A. R. J. Turgot
(1727–81)French politician and economist. A follower of the physiocrats, Turgot tried to free the grain trade in France from internal tariffs during his brief career as Louis XVI's finance minister ...
anticlericalism
The opposition to the secular influence of the Church, usually the Roman Catholic Church. It was a major theme in the domestic politics of several European countries during the late nineteenth ...
Cesare Beccaria
(1738–94)Italian aristocrat and jurist, whose essay Dei delitti e delle pene (1764: Of Crimes and Punishments), a masterpiece of the Italian Enlightenment, inspired European schemes to improve prison ...
Condorcet (Grouchy), Sophie, marquise de
(1764–1822)French feminist writer. Alleged by their enemies to be the malign influence behind her husband Condorcet's support for republicanism and feminism during the French Revolution. Her ...
Condorcet winner
The option, or candidate, in a multicandidate election, which wins a simple majority against each of the others when every pair of candidates is compared. Voting rules inspired by Condorcet seek to ...
cycle
Any situation in which a voting procedure, choosing among multiple options, would choose A over B, B over C…, i over j, and j over A. The best‐known example is the cycle in simple majority rule, ...
éloge
[ay-lohzh]The French term for a eulogy or encomium, and in literary contexts especially for a solemn speech, usually published later as a kind of obituary tribute, given to one of the great French ...
Enlightenment
[CP]The period from the last part of the 17th century through the 18th century when many important philosophical and scientific developments took place, some of which stimulated a new interest in the ...
gender and Politics
A series of contributions by feminists in the field of politics and political theory has focused on the ways in which women's issues, concerns, and participation are excluded from the public ...
Girondins
A member of a French political party whose main exponents came from the Gironde region. The Girondins were closely associated with the Jacobins in the early days of the French Revolution. They held ...
Giuseppe Mazzini
(1805–72)Italian nationalist leader. While in exile in Marseilles he founded the patriotic movement Young Italy (1831) and thereafter worked for the independence and unification of Italy, becoming ...
Harriet Taylor
(1807–58)Married to a businessman John Taylor at the age of eighteen, Harriet nevertheless became the guiding muse of John Stuart Mill after they met in 1830. Mill eventually married her two years ...
Headlong Hall
A satire by T. L. Peacock, published 1816, the first of the series of books in which Peacock adapts the Socratic dialogue as a tool for satirizing contemporary culture.Mr Foster the optimist, Mr ...
Historiography
As in other parts of Europe, French historical writing has gone through a number of more or less distinct phases since the Middle Ages, of which it may be useful ...
issue voting
The idea that voters' decisions are largely determined by the issues at stake in the election. Before survey research, most writers assumed that issue voting was the norm in democratic elections ...
jury
N.A group of jurors (usually 12) selected at random to decide the facts of a case and give a verdict. Most juries are selected to try indictable offences in the Crown Court, but juries are also used ...
Lewis Carroll
(1832–98).Pseudonym of the Revd Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a mathematics don at Christ Church, Oxford. Best known for his Alice stories, which brim over with logical puzzles and absurdities and ...
majoritarianism
The view that legitimate political authority expresses the will of the majority of those subject to this authority (also known as the majority principle). Some commentators regard the majority ...
majority rule
Widely used as a synonym for ‘universal franchise’ (for instance in the slogan ‘No independence before majority rule’ or NIBMAR, which was the British Government's position on Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, ...
mathematics
Thanks to Boethius and Cassiodorus, arithmetic and geometry were part of the quadrivium together with astronomy and music. Bede developed a veritable science of computus, primarily to resolve the ...
