Droit politique

This paper, a revised version of lectures given in Paris in 2016, examines the contribution that French jurists have made to the development of political jurisprudence. It argues that that contribution can most concisely be presented by examining the manner in which the distinctive concept of "droit politique" was devised and has evolved in French legal and political thought. The paper considers the pioneering contributions of Bodin, Montesquieu and Rousseau, examines the role the concept performed in revolutionary debates, and explains its subsequent development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.