Details
The experience of democracy in the modern West is inextricably linked to Caesarism. The first European republic to base itself on universal male suffrage had transformed, within a half-decade, into the Caesarist French Second Empire of Louis-Napoleon: a state-form that combined personal rule; a plebiscitary understanding of legitimacy; a centralized administration; military adventurism; an authoritarian approach to the press and civil society; and a rhetoric that appealed at once to Revolutionary, nationalistic, and democratic ideals. For many observers at the time, the Bonapartist regime not only recalled Roman history (hence “Caesarism”). Even more, it betokened what was to come in a democratic future: Caesarism appeared, as the great Liberal legal scholar Henry Maine put it, to incarnate the “very principle of democracy” itself.
Even after the collapse of Bonapartism, reflection on Caesarism remained a staple of democratic theory and the incipient social sciences through the first few decades of the twentieth century, before fading into the background of political theory and public discourse for several decades. However, recent trends – populism; the personalization of politics; the dominance of the executive over the legislature; a perceived decline in liberal and growth in authoritarian sentiments; among others – have all raised once again the question of the connection between Caesarism and democracy. This conference aims to explore the historical legacy of Caesarism with an eye toward considering these pressing present-day issues.
Friday, November 15, 2019
9:00 am
Welcome and introductions
9:15 am
Cheryl Welch: Caesarism and the English Model
Hugo Drochon: Caesarism and the French “three rights,” from Gaul to de Gaulle
Iain McDaniel: Caesarism and International Politics
11:15 am
Lucia Rubinelli: Plebiscites in 19th-Century Europe in Relation to Caesarism
Giulia Oskian: Political Writing in the Aftermath of Louis-Napoleon’s Coup
Markus Prutsch: From Bonapartism to Caesarism: 'Plebiscitary Dictatorship' in the Nineteenth Century
2:00 pm
Genevieve Rousseliere: Can Sovereignty Be Represented? Jacobinism from Radical Democracy to Populism
David Bell: Charismatic Authoritarianism and Its Legacies
Helena Rosenblatt: Benjamin Constant, Caesarism and the Origins of Liberalism
4:00 pm
John McCormick: Machiavelli on Caesar as Successful Tyrant or Failed Republican Reformer
Samuel Zeitlin: Carl Schmitt’s Bodin in Nazi-Occupied Paris
Benedetto Fontana: The Fluidity and Contestability of Democracy
Saturday, November 16, 2019
10:00 am
Carles Boix: Labor Market Changes and the Future of Democracy
Madhav Khosla: Populism and Caesarism in India
Andreas Kalyvas: The Political Logic of Dictatorship
12:30 pm
Nadia Urbinati: A Shade of Caesarism on Democracy
Pratap Mehta: Caesarism and Nationalism, Conceptual and Historical Connections
Federico Finchelstein: Connections between Caesarism, Populism, and Fascism