Chapter 4 presents the paradox of republican emancipation, a paradox based on the ambivalence of republican freedom at the time of the revolution. On the one hand, republican freedom is the status of those who are already masters of themselves. Freedom is independence and it is this independence that makes them capable of governing with competence and virtue. On the other, freedom is the newly claimed right of everyone, or anyone, not to be dominated – regardless of their virtue, or their economic and social situation, that is, regardless of their capacity to self-govern. But how can one reconcile the universal claim of freedom as nondomination with the republican supposition that the free person ought to be already socially, economically, and intellectually independent to be able to self-govern? If the many are incapable of self-governing, how can they ever become independent from the government of the few – how can they ever emancipate themselves? This chapter presents four instances of this paradox: the debate on passive/active citizenship, Condorcet’s position on the emancipation of slaves, Guyomar’s argument for the emancipation of women, and Grouchy’s proposal for changing the way we think about human dependence.

Chapter 5 presents the paradox of national universalism as a theoretical explanation of French republicans’ historical tendency to exclude foreigners and minorities. It retraces the formation of the discourse of “nation” alongside that of “people” as well as the development of nationalism alongside the discourse of universalism. It analyzes the tension caused by the conjunction of two phenomena: the existence (or supposition of) a historical nation, and the declaration of universalism on which the revolution based itself. Finally, the chapter presents education policies and civil religion during the French revolution as two instances of the paradox of national universalism.

Chapter 3 presents the development of new forms of republicanism in the revolutionary period. Republicanism was called upon to address a problem that was historically foreign to it: enabling the emancipation of a large and diverse people that had just lost the unifying power of their King. After examining the arguments of the first republican treatises (Condorcet, Robert, Billaud-Varenne), the chapter lays out the solutions republicans imagined to the problems that arose with the defection of the King. This included the attempt to create a united popular sovereign, and, in response to Montesquieu’s challenges, the creation of a virtuous and educated citizenry that was ready to defend the republic. Revolutionaries imagined a republic based on an abstract notion of citizenship and a representative system without representation of particular interests. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the debate between Sieyès, Condorcet, and Robespierre on the representation of the people in a republic.

Chapter 1 presents the debate about republicanism before the French Revolution. Montesquieu played an important part in this debate as he formulated the influential “scale thesis” according to which republicanism could not be adequate for a large country. Montesquieu raised a set of challenges to would-be republicans in France (the “motivation,” “unity,” and “epistemic” challenges). The rest of the chapter presents theoretical resources in different republican traditions (notably Italian, English, American) that informed the French republicans on key issues (conquest, freedom, commerce, institutions). This chapter retraces the context in which the myth of outdated republicanism was born, but also how the elitist and martial dimensions of the republican tradition shaped French republicanism.

The introduction begins with the crisis of republicanism in France today. It asks what republicanism is for the French and why exclusion lies at the center of its crisis. It then presents the characteristics of French republicanism (in particular, its universalism and its emancipatory dimension), its place in the broader republican tradition, and in the neo-republican revival. Finally, it introduces the theoretical paradoxes that led republicans to justify exclusionary practices despite their endorsement of emancipation.

Chapter 2 presents the conceptual transformation of republicanism that Rousseau operated while responding to Montesquieu’s challenges. In his writings, republicanism moved from an elitist theory based on virtuous self-sacrifice to an inclusive theory based on popular sovereignty and the rational interest of citizens. Rousseau developed a theory of republican citizenship as a shared intention toward creating and maintaining a community of free and equal beings—an inclusive theory of sharing freedom. Yet Rousseau’s theory has important shortcomings that plagued French republicanism after him. On the one hand, it presented a rational project of sharing equal freedom among all, but on the other, it emphasized particularism and nationalism as conditions of its realization.

The conclusion presents the recent attempt of French republicans to develop the idea of “integration” as a response to criticisms regarding the exclusionary dimensions of republicanism. Finally, it lays out what the ideal of sharing freedom, as it was articulated during the revolutionary period, can offer as a blueprint for contemporary republican theory.

The structure of the Social Contract presents an intriguing puzzle. While the first three books argue for a republic of free and equal citizens, the fourth book seems to praise the Roman Republic, a state based on military expansion, slavery, class division, and an inegalitarian voting system. I argue that this puzzle can be solved if we understand the fourth book to be making an a fortiori argument in which Rousseau counterintuitively uses the flawed example of the Roman Republic to show the possibility of large republics in modern circumstances.