Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Timeline of the Sister Republics (1794-1806)
- The political culture of the Sister Republics
- ‘The political passions of other nations’: National choices and the European order in the writings of Germaine de Staël
- 1 The transformation of republicanism
- The transformation of republicanism in the Sister Republics
- ‘Republic’ and ‘democracy’ in Dutch late eighteenth-century revolutionary discourse
- New wine in old wineskins: Republicanism in the Helvetic Republic
- 2 Political concepts and languages
- Revolutionary concepts and languages in the Sister Republics of the late 1790s
- Useful citizens. Citizenship and democracy in the Batavian Republic, 1795-1801
- From rights to citizenship to the Helvetian indigénat: Political integration of citizens under the Helvetic Republic
- The battle over ‘democracy’ in Italian political thought during the revolutionary triennio, 1796-1799
- 3 The invention of democratic parliamentary practices
- Parliamentary practices in the Sister Republics in the light of the French experience
- Making the most of national time: Accountability, transparency, and term limits in the first Dutch Parliament (1796-1797)
- The invention of democratic parliamentary practices in the Helvetic Republic: Some remarks
- The Neapolitan republican experiment of 1799: Legislation, balance of power, and the workings of democracy between theory and practice
- 4 Press, politics, and public opinion
- Censorship and press liberty in the Sister Republics: Some reflections
- 1798: A turning point?: Censorship in the Batavian Republic
- Censorship and public opinion: Press and politics in the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803)
- Liberty of press and censorship in the first Cisalpine Republic
- 5 The Sister Republics and France
- Small nation, big sisters
- The national dimension in the Batavian Revolution: Political discussions, institutions, and constitutions
- The constitutional debate in the Helvetic Republic in 1800-1801: Between French influence and national self-government
- An unwelcome Sister Republic: Re-reading political relations between the Cisalpine Republic and the French Directory
- Bibliography
- List of contributors
- Notes
- Index
Useful citizens. Citizenship and democracy in the Batavian Republic, 1795-1801
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Timeline of the Sister Republics (1794-1806)
- The political culture of the Sister Republics
- ‘The political passions of other nations’: National choices and the European order in the writings of Germaine de Staël
- 1 The transformation of republicanism
- The transformation of republicanism in the Sister Republics
- ‘Republic’ and ‘democracy’ in Dutch late eighteenth-century revolutionary discourse
- New wine in old wineskins: Republicanism in the Helvetic Republic
- 2 Political concepts and languages
- Revolutionary concepts and languages in the Sister Republics of the late 1790s
- Useful citizens. Citizenship and democracy in the Batavian Republic, 1795-1801
- From rights to citizenship to the Helvetian indigénat: Political integration of citizens under the Helvetic Republic
- The battle over ‘democracy’ in Italian political thought during the revolutionary triennio, 1796-1799
- 3 The invention of democratic parliamentary practices
- Parliamentary practices in the Sister Republics in the light of the French experience
- Making the most of national time: Accountability, transparency, and term limits in the first Dutch Parliament (1796-1797)
- The invention of democratic parliamentary practices in the Helvetic Republic: Some remarks
- The Neapolitan republican experiment of 1799: Legislation, balance of power, and the workings of democracy between theory and practice
- 4 Press, politics, and public opinion
- Censorship and press liberty in the Sister Republics: Some reflections
- 1798: A turning point?: Censorship in the Batavian Republic
- Censorship and public opinion: Press and politics in the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803)
- Liberty of press and censorship in the first Cisalpine Republic
- 5 The Sister Republics and France
- Small nation, big sisters
- The national dimension in the Batavian Revolution: Political discussions, institutions, and constitutions
- The constitutional debate in the Helvetic Republic in 1800-1801: Between French influence and national self-government
- An unwelcome Sister Republic: Re-reading political relations between the Cisalpine Republic and the French Directory
- Bibliography
- List of contributors
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The concept of citizenship in the Dutch Republic changed dramatically at the end of the ancien régime. During the revolutionary era, the primary meaning of citizenship as the privileged membership of the urban community gave way to the notion that a citizen was first and foremost a member of the nation-state. The citizens of the nation-state would enjoy certain basic rights on an equal basis, such as the freedom of speech, assembly, and religion as well as the protection of property.
The development of national citizenship in the Netherlands was far from straightforward for a number of reasons. To begin with, there was little agreement on the question which inhabitants should count as citizens and whether separate rights and duties should be reserved for different categories of people (take for example the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen). Moreover, the terms ‘citizen’ and ‘citizenship’ are not only legal concepts, they also carry socio-cultural meanings that perhaps weigh more heavily than legal notions. ‘Citizen’ is not just a legal category but also a title, a quality that can be defined in different ways. These meanings all played a part in the conceptualization of the national citizen. Third, national citizenship did not simply succeed or overtake urban citizenship; it developed and existed alongside it. It developed through the creation of an alternative political domain, whose context and characteristics have to be taken into account to understand the development of citizenship in the Batavian Republic (1795-1801). This is the aim of this contribution.
I will start by briefly describing the history of the concept and its different meanings leading up to the Batavian Revolution. I will then discuss the use of citizenship within its specific political context after 1795. Lastly, I will give a more detailed analysis of one specific argumentation that was used during the Batavian Republic: the utilitarian view on citizenship. This particular view has received little attention in the context of the Batavian Republic but offers a good example of the way in which citizenship was transformed and defined along new lines in the late eighteenth century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Political Culture of the Sister Republics, 1794–1806France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy, pp. 73 - 84Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2015