Introduction: Rethinking political organization in nineteenth-century Europe

1The early nineteenth century was a period of great experimentation both in theory and practice. Just as the French state changed its form of government an astounding eight times between 1789 and 1848, the world of social and political thought was ripe with new projects to reorganize political configurations in France, Europe and the wider world. As Jonathan Beecher has noted, organization was a central concept of the time1. Within France, thinkers promoted political systems as diverse as a return to absolute monarchy, liberal constitutional monarchy, moderate republicanism based on civil and political rights, and democratic socialism through a full reorganization of economic relations by the state. Yet hopes of deep social and political re-organization extended beyond national borders as well. Transnational political configurations of all sorts were promoted in the early nineteenth-century – based on l