Malcolm Crook

Allgemeines Wahlrecht ohne Demokratie

Obwohl die Geschichte von Kultur und Praxis des Wahlens jungst neue Aufmerksamkeit in Frankreich erfahren hat, bleiben das Erste und Zweite Kaiserreich in diesen Debatten ausgeklammert. Wahrend ihre Plebiszite wohlbekannt sind, wurden die in beiden Regimen eingesetzten Wahlen kaum untersucht. Gewiss ist es leicht nachvollziehbar, dass republikanische Historiker diesen Volksbefragungen wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt haben, denn das semi-kompetetive, allgemeine Mannerwahlrecht unter Napoleon I. und Napoleon III. waren nicht frei oder geheim und boten nur eine beschrankte Auswahl an Kandidaten. Wie dieser Beitrag zeigt, boten regelmasige Wahlen dennoch Raum fur politische Aktivitaten und erweiterten die mit der Revolution 1789 einsetzenden franzosischen Erfahrungen mit Massenwahlen. Paradoxerweise leisteten die autoritaren Regime von Napoleon I. und Napoleon III. damit einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Techniken, Verfahren und Praktiken demokratischen Wahlens.

Ballot papers and the practice of elections: Britain, France and the United States of America, c.1500–2000

The humble ballot paper is a defining technology of elections throughout the world. This article interrogates its contested past by demonstrating – over a long period and in the context of three contrasting countries – how and why it emerged in the early modern period and how it was then used, abused and regulated in the context of the expanded, and eventually mass, electoral arenas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ironically, by the time that the ballot paper was firmly established, its monopoly was already being challenged by mechanical and then electronic media, which may eventually condemn it to extinction.

The Shadow of Napoleon

While the Napoleonic bicentenary is yielding some exciting new work on the First Empire, interest is being revived in Bonapartism as a whole. Sudhir Hazareesingh’s endeavours trace the development of this crucial dimension of French political culture. With these two books and their predecessor, From Subject to Citizen: The Second Empire and the Emergence of Modern French Democracy (1998), he has been exploring some neglected but fascinating aspects of the phenomenon. Just as the rise of Napoleon cannot be understood without reference to the Revolution, so no assessment of his career is complete which does not pursue his story beyond the grave. For, as Hazareesingh is well aware—a previous book of his, Political Traditions in Modern France (1994), surveyed this very subject—the Napoleonic heritage has been of vital importance in contemporary France, much as staunch republicans might care to deny it. Indeed, for much of the first half of the nineteenth century it was difficult to distinguish between different strands of opposition on the Left, such was the ambiguity, not to say syncretism, of Bonapartism. These two studies constitute a formidable pair, to be read together,The Saint-Napoleon. Celebrations of Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century France taking off from The Legend of

Time for the Hero? Reappraising Napoleon on the Bicentenary of his Rise to Power

Books reviewed in this article: Isser Woloch, Napoleon and his Collaborators. The Making of a Dictatorship Andy Martin, Napoleon the Novelist R. S. Alexander, Napoleon Desmond Gregory, Napoleon’s Italy

Elections in the French Revolution: An Apprenticeship in Democracy, 1789-1799

Introduction 1. Subjects to citizens? The elections to the Estates General and the Revolution 2. The limits of citizenship: the Franchise question, 1789-91 3. Biting on the ballot: from enthusiasm to abstention, 1790-1 4. One man one vote? The experiment with electoral democracy in 1792 5. Voting the constitution: the referenda of 1793 and 1795 6. Parties, schisms and purges: elections under the Directory, 1795-9 7. An invisible aristocracy? The departmental assemblies and the emergence of a new political class Conclusion.

The persistence of the ancien régime in France: The estates general of 1789 and the origins of the revolutionary electoral system

Summary Preparations for the Estates General of 1789 constituted one of the last acts of the anclen regime in France. The accompanying elections have received relatively little attention, yet they bequeathed much more to the electoral practices and political mentalites of the Revolution than most historians have realised. Though separate orders were preserved at the final meeting of the Estates General, with disastrous consequences for the monarchy, custom was breached by the uniform fashion and broad franchise with which deputies were elected. When the National Assembly was created the orders were dissolved, but much of this semi‐traditional electoral system survived. Assemblies of voters, an indirect, two‐tier process of election and exhaustive balloting were all retained from the past. A pronounced aversion to declared candidatures and electoral canvassing remained equally entrenched. Moreover, radicals drew upon the old‐regime heritage, rather than upon Rousseau, in their use of mandates, oral voting ...