IN USCITA AD APRILE

Autore: Michel Huysseune


Political Theory and Social Customs: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Volney, and Constant provides novel insights on how these authors’ reflections on social customs influenced their contributions to political theory. Through his journey to Italy, Montesquieu developed a theoretical model on social customs and their relation to political systems. In the Constitutional Project for Corsica, Rousseau inserted his discussion of Corsican mores within an analysis of the power dynamics between centre and periphery. Volney’s evaluations of customs in the Middle East and the United States show how the French revolution impacted his conceptualization of politics and cultural difference. Constant based his political theory on the different societal mores of the ancients and the moderns.


Autore
Michel Huysseune teaches Political Science and is senior researcher at the Free University of Brussels (ULB/VUB). His fields of interest include the history of political thought and the construction of nationalist discourses. He has published numerous articles in scholarly reviews and essay collections, with a focus on the theme of identity/diversity. He is the author of Modernity and Secession. The Social Sciences and the Political Discourse of the Lega Nord in Italy (2006), the co-editor of Secession, History and the Social Sciences (2002), and the editor of Contemporary Centrifugal Regionalism: Comparing Flanders and Northern Italy (2011).