Liberalism in Nineteenth Century Europe: The Political Culture of Limited Suffrage

'Votes should be weighed, not counted', Nineteenth-century liberals argued. This study analyzes parliamentary suffrage debates in England, France and Germany, showing that liberals throughout Europe used a distinctive political language, 'the discourse of capacity', to limit political participation. This language defined liberals, and they used it to define and limit full citizenship. The rise of consumer culture at the end of the century drove the discourse of capacity from politics, but it survives today in education and the professions.

Author: Alan Kahan
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 08/08/2003
Pages: 239
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.94lbs
Size: 9.08h x 5.28w x 0.73d
ISBN: 9781403911742

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2004 pg. 362

About the Author
ALAN KAHAN is Associate Professor of History at Florida International University, USA. He is author of Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville, Editor of The Tocqueville Reader, and translator of Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the Revolution.