RETHINKING POLITICAL POWER: THE CASE OF THE FRENCH DOCTRINAIRES

RETHINKING POLITICAL POWER:
THE CASE OF THE FRENCH DOCTRINAIRES



AURELIAN CRAIUTU



Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Indiana University
210 Woodburn Hall
Bloomington, IN 47405
tel: (812) 855-8635
fax: (812) 855-2027
acraiutu@indiana.edu



Although the French doctrinaires built up one of the most important political theories of the
nineteenth-century and had a decisive influence on Tocqueville, Marx, and J. S. Mill, they
remain largely unknown in the English-speaking world. This paper examines the doctrinaires'
theory of political power by concentrating on François Guizot’s On the Means of Government
and Opposition (1821). Special attention is paid to Guizot’s critique of Rousseau and laissez-
faire liberalism and to his theory of "the new means of government." The paper argues that an
understanding of liberalism as a crusade to restrict state power amounts to a misreading of the
nature and dignity of political power. Guizot's theory of power goes beyond the ordinary
dichotomy small vs. big government to stress the importance of the communication between
government and society and the mutual empowerment of state and society. The paper also points
out the ways in which the rediscovery of the doctrinaires' ideas can heighten our awareness of the
internal diversity of liberalism and the multifarious dialects that have been spoken by liberal
thinkers over time.




Presented at the colloquium at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana
University, December 3, 2001
© Aurelian Craiutu, 2001

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RETHINKING POLITICAL POWER:
THE CASE OF THE FRENCH DOCTRINAIRES

I love power because I love struggle. (Guizot)

In lieu of introduction

Liberal thinkers have traditionally been skeptical toward political power and made "don't
cross the line" their ultimate battle cry against the state. This attitude has dominated the Anglo-
American liberal tradition and has deep roots that go back to Locke and the Declaration of
Independence. As a result, contemporary liberal political philosophers have concentrated first
and foremost on the protection of individual rights and autonomy against the encroachment of
the state, turning liberalism, to quote Benjamin Barber, into "a politics of negativity, which
enthrones not simply the individual but the individual defined by his perimeters, his parapets, and
his entrenched solitude" (Barber 1989, 59). In turn, contemporary political theory has become
identical with the search for a theory of rights and justice that specifies the basic liberties held by
free and equal citizens in a liberal state that is ostensibly neutral between competing conceptions
of the good life.
The French liberal tradition, with its emphasis on state power and its own version of
individualism and constitutionalism, poses a set of interesting challenges to this dominant view
and reminds us that political theory might have an agenda beyond the provision of a neutral grid
that allows self-governing and autonomous individuals to pursue their own conceptions of the
good life. In an interesting conversation with Steven Lukes, Isaiah Berlin said that what is truly
exciting is to read those who speak a different conceptual language than us because they can

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point to the weak points in our own theories and might suggest ways of correcting them.1 He was
right. At the risk of simplifying a diverse picture that includes writers as diverse as Bodin,
Montesquieu, Rousseau, Constant, Tocqueville, Foucault, Sartre, de Jouvenel, and Raymond
Aron, one might argue that French liberal thinkers have put forward novel ways of thinking about
liberty, government, and authority that may provide us with a more complete picture of our own
liberal principles. Furthermore, the unfamiliar guise in which these ideas were developed on the
Continent should renew our awareness of the diverse solutions individuals can devise for
enduring political dilemmas.
The French doctrinaires are, to use an unconventional metaphor, one of the last great
virgin forests in modern political theory. Given, their originality and importance as political
thinkers, it is surprising to note that they have been almost completely ignored in the English-
speaking world and that they have only recently been rediscovered in France after more than a
century of oblivion.2 The word doctrinaires initially referred to a small group of French liberals
who tried to break a middle ground in French politics during the Bourbon Restoration (1814-
1830) and the July Monarchy (1830-1848). The name was a misnomer because it given to them
in 1816 by a right-wing opponent, not for the alleged rigidity of their ideas, but because the
doctrinaires frequently referred to "principles" and "doctrines" in their speeches. The original
group included François Guizot (1787-1874), Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845), Prosper de

1 Berlin argued: "I am bored by reading people who are allies, people of roughly the same views,
because by now all these things seem largely to be a collection of platitudes because we all
accept them, we all believe them. What is interesting is to read the enemy, because the enemy
penetrates the defenses, the weak points, because what interests me is what is wrong with the
ideas in which I believe" (Berlin 1998, 90).
2 In France, the publication of Pierre Rosanvallon's Le moment Guizot in 1985 sparked a new
interest in the doctrinaires, more than fifty years after the publication of C.-H. Pouthas’ book on
Guizot (Pouthas 1923). The only attempt to discuss the doctrinaire liberalism as a whole was
made by the late Spanish historian Luis Diez del Corral, author of El liberalismo doctrinario,
1956. For other studies of the doctrinaires, see Jaume 1997, Roldán 1999, and Craiutu 1999a;
also see Siedentop 1979, 153-74; 1994, 20-40; 1997, vii-xxxvii. Two biographies of Guizot are
worth consulting: Johnson 1963 and de Broglie 1990. While throwing light on many aspects of
Guizot's life, Johnson’s book downplays the significance of his political thought.

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Barante (1782-1866), Victor de Broglie (1792-1867), Hercule de Serre (1776-1824) and Camille
Jordan (1771-1821). Other figures such as Charles de Rémusat (1797-1875), Jean-Philibert
Damiron (1794-1862), Theodore Jouffroy (1796-1842) and Pellegrino Rossi (1787-1848) joined
the original group later. The French doctrinaires played a crucial role in the history of nineteenth-
century French political thought, at a point in time when the legacy of the French Revolution was
strongly contested and the task of reconciling liberty and order was far from being completed. As
Ortega y Gasset once wrote, the doctrinaires thought "deeply and originally" about the most
important issues of French political life and "built up the most admirable political theory of the
entire century." They represented "an unusual case of intellectual responsibility that is of the
quality most lacking to European intellectuals since 1750" (y Gasset 1962, 60; 61).
More importantly, the doctrinaires developed, in the footsteps of Montesquieu, a
coherent sociological approach to political theory that highlighted the dependence of political
institutions on social order. Recent scholarship has shown that Tocqueville saw America through
the pre-existing conceptual lenses framed by the French doctrinaires and that he wrote his
masterpiece, Democracy in America, under their decisive influence. We cannot understand
Tocqueville's major themes and his sociological approach to democracy which made him famous
unless we first read Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe, the only book that Tocqueville
asked a friend to send him from France, a week after his arrival in America.3 Guizot also
influenced two other major nineteenth-century political thinkers: Karl Marx and J. S. Mill. Marx
borrowed from Guizot the idea of class struggle which appeared for the first time in Lecture VII
of Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe (1828). J. S. Mill's theory of liberty was indebted to
Guizot's theory of civilization and pluralism, above all to Guizot's idea that the essence of liberty

3 For more details on the doctrinaires’ influence on Tocqueville, see del Corral 1989; Siedentop
1994, 20-40; Craiutu 1999b. For Guizot's influence on Marx, see Siedentop 1997, xxxiii-xxxv. J.
S. Mill reviewed Guizot's History and praised the consistency, coherence, and
comprehensiveness of his historical vision (Mill 1985, 259). On J. S. Mill's debt to Guizot, also
see Varouxakis 1999.

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lies in the manifestation and simultaneous action of all interests, rights, powers, and social
elements.
The originality and importance of the political thought of the French doctrinaires can be
measured not only by their writings that cover topics in disciplines as diverse as politics,
philosophy, history, literature, and religion, but also by the multifarious challenges that they pose
to our traditional ways of thinking about liberalism, state power, representative government,
sovereignty, and democracy. For example, an English-speaking reader, educated in the tradition
of the Declaration of Independence and the spirit of the American Constitution, will be surprised
by the doctrinaires' reluctance to idolize individual rights, or by their nuanced critique of modern
individualism, while classical liberals will most likely struggle with the doctrinaires' theory of
government, that advocates a strong role for the state, in particular for the executive power.
Furthermore, the writings of the doctrinaires can enrich our understanding of classical liberalism
insofar as their political thought is critical of contract theory and laissez-faire, is based on a more
sociological and less economistic approach, shows how dignity can be restored to government,
and finally offers a unique theory of publicity and a new way of understanding the relationship
between government and social sphere.
In this essay, I concentrate on the theory of political power and the new means of
government developed by the most important member of the doctrinaires' group, François Guizot,
in On the Means of Government and Opposition in the Current State of France (1821), a seminal
yet unduly neglected book that has not been translated into English yet. Additional comments
will be made about Prosper de Barante’s On the Communes and the Aristocracy, published in the
same year (1821) and dealing with much the same set of ideas and problems. Written almost two
centuries ago, Guizot’s book offers a strikingly original reflection on power and modern society
and retains to this day a surprising freshness compared to many other books of the period. A true
manifesto of government, On the Means of Government and Opposition was hailed by a leading

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democratic theorist such as Claude Lefort4 as one of the best treatises on government ever
written; it appeals to those interested in such issues as political crafting, statesmanship, and the
mutual empowerment of state and society. Along with other writings published during the
Restoration, it established Guizot's reputation as one of the most astute theoreticians of executive
power and consolidated his unique place in the history of nineteenth-century French thought.
Guizot succeeded more than anyone else of his epoch in combining a literary, political,
academic, and religious career and was the author of a vast historical, political, literary, and
religious corpus that still awaits its translators and critics. Unlike Tocqueville and Constant, to
name just two of the most famous French political thinkers of the first half of nineteenth century,
Guizot was both an accomplished statesman and a major political thinker, a point that is essential
in understanding his political philosophy. As an article published in the famous Edinburgh
Review (CCXX, October 1858) argued, Guizot had no equal in giving "the authority of a minister
to the principles of a philosopher" and in him more than anyone else "the speculative genius of
the one was united to the practical authority of the other" (1858, 410).
Our foray into the history of nineteenth-century French political thought should also
make a more general contribution to the existing literature on liberalism. By reading and
reflecting on the writings of French liberals such as the doctrinaires, we can enlarge our
theoretical imagination, a vital prerequisite to the preservation of the rich liberal tradition.
Inspired by Berlin’s words quoted earlier, I argue that the rediscovery of important thinkers such
as Guizot should heighten our awareness of the internal diversity of liberalism, a topic that might
be of interest to contemporary liberals, who often tend to gloss over the multifarious dialects that
have been spoken by liberal thinkers over time. In particular, Guizot's theory of power invites us
to revisit the traditional interpretation of liberalism as exclusively anti-statist. On the Means of
Government and Opposition shows that an understanding of liberalism only as a crusade to

4 For more details, see Lefort 1988 and Manent 1994.

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restrict state power is inadequate and amounts to a misreading of the nature and dignity of
political power. Guizot's model goes beyond the ordinary of dichotomy small vs. big government
and highlights the importance of publicity and communication between state and society. As
such, Guizot ideas on power and society confirm the centrality of the issue of social legibility to
statecraft and shed light on the ways in which state and society are involved in a complex process
of mutual empowerment.5 Finally, the paper argues that the liberalism of the French doctrinaires
that was developed during a period of transition to parliamentary government might help us
rethink some of the dilemmas facing Eastern Europe today. In particular, Guizot’s writings
demonstrate that, during a transition period, building strong institutions appears to be just as
important as placing limits on power and that the state must be simultaneously liberalized and
strengthened. Guizot also predicted that the development of representative government would
inevitably lead to a considerable extension of state power over society, and grasped that this
extension was made possible by a social demand unseen before.

A new way of conceptualizing political power


As already mentioned, the doctrinaires played an active role in French political life and
espoused a pragmatic and realistic conception of government. Critical of their predecessors'
approach to government and political power, the French doctrinaires elaborated a theory of
government whose principles marked a significant departure from the previous attitude espoused
by eighteenth-century thinkers, who often spoke against power without having the opportunity to
participate directly in the government of society. Guizot and his fellow doctrinaires were keenly
aware of the daunting task facing their post-revolutionary generation: a new constitutional
regime was needed in order to end the Revolution and reconcile order and liberty. "We must
govern now," Guizot argued (1821, 21); in his view, this meant making new laws, building new

5 For more details on social legibility and state power, see Scott 1998.

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institutions, and finding a reasonable compromise between all social interests. To this effect, the
doctrinaires approached the problem of power and government in a different manner from their
English and French predecessors such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. They developed a new
conception of the relations between the political and the social: power is generated within the
social realm and cannot be conceived of as separated from the latter. Guizot's emphasis on the
need to study first society in order to understand the nature of its political institutions is a logical
outcome of this view. Furthermore, Guizot stressed the natural character of power and authority
and no longer worked within the framework of social contract theory and natural rights. He
argued that, contrary to what the defenders of the night-watchman-state paradigm believed,
political power properly exercised and properly limited should play a key role in building,
preserving, and strengthening any political community. In his opinion, there should be no a
priori opposition between individual liberties and state power properly exercised or between the
rights of the individual and the authority of the state.
Another important feature of Guizot’s approach to political power refers to the interplay
between social order and political institutions. In order to understand the nature of government,
Guizot claimed, one must first examine the social condition as illustrated by the mores, the
customs, the manner of life of individuals, the relations of the different classes, and the
distribution of property. "It is by the study of political institutions, Guizot wrote, "that most
writers have sought to understand the state of a society, the degree or type of its civilization. It
would have been wiser to study first the society itself in order to understand its political
institutions" (Guizot 1866, 73).

Guizot’s views on political power and sovereignty and his opposition to Rousseau's
political ideas illustrate the ways in which the doctrinaires parted company with their
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century predecessors who reflected on the same topics. The
doctrinaires rejected the fundamental principle of Rousseau’s political philosophy that equated

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liberty with man’s sovereignty over himself and refused to accept the idea that the only
legitimate law for every individual is one’s individual will.6 Guizot believed that both popular
sovereignty and the sovereignty of divine right were two different ways of usurping the
sovereignty of right that can belong only to reason, truth, and justice. In his view, it would be
mistaken to attribute to any individual or group an inherent right to sovereignty; instead,
legitimate sovereignty must be endlessly sought out and must remain subject to public scrutiny,
while all political actors and institutions must constantly strive to make their actions conform, as
much as possible, to the principles of reason, justice, and right. According to Guizot, the best
way of achieving this goal was to distinguish between de facto and de iure sovereignty and to
foster an "organized antagonism" that presupposed "the confrontation of independent and equal
powers capable of reciprocally imposing on each other the obligation of seeking the truth
together" (Guizot 1985, 343). None of these powers must ever be allowed to reign uncontrolled
or to become absolute to the point of stifling the development of others. Hence, pluralism and
constitutionalism ought to be instrumental in dividing and limiting de facto sovereignty and
achieving a reasonable compromise between competing social, economic, and political interests.
Pace Rousseau, Guizot claimed that the true contract which brings individuals together
and allows them to cooperate and live in peace can only be a "divine contract" that creates a new
form of political obligation to the laws of "reason, truth, and justice." For Guizot, Rousseau’s
social contract was both a figment of the imagination and a futile thought experiment because the
origins of society and government cannot be separated from each other. Government and society
appear at once, more precisely at the moment when individuals feel that they are united by bonds
that are not based on sheer force; hence, it would be meaningless to imagine a hypothetical
situation in which individuals living in an alleged state of nature come together and agree to form

6 For more details on Guizot’s critique of Rousseau, see Lecture X, Vol. II from Guizot’s History
of the Origins of Representative Government in Europe (Guizot 1861, 334-49) as well as his
unfinished treatise on sovereignty, Political Philosophy: On Sovereignty (1985).

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a government (Guizot 1985, 333). Furthermore, Guizot claimed that, by virtue of a natural law
sui generis, the bravest and the most skillful individuals always manage to assert their will and
rule over the entire society. This is tantamount to arguing that power is a natural phenomenon
that manifests and accompanies natural superiorities, that is to say, exquisite leadership skills,
abilities, and exceptional achievement. In other words, as long as no external or violent cause
occurs to upset the natural course of things, power will always be placed in the hands of those
who demonstrate the highest capacity (capacité)7 to exercise it and satisfy the common interest,
which amounts to saying that power would ineluctably be seized by the bravest and the cleverest.
It worth noting, though, that Guizot did not equate superior force with capacity and virtue. 8 The
upshot of this view is twofold. First, power and government do not--and cannot--arise out of a
social contract between individuals seeking to place their lives under the protection of a
sovereign. Second, the true origin of political obligation is the recognition of--and acquiescence
to--"natural superiorities," a theme that returns time and again in Guizot’s writings:
Power accompanies and reveals superiority. In making itself recognized, power
makes itself obeyed. ... This is the origin of power; there is no other. Power
would have never been born between equals. The superiority that is felt and
accepted represents the original and legitimate link in human societies; it is both
the fact and the right; it is the true and only social contract (Guizot 1821, 164).

As Pierre Manent remarks, Guizot's position is radical in the sense that it amounts to
asserting that the characteristics of human nature can be fully reconciled with the evolution of
history. In other words, for Guizot (as for Hegel) "history's authority is one with that of nature"
(Manent 1994, 99) and actually replaces it. Fact and right seem to coincide, and the evolution of

7 Guizot defined this concept as "the capacity to act according to reason, truth, and justice"
(Guizot 1861, 71). The concept of capacity also appears in the works of other nineteenth-century
liberals such as J. S. Mill, who argued for "the concession to others of a more potential voice, on
the ground of greater capacity for the management of joint interests" (Mill 1972, 288).
8 "Comment naît le pouvoir? À qui va-t-il comme par sa pente naturelle et de l'aveu de tous? Au
plus courageux, au plus habile, à celui qui se fait croire le plus capable de l'exercer, c'est-à-dire
de satisfaire à l'intérêt commun. Tant qu'aucune cause extérieure et violente ne vient déranger le
cours spontané des choses, c'est le brave qui commande, l'habile qui gouverne" (Guizot 1821,
163-4).

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