How to think beyond sovereignty: On Sieyes and constituent power

Abstract

Historians and political theorists have long been interested in how the principle of people's power was conceptualised during the French Revolution. Traditionally, two diverging accounts emerge, one of national and the other of popular sovereignty, the former associated with moderate monarchist deputies, including the Abbé Sieyes, and the latter with the Jacobins. This paper argues against this binary interpretation of the political thought of the French Revolution, in favour of a third account of people's power, Sieyes' idea of pouvoir constituant. Traditionally, constituent power has been viewed as a variation of sovereignty, but I show it to be an independent conceptualisation of people's power. Sieyes' political theory led him to criticise and refuse contemporary theories of sovereignty in favour of what he understood as a fully modern account of people's power. Based on extensive research in the archives, I show how Sieyes opposed the deployment of sovereignty by the revolutionary Assemblies and recommended replacing it with the idea of constituent power.

Can Popular Sovereignty Be Represented? Jacobinism from Radical Democracy to Populism

“…Instead, his new vocabulary of pouvoir constituant-pouvoir constitué makes it possible to assert the power of the people and limit the power of representatives (who act only within the constitutional frame authorized by the people) at the same time that it limits the power of the people itself by channeling it exclusively through representation. This double limitation opens up a liberal and constitutional way of thinking about politics (Pasquino 1998;Rubinelli 2019a). Yet, despite his anti-absolutism, Sieyès gives early revolutionary credentials to the Hobbesian idea that it is the unity of the representative that guarantees the unity of the represented: "The people or the nation has only one voice, the voice of the national legislative [.…”

Sieyès and republican liberty

“…This point requires qualification. While Siey es had been keen to avoid the language of sovereignty (Rubinelli, 2019a), he did not default to the separation of powers as his alternative. Siey es was dissatisfied with how a republican separation of powers was able to adequately address the issue of domination in France.…”

Cosmology and Vigilance: Political Vanguardism in Saint-Simon and Blanqui

“… 3. For a nuanced perspective on Sieyès that sees more substantively democratic potential in his notion of constituent power, see Rubinelli (2019). …”