What can a French political philosopher from the 18th century teach us about current trends of democracy?
Théophile Pénigaud, a postdoctoral associate with the Institution for Social and Policy Studies’ (ISPS) Democratic Innovations program, wrote a book based on his Ph.D. thesis exploring the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Democratic Innovations aims to identify and test new ideas for improving the quality of democratic representation and governance.
We spoke with Pénigaud recently about his book, Rousseau, and how exploring the eve of our political modernity can help us understand today’s political polarization and growing trend to involve citizens more directly in decision-making.
ISPS: What inspired you to focus on Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
Théophile Pénigaud: In France, where I’m from, Rousseau is arguably the most famous political philosopher. He is widely credited with inspiring the French Revolution and is confidently one of its most explicit intellectual sources. All sides drew on its verve and authority to make their cases. Of course, I had read Rousseau early in my studies. When I felt the need to go back to the source and examine the principle of popular sovereignty, turning to Rousseau was almost a conditioned reflex.
ISPS: OK, but why now? Rousseau died in 1778. What can his philosophy tell us about today’s political climate?
TP: What motivated me to focus on his writing for my Ph.D. thesis were two fairly recent events. The first was in 2005, when the French people rejected the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE). At that time, I thought that “the world of the citizen” — to borrow an expression from the French historian Jean-Claude Nicolet — had become remarkably complicated and unworkable.
ISPS: What do you mean? Wasn’t it a good thing to put such an important subject to a referendum?
TP: Yes, the fact that we were invited as citizens to have a say was great progress and something I would praise in theory. But the way it was organized and publicly debated at the time was far from ideal. It felt like we were helpless. My immediate impression was that something was going wrong in modern democracy. Even when we were given a chance to weigh in on public affairs, the reasons for and against the measures were too diverse for the referendum’s outcome to make sense at all.
ISPS: Why? What was missing?
TP: It was direct democracy, but without meaningful deliberation. Many misunderstandings accumulated. First, between the elites and the people, as the major parties universally praised the TCE. Paradoxically, this very consensus bred distrust. This lack of trust is also a matter of complexity. When you are asked to approve a treaty with stakes that surpass your understanding — and it is a point of no return — you become suspicious. But even among voters, reasons for and against happened to be incommensurable. Some rejected the treaty not because they didn’t want a constitution for Europe, but to the contrary, because they wanted more than an economic partnership. The “no” did not have a consistent meaning. Finally, elected elites enacted the Lisbon Treaty two years later, seemingly circumventing the people’s sovereignty.
ISPS: I see. Let’s get back to that. What was the second event that drew you to Rousseau?
TP: The second event was the global financial crisis in 2008, which I felt fostered a feeling of political alienation and disempowerment among the citizenry. Once again, seemingly appropriate measures were enacted technocratically. But it still felt as if citizens were collateral damage in an economic and financial system that most didn’t understand, with an underlying sense of intolerable inequalities. In the aftermath, Occupy Wall Street in the United States and similar movements to address inequality and rein in corporate greed burgeoned in Spain, France and elsewhere. But they lacked any institutional support. They were too diffuse. Again, something was missing.
ISPS: Which brings us to Rousseau.
TP: Right. One important aspect of Rousseau’s political philosophy is that he rehabilitated the people’s ability to exercise sovereignty, not only in theory but in practice. He wrote that sovereignty does not merely originate from the people — it is inseparable from them. Rousseau was not hostile — as is sometimes assumed — to collective deliberations preceding votes. But only to political subtleties and manipulative leadership.
ISPS: And you see his imprint today in the growing popularity of citizens’ assemblies — deliberative bodies chosen by lottery intended to bolster public confidence in democracy and enhance policymaking.
TP: Rousseau is a famously uncategorizable thinker. But yes. If I had to put him into a category, I would say that I see Rousseau as less the forerunner of modern democracy than of the enduring practice of popular assemblies and citizens’ initiatives across the world.
ISPS: And this perspective is something you came to understand in researching your book, right?
TP: That’s correct. The Rousseau I expected to find when I began wasn’t there. The Rousseau I had learned about in my earlier education was a man mostly seen through the lens of the French Revolution and its interpretation in later political theory. This interpretation is important, but I’ve concluded that we should not approach Rousseau’s political philosophy from the context of the 1789 revolution but rather that of 1707. That is, in the context of the bourgeoisie’s struggles for sovereignty in Geneva, the French-speaking Swiss city where he was from.
