POLS 250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Civil Religion, French Revolution, Amour-Propre
29 Aug 2016
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Vision of democracy existed before any big democratization movements: not a system where we vote for political parties (that divides the society) Party politics creates factions: laws are made, not in parliament, but at popular assemblies. Important for rosseau that all males take part in creating legislation but not in executing it [elected aristocracy instead] (this would lead to corruption: elected aristocracy. The most upright, intelligent and politically experienced citizens. Govern for interests of all and not own private interests: rousseau endorses a democratic form of sovereignty (origin of law comes from us), but not a democratic form of government (administration of law doesn"t come from us) The sovereign is the supreme authority (made up of all citizens: to ensure everyone identifies with the group as a whole. Problem with christianity was a fixation of the afterlife misguided. A diversity of religions should be tolerated, but each citizen should subscribe to the civil religion of 5 principles:
