Peer-Reviewed Articles
"Usurpation and 'The Social' in Benjamin Constant's Commentaire," Modern Intellectual History, Forthcoming.
"'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 Manuscript: Capacity for Democracy: French Liberalism and the Language of Citizenship (in progress)
My book focuses on the concept of "capacity" (capacité) for citizenship in French liberal thought. Capacity was an alternative to democratic political rights. Liberals argued that capacity ought to precede and confer political rights, as one had to prove "capable" to exercise the franchise. Only a capable citizenry, they urged, could maintain both stability and liberty in a post-revolutionary society.
In Capacity for Democracy, I consider how ideals of economic activity (property ownership, commercial engagement, and even individual industry) informed these ideas of capable citizenship, but argue that the standard of capacity was meant to evolve with changing economic and social circumstances. Capacity, then, was not tied to class or wealth, but to flexible ideals of economic and social participation. I engage the writings of Benjamin Constant, François Guizot, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Edouard Laboulaye, as well as the reception of J.S. Mill's writings in France, along with political debates and speeches. By examining these uses of capacity, I rewrite the history of the liberal tradition in nineteenth-century France. And I argue that capacity can continue to inform questions about the extension of democratic citizenship, both by alerting us to the persistence of "capacity" language in rights discourse and -- counterintuitively -- providing justification for a more inclusive vision of citizenship than traditional standards of either blood or birth.
Papers In Progress
"'Strangers to Public Life': Tocqueville and the Politics of the Working Classes"
"Political Capacity - A Liberal Language for Citizenship?"
Popular Writing
My review of Benjamin Constant's On Religion at Law & Liberty
French Liberals and the Capacity for Citizenship, a short piece at the blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas
"Usurpation and 'The Social' in Benjamin Constant's Commentaire," Modern Intellectual History, Forthcoming.
"'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 Manuscript: Capacity for Democracy: French Liberalism and the Language of Citizenship (in progress)
My book focuses on the concept of "capacity" (capacité) for citizenship in French liberal thought. Capacity was an alternative to democratic political rights. Liberals argued that capacity ought to precede and confer political rights, as one had to prove "capable" to exercise the franchise. Only a capable citizenry, they urged, could maintain both stability and liberty in a post-revolutionary society.
In Capacity for Democracy, I consider how ideals of economic activity (property ownership, commercial engagement, and even individual industry) informed these ideas of capable citizenship, but argue that the standard of capacity was meant to evolve with changing economic and social circumstances. Capacity, then, was not tied to class or wealth, but to flexible ideals of economic and social participation. I engage the writings of Benjamin Constant, François Guizot, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Edouard Laboulaye, as well as the reception of J.S. Mill's writings in France, along with political debates and speeches. By examining these uses of capacity, I rewrite the history of the liberal tradition in nineteenth-century France. And I argue that capacity can continue to inform questions about the extension of democratic citizenship, both by alerting us to the persistence of "capacity" language in rights discourse and -- counterintuitively -- providing justification for a more inclusive vision of citizenship than traditional standards of either blood or birth.
Papers In Progress
"'Strangers to Public Life': Tocqueville and the Politics of the Working Classes"
"Political Capacity - A Liberal Language for Citizenship?"
Popular Writing
My review of Benjamin Constant's On Religion at Law & Liberty
French Liberals and the Capacity for Citizenship, a short piece at the blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas
