Political clubs during the French Revolution [ Politics & Society / Clubs & Societies ]
… and the weakness of the state. The inability and, in some instances, unwillingness of the state to assert its authority in key domains, such as taxation, calumnious speech and the grain trade, created a vacuum that the clubs … during a tumultuous period of constitutional transformation. They served multiple functions. They lobbied and petitioned authorities. They informed and educated the public. They fundraised and redistributed, to the poor and to the army at war … produced a toxic politics: while the clubs externalised their internal conflicts, polarising society, they also claimed authority that the constitution did not confer to them. The principle of popular sovereignty may have helped justify this …
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