The concept of citizenship in France from 1789 to Napoleon
My thesis argues that the French Revolution brought about the depoliticisation of the concept of citizenship. In 1789, citizenship was broadly conceived in two ways. One understanding of the concept, inherited from classical citizenship, consisted in having the power to participate in political life. It was an exclusive status held by an élite within the polity. The other had its roots in the expansion of citizenship under the Antonine Constitution of 212 and had more recently been employed by Jean Bodin. It consisted in the holding of a set of rights and duties in relation to the state and other citizens but implied no political role or power. It was also to be enjoyed equally and universally among all adult men. In my reading, the Revolution steadily elevated the latter conception over the former, before the more passive form of citizenship was finally enshrined in the legal order of the First French Empire. I focus on five factors that favoured the growing prominence of the Antonine discourse of citizenship. These were: the value of civic equality in eroding the case for noble and clerical privileges, the desire to limit political participation by foreclosing any deliberative role for the general public, a growing focus on moral character and rational thought as preconditions for citizenship, the use of the military as a kind of laboratory for remoulding society, and the development of a conception of nationality that emphasised the state’s role in determining the boundaries of Frenchness in place of the will of individual citizens to be French,. I then show how these factors converged in ‘Napoleonic’ citizenship, a model that we should take seriously as an important influence on citizenship today.
citizenship, France, French Revolution, liberty, Napoleon, political participation, rights
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