Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The People's Two Powers

The People's Two Powers

Ghins, Arthur

Hardcover

Series: Ideas in Context

General Political Science

ISBN10: 1009688820
ISBN13: 9781009688826
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: Feb 19 2026
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.31
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The People's Two Powers revisits the emergence of democracy during the French Revolution and examines how French liberalism evolved in response. By focusing on two concepts often studied separately - public opinion and popular sovereignty - Arthur Ghins uncovers a significant historical shift in the understanding of democracy. Initially tied to the direct exercise of popular sovereignty by Rousseau, Condorcet, the Montagnards, and Bonapartist theorists, democracy was first rejected, then redefined by liberals as rule by public opinion throughout the nineteenth century. This redefinition culminated in the invention of the term 'liberal democracy' in France in the 1860s. Originally conceived in opposition to 'Caesarism' during the Second Empire, the term has an ongoing and important legacy, and was later redeployed by French liberals against shifting adversaries - 'totalitarianism' from the 1930s onward, and 'populism' since the 1980s.

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