At the origins of the modern political party : social groups under the test of democratic formalism : france, 1848-1914.

Summary Modern political parties are generally thought of as political realities, constituted as such from their origin. As instruments, modern organizations were indeed conceived as such when they were created. But as a human grouping, they were thought of, on the contrary, as realities ignoring the distinction between social and political. The nineteenth century was indeed characterized by the pursuit of an ideal: the existence of social groups endowed with subjectivity or sovereignty, according to an organicist model. But the realization of this ideal seemed to be compromised, since the democratization of the right to vote, by democratic formalism. During the years 1870-1900, the creation of modern political organizations was then conceived as a movement to achieve this ideal. In this respect, modern organizations came into being in opposition to what is today inseparable from the political party, democratic formalism. These two perspectives on the origins of the modern party are not contradictory. Their coexistence is linked to the particular nature of the political sphere of that time, which certainly existed, but did not know the degree of autonomy from the social that characterizes it today. The modern organization was a political object when it was conceived within the framework of this sphere. It was not when it was thought of on its margins. To think together these two dimensions requires to associate the consideration of democratic imperatives and individual strategies, with that of the conceptions of the social and the political.