Ballots and Barricades: Class Formation and Republican Politics in France, 1830-1871

by Ronald Aminzade

Overview

Using class analysis to understand the dynamics of political conflict in mid-nineteenth-century France, Ronald Aminzade explores political activity among workers in three industrialized French cities—Toulouse, Saint-étienne, and Rouen. A comparative case-study design enables the author to analyze how the complex interaction between industrialization, class relations, and party development fostered revolutionary communes in some cities but not others. Challenging traditional theories of industrialization and revolution, Aminzade innovatively uses narratives to provide a historically grounded analysis of the failed municipal revolutions of 1871 and the triumph of liberal-democratic institutions in France.


In each of these cities, distinctive patterns of capitalist industrialization and class restructuring intersected with shifting political opportunities at the national level to produce local republican parties with different ideologies, strategies, and alliances. Focusing on changing relations between republican parties and male workers, whose identities and economic standing were in transition, Aminzade examines struggles within local parties among liberal, radical, and socialist republicans. The outcome of these struggles, he argues, shaped the willingness of workers to embrace the ballot box or take to the barricades.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691028712
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	09/12/1993
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ronald Aminzade is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. He is author of Class, Politics, and Early Industrial Capitalism (SUNY).

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	ix
	List of Maps and Tables	xi
	Acknowledgments	xiii
Part 1	Political Change, Early Industrialization, and French Republicanism
Chapter 1	The Political Consequences of Early Industrialization	3
Chapter 2	Mid-Nineteenth-Century French Republicanism: Organization, Ideology, and Opportunities	28
Part 2	A Tale of Three Cities: Toulouse, Saint-Etienne, and Rouen
Chapter 3	Patterns of Industrialization and Class Formation	63
Chapter 4	Toulouse: From Liberal Republicanism to an Alliance of Radicals and Socialists	105
Chapter 5	Saint-Etienne: The Transformation and Triumph of Radical Republicanism	139
Chapter 6	Rouen: The Transformation of Radicalism and Triumph of Liberalism	174
Chapter 7	Failed Revolutions: The Communes of 1870-1871	209
Chapter 8	Conclusion: Political Change, Class Analysis, and Republicanism	252
	Abbreviations Used in the Notes and Bibliography	266
	Notes	267
	Bibliography	301
	Index	317

Editorial Reviews

"This is a work of considerable insight and a major contribution to the understanding of France in the 19th century."

Choice

Winner of the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award of the Political Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1994

From the Publisher