For a complete list of publications, see my CV.
Book:
Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage, Oxford University Press, Forthcoming.
Liberal democracies seem to be under constant threat in the twenty first century, and there is growing skepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. In Democracy Tamed, Gianna Englert argues that some of the crises of confidence facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment. Instead, they have existed ever since liberal political thought emerged in the nineteenth century. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert not only uncovers the source of liberals’ original animus toward political democracy. She shows how self-proclaimed liberals devised two strategies to counter the rise of mass democracy. They created the concept of political capacity as their alternative to universal suffrage and mobilized that concept in the contentious debates over the franchise from the French Revolution to the Third Republic. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, transforming it from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to designate a modern form of society – a new democracy that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.
Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the “new democracy” to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would utilize their predecessors’ antidemocratic concepts to merge liberal principles with political equality, first to imagine and then to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them.
Peer-Reviewed Articles & Chapters:
"Georges Sorel's Tocqueville" (with Richard Boyd), History of Political Thought, Forthcoming.
"Tocqueville's Politics of Grandeur," Political Theory, 50.3 (2022): 477-503.
"'Not more democratic, but more moral': Tocqueville on the Suffrage in America and France," The Tocqueville Review/La revue Tocqueville, 42.2 (2021): 105-20.
"Usurpation and 'The Social' in Benjamin Constant's Commentaire," Modern Intellectual History, 17.1 (2020): 55-84.
"Despotic or Dynamic? Hayek on Democracy and Expertise" in Philosophy, Politics, and Austrian Economics, eds. D'Amico and Martin, (Emerald, 2020).
"'The Idea of Rights': Tocqueville on the Social Question," The Review of Politics, 79.4 (2017): 649-74.
"Liberty and Industry: John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and the Economic Foundations of Political Membership," Polity, 48.4 (2016): 551-579.
Selected Review Essays & Popular Writing:
Review of Annelien de Dijn's Freedom at H-Diplo
Introduction to Roundtable on Helena Rosenblatt's Lost History of Liberalism at H-Diplo
Isolation and Association: The Penitentiary System's Democratic Lessons at Tocqueville 21
French Liberals and the Capacity for Citizenship at JHI Blog
Book:
Democracy Tamed: French Liberalism and the Politics of Suffrage, Oxford University Press, Forthcoming.
Liberal democracies seem to be under constant threat in the twenty first century, and there is growing skepticism about whether liberalism and democracy can continue to survive together. In Democracy Tamed, Gianna Englert argues that some of the crises of confidence facing liberal democracy are not unique to our present moment. Instead, they have existed ever since liberal political thought emerged in the nineteenth century. Combining political theory and intellectual history, Englert not only uncovers the source of liberals’ original animus toward political democracy. She shows how self-proclaimed liberals devised two strategies to counter the rise of mass democracy. They created the concept of political capacity as their alternative to universal suffrage and mobilized that concept in the contentious debates over the franchise from the French Revolution to the Third Republic. Liberals also redefined democracy itself, transforming it from its ancient meaning as political rule by the people to designate a modern form of society – a new democracy that, counterintuitively, demanded the guidance of a capable few rather than the rule of all.
Democracy Tamed tells the story of how the earliest liberals deployed their notion of the “new democracy” to resist universal suffrage. But it also reveals how later liberals would utilize their predecessors’ antidemocratic concepts to merge liberal principles with political equality, first to imagine and then to safeguard liberal democracies as we have come to know them.
Peer-Reviewed Articles & Chapters:
"Georges Sorel's Tocqueville" (with Richard Boyd), History of Political Thought, Forthcoming.
"Tocqueville's Politics of Grandeur," Political Theory, 50.3 (2022): 477-503.
"'Not more democratic, but more moral': Tocqueville on the Suffrage in America and France," The Tocqueville Review/La revue Tocqueville, 42.2 (2021): 105-20.
"Usurpation and 'The Social' in Benjamin Constant's Commentaire," Modern Intellectual History, 17.1 (2020): 55-84.
"Despotic or Dynamic? Hayek on Democracy and Expertise" in Philosophy, Politics, and Austrian Economics, eds. D'Amico and Martin, (Emerald, 2020).
"'The Idea of Rights': Tocqueville on the Social Question," The Review of Politics, 79.4 (2017): 649-74.
"Liberty and Industry: John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and the Economic Foundations of Political Membership," Polity, 48.4 (2016): 551-579.
Selected Review Essays & Popular Writing:
Review of Annelien de Dijn's Freedom at H-Diplo
Introduction to Roundtable on Helena Rosenblatt's Lost History of Liberalism at H-Diplo
Isolation and Association: The Penitentiary System's Democratic Lessons at Tocqueville 21
French Liberals and the Capacity for Citizenship at JHI Blog
