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

by Alan Kahan (Author)

'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 Biography

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.