This blog post examines how intermediate bodies function as a buffer zone between individuals and the state, strengthening civic virtue and political freedom to enhance the stability of democracy.
The laws prohibiting intermediate groups enacted during the early stages of the French Revolution in 1789 sought to leave only individuals as rational, reasonable subjects in society. They banned not only guilds and merchant associations deemed obstacles to individual activity but also political party activities. Rousseau had already anticipated that eliminating the existence of partial groups expressing particular wills within the state and having each citizen express only their own opinion would naturally form the general will. This was an attempt to establish state power that would realize the general interest through the rational social actions of individuals endowed with reason. However, doubts persisted about whether all individuals could truly be deemed rational, and there was no practical guarantee that the mere arithmetic sum of individuals—the ‘number’—would always yield rational outcomes in matters of public order. This tension between ‘reason’ and ‘numbers’ manifested in French political history during and after the Revolution as a conflict between liberalism, symbolized by ‘reason,’ and democracy, symbolized by ‘numbers.’
During the Revolution, the supremacy of ‘reason’ over ‘numbers’ was clearly evident. A prime example was the restriction of the political rights of the ‘numbers’. Liberals regarded elections not as an individual ‘right’ but as a public ‘function’. Restrictions on suffrage were justified as a means to rationalize public decisions and eliminate the dangers inherent in the ‘masses’ represented by democracy. For them, elections were less about choosing representatives to voice one’s own interests and more about appointing capable individuals who could correctly interpret the will of citizens and accurately perceive the general interest.
However, as the revolution radicalized, the democratic practice of the people, symbolized by the ‘number,’ emerged. When revolutionary wars with foreign powers began, a national crisis was declared, and even the sans-culottes, previously excluded from the public sphere, joined the National Guard. They were no longer satisfied with electing representatives to delegate authority; they wanted to reject laws they did not approve and exercise sovereignty directly.
However, Robespierre, who seized power based on the strength of the sans-culottes, constrained the people’s democratic practice in the name of ‘virtue.’ Robespierre’s Reign of Terror presented ‘virtue’ as a prerequisite to secure the Republic’s safety and prevent the people from excessively intervening in the public sphere, limiting the people’s political practice to within the Republic’s institutional framework. This virtue was defined as “love of country and law, and the noble self-sacrifice of subordinating personal interests to the common good.” This emphasis on virtue became a means to justify the restriction of democracy and the absolutization of representation—that is, the absolute power of representatives through their identification with the people.
Throughout the 19th century after 1789, France suffered the threat of political turmoil born from the tension between ‘reason,’ ‘number,‘ and ‘virtue.’ As Tocqueville pointed out, the absence of intermediate groups was considered a primary cause. Democracy toppled absolute monarchy through revolution, yet simultaneously weakened ‘reason’ and ‘virtue’ by relying on centralized, massive power, ultimately leading to despotism. Tocqueville, a democrat who also harbored nostalgia for aristocracy, refocused on the role of intermediate groups during the aristocratic era. With the disappearance of intermediate groups during the revolution, individuals lost opportunities to cultivate civic virtue, and the state lost forces to check power. In this sense, Tocqueville expected that intermediate groups in the democratic era could provide the space for political freedom to be realized, thereby fostering civic virtue and performing a check on power.
The Third Republic, a liberal democratic system that resolved the conflict between liberalism and democracy and brought the French Revolution to a close, reintroduced intermediate groups in response to new social needs. Durkheim emphasized the necessity of distinct professional groups in a society undergoing rapid specialization, capable of forming professional ethics and performing representative functions to facilitate communication between the state and the individual. Over the century following the French Revolution, intermediary groups were assigned new roles. Furthermore, the party system, which began to take root in the late 19th century, established itself as a new structure for elite recruitment and as a shaper of public opinion. The party system, displaying diverse ideological hues, mediated between citizens and state power, functioning in a way that controlled democracy without negating it.
