Vision and Reality: Joseph Paul-Boncour and Third Republic Pluralism

Wright, Julian (2012) Vision and Reality: Joseph Paul-Boncour and Third Republic Pluralism. In: Pluralism and the Idea of the Republic in France. Palgrave, Basingstoke, pp. 179-197. ISBN 9781349323005

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

Ideas associated with pluralism were at the front of many intelligent political minds in the Third Republic. Republicans of different stripes kept up a constant reflection on the problems of French political history; when they did so, and regardless of whether they were influenced more by Proudhon or by Taine, politicians of a more philosophical mindset found their thoughts straying more and more towards the problem of the centralized or ‘Jacobin’ State and how it might best be adapted. The question that preoccupied some of these thinkers around 1900 was one of how to unlock the centralized administrative framework inherited from previous regimes, thus reawakening more traditional forces in society such as corporations or provinces (the term ‘region’ was designed for less conservative believers in a provincial renewal for France). For others, the economic demands of modern society, and the grave challenge posed to Republican institutions by the social question, demanded a more rigorous approach, overhauling the economic framework in which the middle-class Republic operated, and giving life to trades unions and workers’ associations as the new building blocks of the social Republic. Both these strands could be seen as advancing a pluralist critique of the existing system; but these strands had a powerful place within mainstream republican debate.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Trade Union, Regionalist Movement, Socialist Party, Popular Sovereignty, Republican Institution
Subjects:	L200 Politics
Department:	Faculties > Arts, Design and Social Sciences > Humanities
Depositing User:	Paul Burns
Date Deposited:	10 May 2019 16:37
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2019 19:02
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/39276

Downloads