For more on my published work, see my CV.
Book Manuscript: Democracy Deferred: French Liberalism and The Politics of Suffrage
Does good democratic government require intelligent citizens? Educated ones? Moral ones? Productive ones? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish, even need, to have? With recent arguments “against democracy” and fears about the rise of populism, we are increasingly concerned about whether democracies can endure without competent participants – and for some, unsure that democracy is worth saving at all. Democracy Deferred examines answers to these questions from within the liberal tradition, specifically from a time when liberals resisted the progress of democracy. It traces the concept of “political capacity” (capacité politique), originally championed by nineteenth-century French liberals as an alternative to democratic political rights. Liberals argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands.
Democracy Deferred is both a conceptual history and a political theory of capacity. As a conceptual history, it traces capacity across key moments in the nineteenth-century and uncovers an overlooked liberalism post-1848 that advanced political democracy through the concept of capacity rather than against it. By examining writings and speeches by canonical thinkers Alexis de Tocqueville, Benjamin Constant, and François Guizot, and by lesser-known figures Edouard Laboulaye and Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, I argue that the language of capacity developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy. As a work of political theory, the book uses that history to identify capacity language within rights discourse (past and present) and intervenes in ongoing debates about the vitality of democracy. Though the idea of a “capable” citizenry is potentially exclusionary, the insights of liberals reveal how it can be used – counterintuitively – to support more inclusive democratic institutions.
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
"Usurpation and 'The Social' in Benjamin Constant's Commentaire," Modern Intellectual History, 17.1 (2020): 55-84.
"'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.
Book Chapters:
"Despotic or Dynamic? Hayek on Democracy and Expertise" in Philosophy, Politics, and Austrian Economics, ed. D'Amico and Martin, 2020.
Popular Writing:
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
My review of Benjamin Constant's On Religion at Law & Liberty
French Liberals and the Capacity for Citizenship at the blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas
Book Manuscript: Democracy Deferred: French Liberalism and The Politics of Suffrage
Does good democratic government require intelligent citizens? Educated ones? Moral ones? Productive ones? Can our political institutions educate the kind of citizens we wish, even need, to have? With recent arguments “against democracy” and fears about the rise of populism, we are increasingly concerned about whether democracies can endure without competent participants – and for some, unsure that democracy is worth saving at all. Democracy Deferred examines answers to these questions from within the liberal tradition, specifically from a time when liberals resisted the progress of democracy. It traces the concept of “political capacity” (capacité politique), originally championed by nineteenth-century French liberals as an alternative to democratic political rights. Liberals argued that voting rights should be limited to capable citizens who would preserve free, stable institutions against revolutionary passions and democratic demands.
Democracy Deferred is both a conceptual history and a political theory of capacity. As a conceptual history, it traces capacity across key moments in the nineteenth-century and uncovers an overlooked liberalism post-1848 that advanced political democracy through the concept of capacity rather than against it. By examining writings and speeches by canonical thinkers Alexis de Tocqueville, Benjamin Constant, and François Guizot, and by lesser-known figures Edouard Laboulaye and Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, I argue that the language of capacity developed alongside a changing society and economy, allowing liberals to embrace democracy. As a work of political theory, the book uses that history to identify capacity language within rights discourse (past and present) and intervenes in ongoing debates about the vitality of democracy. Though the idea of a “capable” citizenry is potentially exclusionary, the insights of liberals reveal how it can be used – counterintuitively – to support more inclusive democratic institutions.
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
"Usurpation and 'The Social' in Benjamin Constant's Commentaire," Modern Intellectual History, 17.1 (2020): 55-84.
"'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.
Book Chapters:
"Despotic or Dynamic? Hayek on Democracy and Expertise" in Philosophy, Politics, and Austrian Economics, ed. D'Amico and Martin, 2020.
Popular Writing:
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
My review of Benjamin Constant's On Religion at Law & Liberty
French Liberals and the Capacity for Citizenship at the blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas
