Research On Guizot's Political Thought

Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot was an extremely active politician in French political arena in the 1st half of nineteenth century.During his thirty years of political career,Guizot had experienced a transition from the "Opposition party" under the Restoration to the "party in power" under the July Monarchy.During the Restoration,as the "protagonist" of the French Doctrinaires,Guizot not only led a series of campaign against the ultra-conservatives and guaranteed the implementation of the constitutionalism,which formed the basis of the French representative government after the French Revolution,but also designed a grand blueprint for the social reconstruction after the Revolution.His core political concepts,such as "new means of government","sovereignty of reason","representative government","publicity"and others were innovative for his era and are impressive to modern people.Besides,his conception of "juste milieu" had brought social stability,which was precious in a France after the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.During the July Monarchy,Guizot enjoyed a meteoric rise up to the post of prime minister.He argued that the constitutional monarchy under the rule of financial aristocracy was close to perfection,and the only remaining task was to "steadily" seek social development within the order stipulated by the regime.For this reason,"order" was regarded as the supreme goal.To be sure,the internal and foreign policies of Guizot were successful to some extent in the first half of his ruling.However,his great concerns with "order"inevitably led to a stagnant society at a certain time.Since Guizot went too far on the road of impeding social reform,he eventually became a target of public criticism and was forced to resign.Guizot's failure has rendered him repeated criticisms in the French political history.However,this paper suggests that,considering the extraordinarily complicated social status and political situation as well as the complexity of Guizot's political role,we should not make a judgement as to the contributions and faults of the important politician who lived nearly a century and a half ago.Therefore,the author attempts to respectively investigate Guizot's conception of democracy,liberty,"sovereignty of reason",representative government and publicity,so as to objectively deal with the abundant connotation and inherent limitations of Guizot's political thoughts.On this basis,this paper confirms the contributions made by Guizot to the French society in the nineteenth century in terms of maintaining social stability,driving political reform and promoting constitutionalism construction.Besides,this paper also discusses the alerts and enlightenment of his words and deeds to the contemporary world,and further reflects on the unique value of Guizot's political thoughts and of the French liberalism in the nineteenth century.