Current projects

 

On the genealogy of liberal democracy in France & the UK

 

This project explores the emergence and evolution of the concept of 'liberal democracy' in France and the United Kingdom. It argues that the concept is not a natural evolution of democratic regimes but a historically contingent and politically constructed notion. The project analyzes its rhetorical deployment in political discourse and how it became a legitimizing label for technocratic and elitist forms of governance.

 

Here is a post summarizing the project for the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog. More detailed publications can be found in the Journal of History of Ideas, French Studies and Politics and Governance.

 

Prophecies of Apocalypse, Prophetic Messenger, [c.1832?], source

 

 

On democratic innovations

 

I have been investigating democratic innovations for several years. I am broadly interested how these innovations can reshape democratic practices and the tensions between representation and participation. With my colleagues Z. Wütrich and S. Baeckelandt, we published a study of the reform attemps of French Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) in the Journal of Deliberative Democracy  you can also check out this popularizing piece (in French). I have also tackled the question of direct democracy instruments through the lens of parliamentary debates. 

 

Atlas of the Munsell Color System, 1915, source

 

 

On using digital tools for intellectual history

 

Intellectual history is undergoing a transformation thanks to digital methods, which allow us to analyze vast corpora of texts, track semantic shifts, and uncover hidden patterns in the evolution of political concepts. My work combines conceptual history with digital humanities to study how ideas like 'democracy' and 'liberal democracy' have been contested, redefined, and institutionalized over time. By leveraging tools such as lexicometry, text mining, and corpus linguistics, I aim to move beyond traditional archival work and reveal the dynamic, often contested nature of political language.

 

You can find my publications on this topic in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities and in the edited volume Writing Conceptual Histories. 

 

Dr. Herschel's View of the Organisation of the Heavenly Bodies, 1813, source

Past projects

 

On the reception of John Stuart Mill in France

 

This project, led by Vincent Guillin at UQAM, explored the French reception of John Stuart Mill's works, focusing on his posthumous influence and the political and ideological debates surrounding his ideas (see the project website). We publised a piece on Émile-Honoré Cazelles, one of Mill's French translator, and on the immediate posthumous treatment of Mill in France. 

 

The "Mill"-ennium, Fun 5, 4 May 1867, source