaires better known, its importance is still underestimated. This is because even leading historians of the group such as Rosanvallon have suggested their central doctrine of the sovereignty of reason was, ultimately, theoretically insignificant, and also because this strand of French liberal thought is generally deemed to have died out with the ignominious fall of the July Monarchy and the 1848 revolution.

My project, however, will show that this strand of liberalism and its central theory of the sovereignty of reason in fact had a much broader influence beyond 1848 and beyond France. It will do this by uncovering its impact first on English 19th century political thought – not least John Stuart Mill – and then global political thought, for example Mukherjee in India, Fukuzawa in Japan and, via Donoso Corte’s, Eyzaguirre and Bilbao in Latin America. It will show how the conception of progress that lay behind the theory – based on the discursive refinement of reason – played a crucial role, for example, in Mill’s central arguments in On Liberty and Fukuzawa’s proposals for a productive antagonism between representative institutions.

Primary Supervisor: Georgios Varouxakis

Secondary Supervisor: Niall O’Flaherty