Books by Minchul Kim
In the contemporary landscape, the destiny of democracy appears to be navigating divergent trajec... more In the contemporary landscape, the destiny of democracy appears to be navigating divergent trajectories. On the one hand, democracy stands on the brink of achieving universal ascendancy. The modifier ‘anti-democratic’ conveys connotations of scorn and aversion, as even autocratic leaders lay claim to democratic governance. On the other hand, pervasive concerns regarding the precarious state of democratic institutions extend beyond the so-called ‘fully developed democracies’, while even these entities remain susceptible to the allure of populism and the spectre of fascism. Calls for substantive transformation to rectify the vulnerabilities inherent in democratic systems are not uncommon. Amid this interplay of sanguine and despondent perspectives, a Korean publication has emerged, offering a lucid historical treatment of democratic paradigms: Minchul Kim’s An intellectual history of democracy.
Published by the esteemed publisher Changbi and released in May 2023, this book is divided into two main parts. The initial chapter introduces the concept of democracy, emphasising the distinction between sovereignty and governance. The first part, titled ‘Anything but democracy’, spans from Antiquity to the early stages of the French Revolution. The second part, ‘Democracy revisited’, focuses on the period during and after the French Revolution. The author’s unique approach becomes apparent as the narrative unfolds. Notably, the book does not extensively cover ancient Athens or the modern USA, both of which are often considered quintessential examples of democracy. Instead, most of the book – chapters 3 to 10 – delves into European political thought from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. Rather than tracing democracy’s lineage and precursors, the author investigates the reasons behind criticism and rejection of democracy by intellectuals and politicians in different eras and traditions. These rejections of democracy, aligned with the prevailing standards of their respective times and ideological contexts, form the focal point of the exploration.
What underlies the author’s adoption of this particular approach is the urge to contextualise the concept of democracy. Upon reviewing the historical critiques, it becomes evident that democracy was not an isolated construct, but rather an integral component of a broader analytical framework employed to expound upon the functioning of states and political entities. Chapters 3 to 6 succinctly encapsulate the intellectual output often associated with the Cambridge School of Intellectual History during the past five decades. Through the convergence of distinct ideological currents in the Early Modern period, the parlance of European political discourse attained heightened sophistication and intricacy. The author adeptly reveals the causative factors and mechanisms that facilitated this linguistic unfolding, culminating in perspectives that cast democracy as an ill-suited and perilous political arrangement.
How could a rationale favouring democracy emerge from a foundation so staunchly anti-democratic? The answer lies within Part II, particularly in the section that expounds on the thought and actions of the ‘democrats’ during the French Revolution. These democrats engaged in a point-by-point rebuttal of the anti-democratic thesis, introducing the novel concept of ‘representative democracy’, a notion far from being universally acknowledged at the time. This endeavour expanded the horizons of democracy significantly. Chapters 8 and 9, deserving of repeated contemplation, meticulously reconstruct the transformative journey in which democracy transcended its rudimentary expression of people’s political abilities, evolving into a ‘modern’ political model encompassing intricate socio-political and economic dimensions. Naturally, this evolution did not guarantee democracy’s unqualified triumph. The concluding chapter of the book succinctly outlines the nineteenth-century liberals’ process of formulating the idea of ‘liberal democracy’, a construct that effectively eclipsed the radical perspectives inherent in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conception of democratic governance.
An intellectual history of democracy explores a wide array of complex topics, which cannot easily be boiled down to a single summary. Nonetheless, the book effectively presents these topics in a clear and engaging manner. The author uses straightforward language to bring together various strands from the forefront of academic research, making the book accessible and interesting to a diverse readership, from newcomers to seasoned researchers and individuals interested in politics. This book is a timeless read that offers the opportunity to discover new elements to feed into our everyday political and historical reflections.
– review by Woochang Lee, published in the Voltaire Foundation blog at https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/2023/09/14/minchul-kims-intellectual-history-of-democracy-and-the-french-revolution/
Articles by Minchul Kim
History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 2025
This article offers a fresh analysis of Olbie (1798), a frequently overlooked essay by the French... more This article offers a fresh analysis of Olbie (1798), a frequently overlooked essay by the French author and economist Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832). It positions Olbie as a central text for comprehending Say's political thought and situates it within the wider historical context, in particular French republicanism during the 1790s. In doing so, the article argues against interpretations that read Olbie as a pioneer in placing economics before morals and politics. Instead, this article stresses the eighteenth-century understandings of ‘political economy’ that integrated economy and morals. Say's story of Olbios, on this reading, is a testament to the binding presence of eighteenth-century and French revolutionary political economy that considered mœurs as the primary factor connecting and controlling the politics and economics of a society conceived as an organic body. Olbie, then, is a republican version of political economy, a society of an exquisite system of non-monetary rewards and punishments to establish and maintain republican mœurs through a hierarchy of merit and virtue. Placed in its historical context, Olbie’s incentive-design approach does not represent the first case of its kind, nor is it purely economic in nature. Instead, it embodies revolutionary republicanism that draws on a utopian form, trying to depict an ideal republic, one intended to provide a more practical framework for addressing the challenges faced by reformers in the 1790s. In conclusion, this article underscores the rich ideological tapestry woven into Say's Olbie, shedding light on its historical position within the broader landscape of political and economic thought during the French Revolution.
French Studies Bulletin, Jul 1, 2024
"This study of an eighteenth-century abolitionist deputy from Bordeaux aims to open a path toward... more "This study of an eighteenth-century abolitionist deputy from Bordeaux aims to open a path towards a re-articulation of the relationship between the economy, politics, and moral discourse in revolutionary times."
Journal of the History of Ideas, May 3, 2024
This article proposes a reading of Sophie de Grouchy’s moral, political, and economic thought as ... more This article proposes a reading of Sophie de Grouchy’s moral, political, and economic thought as embedded in the tradition of natural jurisprudence, adapted to the context of the French First Republic. A close reading of her French translation of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments and her eight Letters on Sympathy confirms that there are points to be made by reading her works in the context of the language of early modern natural law. This sheds light on the important question of how to read revolutionary republicanism emanating from multiple traditions other than the neo-Roman discourse of non-domination.
The Historian, Jan 11, 2024
During the French Revolution, both advocates of a constitutional monarchy and proponents of a rep... more During the French Revolution, both advocates of a constitutional monarchy and proponents of a representative republic firmly rejected “democracy,” considering it not merely as an impractical but also as an undesirable form of governance for modern France. However, the rationale and methods employed in opposing and evading “democracy” remain insufficiently elucidated. Historical understanding of this rejection of democracy can be refined significantly if careful attention is paid to preventing the conflation of past terminology with that of our current era. Instead of lamenting the mystic empty core of democracy and the absence of representative principles therein, this article endeavors to approach the eighteenth-century and revolutionary dichotomy of democracy and representation through a historical lens, incorporating insights from the history of historiography. This analysis of representative government theorists seeks to illuminate their apprehensions and aversion to democracy, as well as their conceptualization of a viable path toward liberty under modern conditions. Two strands of thought in revolutionary France will be sketched out that locate the hope for liberty either in the model of British monarchy or in the French revolutionary republic neither monarchical nor democratic. This study thereby attempts to show why and how the notion of representative government was pitted against that of democracy in the French Revolution.
History of Political Thought, Nov 23, 2022
The French Directory (1795–1799) was held up in a deadlock amidst the revolutionary wars, economi... more The French Directory (1795–1799) was held up in a deadlock amidst the revolutionary wars, economic meltdown and electoral chaos. The democrats among the radical republicans devised plans to break this deadlock and steer France and Europe towards the 'democratic republic', which they regarded as the one correct means of genuinely ending the French Revolution. To present a case study of this democratic thought during the Directory, close attention is paid in this article to the political arguments deployed by the erudite Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Chaussard. His thoughts penetrate the heart of revolutionary theorizing about democratic manners, politics and political economy in surprising detail. Situated in the context of eighteenth-century Europe, where democracy was considered to be the least feasible form of government due to the passion-ridden nature of man and the character of the rising commercial society, Chaussard's political economy demonstrated the existence of a manifest revolutionary link to the Enlightenment debates on political economy and on the prospect of liberty in a world marred by war and jealousy of trade. This study shows that formulating democratic thought in the face of the predicaments of a republic at war was not simply about giving the vote to the people. To make the argument for 'democracy' persuasive in a situation in which it would have been easily regarded as political and moral insanity, Chaussard invoked and refined Europe's republican perception of man, history and government transmitted through the preceding centuries and transformed under the Revolution.
Annales historiques de la Révolution française, Jun 2019
Les études sur la théorie de la « démocratie représentative » sous le Directoire corrigent les dé... more Les études sur la théorie de la « démocratie représentative » sous le Directoire corrigent les défauts de l’ancienne thèse selon laquelle la Révolution française ne saurait résoudre l’énigme de l’opposition entre la « démocratie » et le « gouvernement représentatif », même théoriquement. Pierre-Antoine Antonelle en est l’un des personnages principaux, mais d’autres démocrates jouent aussi un rôle important. Le cas d’Antoine Français de Nantes de l’an VI est significatif car il adopte une stratégie discursive différente de celle d’Antonelle afin de promouvoir une vision démocratique de la constitution, de l’économie politique et du champ politique réunis sous la bannière ennemie du « gouvernement représentatif ». Pour convaincre l’opinion modérée et élargir le terrain de la « république démocratique », Français de Nantes tente de redéfinir et de radicaliser le terme « gouvernement représentatif » et donc de soutenir sa vision de la « démocratie » sans défendre le terme explicitement. Cet article a pour but de démontrer que le républicanisme de Français de Nantes, héritier à la fois des Lumières et de la Révolution, fournit une piste importante pour mieux comprendre la diversité des stratégies adoptées par les démocrates.
European History Quarterly, Apr 5, 2019
Democracy was in the margins both as an idea and as a political force in the eighteenth century. ... more Democracy was in the margins both as an idea and as a political force in the eighteenth century. Even in the 1790s, ‘democracy’ was hardly the defining notion of the revolutionaries’ political visions. The small states as much as the large states perceived democracy as an outmoded legacy of antiquity leading to anarchy and despotism, inapplicable not least because it was undesirable in the modern world in which commerce was a rising force. This article tells the story of how this changed, how the understanding of ‘democracy’ was transformed during the French Revolution to represent a viable transition mechanism to a state of widespread and durable liberty. To avoid a teleological approach in the process of this analysis, this article examines the works of Condorcet on modern democracy in the context of the predicaments of the eighteenth century and the French revolutionary decade: how to avert at the same time despotism, military government and popular anarchy; and how to establish a free and stable state on the basis of modern commercial society? The history of the French Revolution is hereby placed in dialogue with that of eighteenth-century political and intellectual history. The effect is that a fresh picture of the entirety of Condorcet’s political vision emerges as his idea of democracy is studied from the viewpoint of his historical sensitivity, political economy, constitutional theory and international thoughts. In the end, Condorcet was the thinker who most significantly and prominently contributed to the post-1789 emergence of the concept of ‘democracy’ – which had thitherto been considered as the political form inevitably leading to destructive anarchy and despotic Caesarism – as a viable pathway to stability and prosperity.
La Révolution française: Cahiers de l'IHRF, Dec 2018
Thèse soutenue par Minchul Kim et dirigée par M. le Professeur Richard Whatmore (Université St An... more Thèse soutenue par Minchul Kim et dirigée par M. le Professeur Richard Whatmore (Université St Andrews, IIH, History). Le Jury était composé de M. le Professeur James A. Harris (juré interne, St Andrews, IIH, Philosophy) et M. le Professeur Pierre Serna (juré externe, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, IHRF/IHMC).
French Studies Bulletin, Dec 2018
The ‘Enlightened narrative’ of eighteenth-century historiography had always been connected to the... more The ‘Enlightened narrative’ of eighteenth-century historiography had always been connected to the political concern of decline and fall, and Volney’s Leçons amounted to a frustrated yet optimistic post-Thermidorian restatement of that historiography. What was proffered in the Leçons was a counter-Terror programme for the Moderns against the Ancients, à la Benjamin Constant decades before De la liberté des Anciens comparée à celle des Modernes was delivered at the Athénée royal de Paris in 1819. Historical methodology was important for Volney because he deemed it key to averting another Terror, which was considered at the time to be concurrent with ‘democracy’ or popular government, a political anachronism that confounded the social conditions of the Moderns with those of the Ancients. Volney’s Leçons belonged undeniably to the republican search for durable liberty established upon the rejection of both aristocratic ‘despotism’ and democratic ‘anarchy’ ...
French Studies, Oct 2018
The radical ideas of the French Revolution are generally regarded as the offspring of the theory ... more The radical ideas of the French Revolution are generally regarded as the offspring of the theory of social contract. However, even though the Revolutionaries cherished Rousseau’s legacy, the period was not without instances in which this legacy could be subject to variation and the notion of social contract could be attributed, in a decidedly negative tone, less to Rousseau than to Hobbes. In this context, the present study of Jean-Baptiste Salaville’s L’Homme et la société, ou nouvelle théorie de la nature humaine et de l’état social (1799) demonstrates that the idea of natural sociability could provide an opportunity to elaborate a radical republican future without the notion of social contract. Salaville’s political vision, built on the tradition of natural jurisprudence, posited a new idea of the general will and empiricist legislation in the last days of the French Revolution.
Journal of the History of Ideas, Apr 2018
The republican dream of constitutional perfection assumed that man could not be trusted with powe... more The republican dream of constitutional perfection assumed that man could not be trusted with power. Mere avoidance of monarchy was insufficient, and the underlying dilemma of the Revolution was manifest: the dynamics between law and passions dictated that representative institutions themselves could be given neither full confidence nor complete distrust. At this point, the dilemma of The Ruins is also clear. The fate of the state depended on both the society and the individuals, since a state could prosper only upon its citizens’ virtuous manners, but these were men whose natures were also guided by passions. Eighteenth-century political thought was predicated upon the view that all republics eventually failed because of cupidity, and history seemed to prove the vulnerability of republics in large commercial states. Particularly, as the war progressed, it seemed that the French state would either succumb to the coalition of foreign powers or become a belligerent empire under a military government. For French republicans, the former option had to be avoided at all costs; but the latter was no better, as such a prospect had been dreaded throughout the century as the horrifying vision of “universal monarchy.” How could the large, commercial republic stave off the apparently imminent catastrophe?
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Situating Volney within his century’s anxieties about the prospect of modern liberty yields a larger picture of Enlightenment historiography and the French Revolution. His concerns about the threats of the cycle of history and the vicissitudes of civilizations, and his search for a way to build a free and stable government fit for modern France are significant because they show how the well-traveled French philosophe, building on the intellectual tradition of the eighteenth century, negotiated his journey, at once hopeful and distressed, through the last days of the Old Regime and the early days of the Revolution. By examining Volney’s political pamphlet, travelogue, and conjectural history together, this essay has offered a newly contextualized reading of his works. This reading provides a way to see how revolutionary thought was rooted in the historical concerns of the eighteenth century. The merit of this approach lies in the warning it issues against adopting binary categories that can easily populate the historiography of an event as immense and contested as the French Revolution. In a telling way, the author of The Ruins did not make simplistic choices between the “radical” and the “moderate,” between “conservatism” and “progressivism,” or between “republicanism” and “royalism”; he approached the predicament of his time through historical thinking, not as a disciplinary practice but as a mode of navigating through the vast complexity of social, political, and international relations in an age of commerce, war, and revolutions.
History of European Ideas, Apr 2018
This article examines the political thought of Pierre-Antoine Antonelle, a prominent democrat dur... more This article examines the political thought of Pierre-Antoine Antonelle, a prominent democrat during the French Revolution. In pamphlets and newspaper articles between 1795 and 1799 he put forth an elaborate theory of 'representative democracy' which was a novel and radical vision of political reform and republican international order. His political and economic plan for a democratic future was focused on conceptualizing a realistic transition path to a genuinely republican society. In the wake of historians who pointed out the existence and importance of the idea of 'representative democracy' during the Directory, this article delves into the content of this idea by placing it in the context of Antonelle and his fellow travellers' political struggle to consolidate the Republic while avoiding both anarchy and aristocracy.
French History, Sep 2016
This article examines Bertrand Barère’s Montesquieu peint d’après ses ouvrages (1797) within the ... more This article examines Bertrand Barère’s Montesquieu peint d’après ses ouvrages (1797) within the context of the speculations on the future of modernity in the political thought of the eighteenth century and the French Revolution. Broadly, Barère’s work contained three arguments: Montesquieu had been a covert republican forced to conceal his candid thoughts; Montes-quieu had been wrong to despair about the future of large republics; The Spirit of Laws needed to be used as a guide for the political leaders of the French First Republic. Rescued from the narrow context of political inten-tions and placed in a wider intellectual context, Barère’s critical reading of Montesquieu demonstrates the importance of the notions of military dictatorship and commercial capacity in revolutionary political thought.
Articles in Korean by Minchul Kim
프랑스사 연구, Feb 28, 2023
journal article published in Korean - 1799년 11월 9일, 시에예스와 나폴레옹 보나파르트의 무월 18일 정변
Les 9 et 10 nove... more journal article published in Korean - 1799년 11월 9일, 시에예스와 나폴레옹 보나파르트의 무월 18일 정변
Les 9 et 10 novembre 1799, Sieyès et Bonaparte s’emparent du pouvoir par un coup d’État prémédité. Ils renversent le Directoire et établissent le Consulat avec la Constitution de l’an VIII. Il ne fallut pas longtemps avant que Sieyès perde le pouvoir et que Bonaparte prenne possession du trône impérial passant par la position du consul républicain sous le nom de Napoléon Ier. Communément appelé le « coup d’État du 18 brumaire », cet événement a longtemps été considéré comme la chute prévue d’un gouvernement incompétent et chaotique. Cependant une telle vision s’avère très biaisée en ce qu’elle accepte pour argent comptant uniquement le point de vue des vainqueurs. Dans cette optique, cette étude vise à identifier la nature du coup d’État en prenant en considération le développement de l’événement lui-même et les évaluations de celui-ci par divers groupes politiques.
Letters of Catherine the Great, 2022
Introduction to the Korean translation of Catherine II's letters to Voltaire, D'Alembert, etc.
프랑스사 연구, Feb 28, 2022
journal article published in Korean - 18세기 상업의 사회사 : 프랑스의 해상무역과 상인들의 세계 Eighteenth-century French... more journal article published in Korean - 18세기 상업의 사회사 : 프랑스의 해상무역과 상인들의 세계 Eighteenth-century French commerce provides us with a window onto the potentials of socioeconomic history in the context of the rise of ‘global history’. With a view to offering such a window, this study puts forth an overview of the socioeconomic historiography of French overseas commerce by looking at the most significant port cities of the century: Nantes, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Marseille and more. The prime focus of this story is the entrepreneurs and workers at sea involved in maritime commerce including slave trade. Of particular importance are their business strategies and their reactions to the challenges brought about by the French revolutionary wars and the abolition of slave trade at the end of the century. Moving beyond the Atlantic to cover the Mediterranean and the Indian oceans and the North Sea, this study puts the dynamic forces of eighteenth-century French economy on view. // Le commerce français du XVIIIe siècle nous laisse entrevoir le potentiel de l’histoire socio-économique dans le contexte de l’essor récent de l’«histoire globale». Dans cette optique, cette étude se propose un panorama de l’historiographie socio-économique du commerce de la France d’outre-mer en s’intéressant aux villes portuaires les plus marquantes du siècle: Nantes, Bordeaux, La Rochelle et Marseille. Cette histoire a pour l’objet principal les entrepreneurs et les travailleurs en mer dépendant du commerce maritime, y compris le commerce d’esclaves. Une importance particulière se trouvera dans leurs stratégies commerciales et leurs réactions contre les défis relevés par les guerres révolutionnaires françaises et l’abolition de la traite des esclaves de la fin du siècle. Au-delà de l’Atlantique passant par la Méditerranée, allant jusqu’à l’océan Indien et la mer du Nord, cette étude vise à mettre en relief la dynamique de l’économie française du XVIIIe siècle.
사림, Oct 2021
journal article published in Korean - 프랑스혁명에 대한 결산으로서의 19세기 정치사상
The dominant intellectual curre... more journal article published in Korean - 프랑스혁명에 대한 결산으로서의 19세기 정치사상
The dominant intellectual currents of nineteenth-century Europe such as liberalism or socialism emerged less from the linear development of traditions stretching far back to their putative origins in antiquity or the Middle Ages than from the shockwaves of the French Revolution. Thus in the nineteenth century the dividing lines between political positions were drawn according to a variety of assessments of the political and social experiments of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This means that the lines were drawn in response to what were perceived to be the necessary transition mechanisms to progressively reach a future of liberty and welfare without a re-run of the preceding century’s revolutionary upheavals and wars. This prospect is unfolded in this paper through the examination of various nineteenth-century intellectuals including Cuoco, Maréchal, Saint-Simon, Comte, Guizot, Tocqueville, Mill and Constant.
역사교육, Sep 2021
journal article published in Korean - 근대 초기 유럽 자연법의 세계관과 정치사상
Natural jurisprudence was one of t... more journal article published in Korean - 근대 초기 유럽 자연법의 세계관과 정치사상
Natural jurisprudence was one of the most important intellectual traditions, along with republicanism, that weighed upon early modern European thought. If Republicans were concerned with popular Libertas and the health of states, the self-imposed task of natural lawyers was to find out what, in God’s or Reason’s eyes, was right and what was wrong. To live freely in a dynamic society was the goal of republican thought, whereas the priority of natural jurisprudence was to lead a peaceful life in a just society ruled by law. To understand the latter tradition in historical terms, one must grasp its Christian roots and moral worldview. Beyond the post-Enlightenment and French revolutionary concepts of natural rights and democracy appropriated by reformers, this article delineates the basic tenets of natural law from a historical perspective, dealing with its most crucial components such as duties and rights, human nature, social design, and political thought.
역사비평, May 2020
journal article published in Korean - 루소의 사회계약 이론에 대한 역사적 독해
What did Rousseau have to say in hi... more journal article published in Korean - 루소의 사회계약 이론에 대한 역사적 독해
What did Rousseau have to say in his treatise on social contract? This article approaches this question by focusing on the eighteenth-century intellectuals’ predicaments and re-reading the Social Contract. Four points of interpretation therefrom arises: 1) The Western civilization, weakened by the effeminate effects of commerce, will fall due to internal corruption and the invasion from the East. 2) It is nearly impossible for men to live freely in society, whatever the form of government: be it monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. 3) The extremely dim prospect of such a free society is found in small agricultural states where the people have never been exposed to corrupt laws and the land is distributed more or less equally. 4) Such societies, however, would easily fall prey to the military conquest of stronger states driven by commerce. Therefore, as regards the prospect of liberty in reality according to Rousseau, despair awaited humanity. The interpretation of Rousseau’s political thought proposed in this article has the merit of avoiding anachronistic presentism and reaching a conclusion faithful to the historical context.
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Books by Minchul Kim
Published by the esteemed publisher Changbi and released in May 2023, this book is divided into two main parts. The initial chapter introduces the concept of democracy, emphasising the distinction between sovereignty and governance. The first part, titled ‘Anything but democracy’, spans from Antiquity to the early stages of the French Revolution. The second part, ‘Democracy revisited’, focuses on the period during and after the French Revolution. The author’s unique approach becomes apparent as the narrative unfolds. Notably, the book does not extensively cover ancient Athens or the modern USA, both of which are often considered quintessential examples of democracy. Instead, most of the book – chapters 3 to 10 – delves into European political thought from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. Rather than tracing democracy’s lineage and precursors, the author investigates the reasons behind criticism and rejection of democracy by intellectuals and politicians in different eras and traditions. These rejections of democracy, aligned with the prevailing standards of their respective times and ideological contexts, form the focal point of the exploration.
What underlies the author’s adoption of this particular approach is the urge to contextualise the concept of democracy. Upon reviewing the historical critiques, it becomes evident that democracy was not an isolated construct, but rather an integral component of a broader analytical framework employed to expound upon the functioning of states and political entities. Chapters 3 to 6 succinctly encapsulate the intellectual output often associated with the Cambridge School of Intellectual History during the past five decades. Through the convergence of distinct ideological currents in the Early Modern period, the parlance of European political discourse attained heightened sophistication and intricacy. The author adeptly reveals the causative factors and mechanisms that facilitated this linguistic unfolding, culminating in perspectives that cast democracy as an ill-suited and perilous political arrangement.
How could a rationale favouring democracy emerge from a foundation so staunchly anti-democratic? The answer lies within Part II, particularly in the section that expounds on the thought and actions of the ‘democrats’ during the French Revolution. These democrats engaged in a point-by-point rebuttal of the anti-democratic thesis, introducing the novel concept of ‘representative democracy’, a notion far from being universally acknowledged at the time. This endeavour expanded the horizons of democracy significantly. Chapters 8 and 9, deserving of repeated contemplation, meticulously reconstruct the transformative journey in which democracy transcended its rudimentary expression of people’s political abilities, evolving into a ‘modern’ political model encompassing intricate socio-political and economic dimensions. Naturally, this evolution did not guarantee democracy’s unqualified triumph. The concluding chapter of the book succinctly outlines the nineteenth-century liberals’ process of formulating the idea of ‘liberal democracy’, a construct that effectively eclipsed the radical perspectives inherent in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conception of democratic governance.
An intellectual history of democracy explores a wide array of complex topics, which cannot easily be boiled down to a single summary. Nonetheless, the book effectively presents these topics in a clear and engaging manner. The author uses straightforward language to bring together various strands from the forefront of academic research, making the book accessible and interesting to a diverse readership, from newcomers to seasoned researchers and individuals interested in politics. This book is a timeless read that offers the opportunity to discover new elements to feed into our everyday political and historical reflections.
– review by Woochang Lee, published in the Voltaire Foundation blog at https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/2023/09/14/minchul-kims-intellectual-history-of-democracy-and-the-french-revolution/
Articles by Minchul Kim
---------------
Situating Volney within his century’s anxieties about the prospect of modern liberty yields a larger picture of Enlightenment historiography and the French Revolution. His concerns about the threats of the cycle of history and the vicissitudes of civilizations, and his search for a way to build a free and stable government fit for modern France are significant because they show how the well-traveled French philosophe, building on the intellectual tradition of the eighteenth century, negotiated his journey, at once hopeful and distressed, through the last days of the Old Regime and the early days of the Revolution. By examining Volney’s political pamphlet, travelogue, and conjectural history together, this essay has offered a newly contextualized reading of his works. This reading provides a way to see how revolutionary thought was rooted in the historical concerns of the eighteenth century. The merit of this approach lies in the warning it issues against adopting binary categories that can easily populate the historiography of an event as immense and contested as the French Revolution. In a telling way, the author of The Ruins did not make simplistic choices between the “radical” and the “moderate,” between “conservatism” and “progressivism,” or between “republicanism” and “royalism”; he approached the predicament of his time through historical thinking, not as a disciplinary practice but as a mode of navigating through the vast complexity of social, political, and international relations in an age of commerce, war, and revolutions.
Articles in Korean by Minchul Kim
Les 9 et 10 novembre 1799, Sieyès et Bonaparte s’emparent du pouvoir par un coup d’État prémédité. Ils renversent le Directoire et établissent le Consulat avec la Constitution de l’an VIII. Il ne fallut pas longtemps avant que Sieyès perde le pouvoir et que Bonaparte prenne possession du trône impérial passant par la position du consul républicain sous le nom de Napoléon Ier. Communément appelé le « coup d’État du 18 brumaire », cet événement a longtemps été considéré comme la chute prévue d’un gouvernement incompétent et chaotique. Cependant une telle vision s’avère très biaisée en ce qu’elle accepte pour argent comptant uniquement le point de vue des vainqueurs. Dans cette optique, cette étude vise à identifier la nature du coup d’État en prenant en considération le développement de l’événement lui-même et les évaluations de celui-ci par divers groupes politiques.
The dominant intellectual currents of nineteenth-century Europe such as liberalism or socialism emerged less from the linear development of traditions stretching far back to their putative origins in antiquity or the Middle Ages than from the shockwaves of the French Revolution. Thus in the nineteenth century the dividing lines between political positions were drawn according to a variety of assessments of the political and social experiments of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This means that the lines were drawn in response to what were perceived to be the necessary transition mechanisms to progressively reach a future of liberty and welfare without a re-run of the preceding century’s revolutionary upheavals and wars. This prospect is unfolded in this paper through the examination of various nineteenth-century intellectuals including Cuoco, Maréchal, Saint-Simon, Comte, Guizot, Tocqueville, Mill and Constant.
Natural jurisprudence was one of the most important intellectual traditions, along with republicanism, that weighed upon early modern European thought. If Republicans were concerned with popular Libertas and the health of states, the self-imposed task of natural lawyers was to find out what, in God’s or Reason’s eyes, was right and what was wrong. To live freely in a dynamic society was the goal of republican thought, whereas the priority of natural jurisprudence was to lead a peaceful life in a just society ruled by law. To understand the latter tradition in historical terms, one must grasp its Christian roots and moral worldview. Beyond the post-Enlightenment and French revolutionary concepts of natural rights and democracy appropriated by reformers, this article delineates the basic tenets of natural law from a historical perspective, dealing with its most crucial components such as duties and rights, human nature, social design, and political thought.
What did Rousseau have to say in his treatise on social contract? This article approaches this question by focusing on the eighteenth-century intellectuals’ predicaments and re-reading the Social Contract. Four points of interpretation therefrom arises: 1) The Western civilization, weakened by the effeminate effects of commerce, will fall due to internal corruption and the invasion from the East. 2) It is nearly impossible for men to live freely in society, whatever the form of government: be it monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. 3) The extremely dim prospect of such a free society is found in small agricultural states where the people have never been exposed to corrupt laws and the land is distributed more or less equally. 4) Such societies, however, would easily fall prey to the military conquest of stronger states driven by commerce. Therefore, as regards the prospect of liberty in reality according to Rousseau, despair awaited humanity. The interpretation of Rousseau’s political thought proposed in this article has the merit of avoiding anachronistic presentism and reaching a conclusion faithful to the historical context.