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Arthur O'Connor was the most important conduit between French
republicanism and Irish political radicalism in the late 1790s ...
His State of Ireland, published in 1798, created a distinctively
Irish language of radical democracy out of French sources, by
fusing them with the local political tradition and Scottish
political economy.' So writes editor James Livesey in his
introduction to this new edition of The State of Ireland, first
published in pamphlet form in 1798 by Arthur O'Connor, a prominent
member of the United Irishmen. O'Connor brought to the
revolutionary movement of the 1790s a mind honed on the ideas of
Adam Smith - ideas that might not seem revolutionary today, but
that had radical implications as adapted by O'Connor and applied to
the bizarre political economy of eighteenth-century Ireland. As
perhaps the most steadfastly anti-sectarian member of the United
Irish movement, O'Connor viewed the vexed debates over 'Protestant
liberty' and Catholic Emancipation as distractions from the
fundamental questions of political and economic reform; he
supported emancipation as a necessary but by no means sufficient
element of a free, democratic Irish society. 'What O'Connor's work
reveals to us', Livesey writes, 'is the breadth of vision within
the United Irishmen and the novelty of their intervention in Irish
political culture ... O'Connor's text deserves to find a place in
the canon of classic political texts that have constructed and made
possible, or even imaginable, Irish democracy.'
This book reasserts the importance of the French Revolution to
an understanding of the nature of modern European politics and
social life. Scholars currently argue that the French Revolution
did not significantly contribute to the development of modern
political values. They no longer hold that the study of the
Revolution offers any particular insight into the dynamics of
historical change. James Livesey contends that contemporary
historical study is devalued through this misinterpretation of the
French Revolution and offers an alternative approach and a new
thesis.
Livesey argues that the European model of democracy was created
in the Revolution, a model with very specific commitments that
differentiate it from Anglo-American liberal democracy. The
fundamental argument in the book is that these democratic values
were created by identifiable actors seeking to answer political,
economic, and social problems. The book traces the development of
this democratic idea within the structures of the French Republic
and the manner in which the democratic aspiration moved beyond
formal politics to become embedded in institutions of economic and
cultural life. This innovative work rewrites the history of French
politics between 1795 and 1799.
James Livesey traces the origins of the modern conception of civil
society--an ideal of collective life between the family and
politics--not to England or France, as many of his predecessors
have done, but to the provincial societies of Ireland and Scotland
in the eighteenth century. Livesey shows how civil society was
first invented as an idea of renewed community for the provincial
and defeated elites in the provinces of the British Empire and how
this innovation allowed them to enjoy liberty without directly
participating in the empire's governance, until the limits of the
concept were revealed. The concept of civil society continues to
have direct relevance for contemporary political theory and action.
Livesey demonstrates how western governments, for example, have
appealed to the values of civil society in their projections of
power in Bosnia and Iraq. Civil society has become an object
central to current ideological debate, and this book offers a
thought-provoking discussion of its beginnings, objectives, and
current nature.
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