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ROUSSEAU A S A THEORIST O F NATIONALA N D INTERNATIONAL FEDERALISM

Patrick RileyUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison

Rousseau, who has a (largely unexamined) reputation as a pro-ponent of national and international federalism, always insisted thathe intended to write a treatise on that subject as the crown of hisprojected Institutions Politiques; indeed, for a long time it wasbelieved tha t he wrote draft passages on federalism which were e itherlost (according to one theory) or destroyed by the panicky Countd'Antraigues during the Revolution. Since d'Antraigues was a dubi-ous friend to Rousseau, and a notorious liar and double-dealer aswell, his insistence that Rousseau entrusted his federalism treatise tohim, and that he later destroyed it, has been discounted by somemodern Rousseau scholars (such as Cobban), who believe thatRousseau never wrote such a work at all.1 In any event, what is leftof Rousseau's federalism are a few isolated paragraphs (on federalismwithin a single state) in the Social Contract, the Government ofPoland, the Project for Corsica, and Emile; and a treatise on inter-national (European) federalism, based on the Abb de St. Pierre'sPaix Perp'etuelle (coupled with a Jugement of the Abbess work byRousseau himself).The conclusion one may well reach on the absence of a developedfederal theory in Rousseau is that the problem did not interest himvery much, that it was a question of constitutionalism or of inter-national relations too far removed from his real concernsdegenera-tion of public morality and law, the excessive largeness of modernstates, the problem of particularism and egoism within a societycorrupted by commerce, inequality, and capital cities, the problemof sovereignty and law, the resolution of the "common good" perfec-tion of Rome and Sparta with modern social contract doctrinesforhim to write a treatise on it. To this one can add that the subject no t

1 For a good account of this whole matter, see Alfred Cobban, Rousseau and theModern State, 2nd edition, Hamden, Conn. 1964.

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6 Patrick Rileyonly did not engage his full interest, but that it ran counter to someof his most cherished later principles.It is impossible to mistake Rousseau's devotion to small, isolated,pre-industrial, non-commercial, agricultural states lacking great capi-tal cities, arts and sciences, and financial systems; to states in whicheducation, laws and public moralityall fostered by great "legisla-tors"combine to make simplicity, harmony and patriotism, and amorality of the common good, the supreme virtues.2 In the Govern-ment of Poland and in the Project for Corsica Rousseau never flags inheaping scorn on the "enlightenment" and wealth of the great statesof Euro pe, in praising the simplicity and patriotism of Rom e, Sparta,and early Switzerland.3 And for the defense of his ideal systemagainst corruption by outsiders-he detested the cosmopolitanism ofmodern western Europeanshe was not above introducing largedoses of isolationism and nationalism into his politics.4 Over andover he repeated that the genius of great legislators like Numa andMoses was the imposition of peculiar customs and laws on theirpeoples, customs and laws which made these peoples unhappy whenoutside their own fatherlands.5 Ideally, Rousseau's state would beable to "get by without anyone else"; foreign intercourse couldintroduce only commerce and corruption.

This nationalismwhich was not, it must be said, a simple-mindedjingoism of national Volksgeist, but only an effort to safeguard themoral qualities of small and simple stateshad profound conse-quences for Rousseau's federalism. For while he argued for the small-ness of states above almost everything else,6 and realized (likeMo ntesquieu) tha t small states might be swallowed up by large mon-archies,7 he could not really promote anything like the modernfederal state, in which the central power would be as much a state asthe localities; because in such a federal state the "sovereign"forRousseau the people acting in its legislative capacitywould not bethe author of all fundamental law,8 but only of that part left to thelocalities by the territorial division of power.

Rousseau, Political Writings, trans. F. Wa tkins, Edinburgh 1 95 3, wh ich cont ains theConstitutional Project for Corsica and The Governmen t of Poland (see chs. I-IV).Rousseau, The Governmen t of Poland, op. cit., Chapters II-IV, and Constitutional

Project for Corsica, op. cit . , pp. 282-283, pp. 290 -294 , p. 30 0.4 Cobban, Alfred, Rousseau and the Modern State, op. cit. pp. 99 ff.5 Rousseau, The Governmen t of Poland, op. cit., Chapter II.6 Ibid, pp. 181-182.Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Political Writings, translated Watkins, op. cit., The SocialContract, p. 106.8 Ibid, p. 97.



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Rousseau as a Theorist of National and Intern ational Federalism 7His nationalism was used only to support the possibility of smallcohesive republics in which the sovereignty could be sufficientlyhomogeneous that many particular interests could not arise, in whichwill and law could remain "general," and in which the governmentcould be small enough that the country would not be run by"clerks."9 But that very nationalism made Rousseau's main practicalfederal propositionthe transformation of Poland into a confedera-tion of 33 smaller states contradictory, insofar as he insisted bothon the excellence of 33 small republics merely confederated, and onthe necessity of national education, laws and customs to obviate the

development of self-love and inequality.10Everything in Rousseau's politics turns on his affection for thesmall and simple state modeled on Sparta or republican Rom e. Hethought that modern political life divided man against himself, leav-ing him, with all his merely private and anti-social interests, half inand half out of political society, enjoying neither the amoral inde-pendence of nature nor the moral elevation afforded by true sociali-zation. n At the same time, he was a great admirer of the morehighly unified political systems of antiqu ity, in wh ich, as he though t,morality, civic religion, patriotism and a simple way of life had mademen " on e, " wholly civilized and truly political. nThe defect of modern politics, in Rousseau's view, was tha t it wasinsufficiently political. It compromised between the utter artificialityand communality of political life and the naturalness and independ-ence of pre-political life, and in so doing caused the greatest misfor-tunes of modern man: self-division, conflict between private will andthe common good, a sense of being neither in one condition noranother. "What makes human misery," Rousseau said in Le BonheurPublic, "is the contradiction which exists between our situation andour desires, between our duties and our inclinations, between natureand social institutions, between man and citizen." n To make manone, to make him as happy as he can be, "give him entirely to thestate , or leave him entirely to himself . . . bu t if you divide his hea rt,you will rip him apart; and do not imagine that the state can behappy, when all its members suffer." l49 Ibid, pp. 49-50.10 Rousseau, The Government of Poland, op. cit., pp . 182-183.Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, editedC. E. Vaughan, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1962 , Le Bonheur Public, Vol. I, pp. 325-326.Rousseau, The Government of Poland, op. cit., Chapters II and III; Rousseau,Jean-Jacques, The Social Contract and Discourses, translated G.D.H. Cole, E. P. Dutton &Co., New York, 1950, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, pp. 153-158.

Rousseau, Le Bonheur Public, op. cit., p. 326.14 Ibid.



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8 Patrick RileyAbove all, the imperfect socialization of modern man in largestates, on this view, allowed private persons and corporate intereststo control other private persons, leading to extreme inequality andpersonal dependence; only generality of laws based on an idea ofcommon good, he thought, could abolish all private dependence,which was for Rousseau, perhaps, the supreme social evil. What hewanted was that socialized men might be "perfectly independent ofall the rest, and extremely dependent on the city," 1S for only thepower of the state, and the generality of its laws, "constitutes theliberty of its members." 16Ancient polities such as Sparta, thought Rousseau, with theirsmallness, simplicity, morality of the common good, civic religion,moral use of fine and military arts, and lack of extreme individualismand private interest, had been political societies in the proper sense;in them man was "part of a larger whole" from which he "in a sensereceives his life and being." 17 Modern "prejudices," "base philoso-phy," and "passions of petty self-interest," on the other hand, assurethat "we moderns can no longer find in ourselves anything of thatspiritual vigor which was inspired in the ancients by everything theydid" 18 (Government of Poland). And this spiritual vigor may betaken to mean the avoidance (through identity with a "greaterwhole") of "that dangerous disposition which gives rise to all ourvices,"19 self-love. Political education in an extremely unified state

will "lead us out of ourselves" before the human ego "has acquiredthat contemptible activity which absorbs all virtue and constitutesthe life and being of little minds"20 (Economie Politique). It follows;that th e best social institutions "are those best able to denature man,to take away his absolute existence and to give him a relative one,and to carry the moi into the common unity"21 (mile). Thesesocial institutions, in ideal ancient polities, were always for Rousseauthe creation of a great legislator; they did not develop and perfectthemselves in political experience, but were "handed down" by thelaw-giver.22Rousseau was clear that the advantages which these ancientpolities enjoyed over modern states had a great deal to do with size.

Rousseau, The Social Contract, op. cit., p. 5 8.16 Ibid.17 Ibid, p. 42.18 Rousseau, The Government of Poland, op. cit., pp. 166-167.Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, op. cit., Economie Politique, p. 308.2 0 Ibid.Rousseau, The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, edited Vaughan, op. cit.,Vol. II, p. 145.Rousseau, The Government of Poland, op. cit., pp. 163-165.



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Rousseau as a Theorist of National and Interna tional Federalism 9"The feeling of humanity evaporates and grows feeble in embracingall m ankind," he s a id ." "Practically all small states . . . prosper byreason of the fact that they are small; that all the citizens know andwatch over one another; that the leaders can see for themselves theevil that is being done, the good they have to do; and that theirorders are carried out before their eyes." All large states, he insisted,"suffer either from anarchy . . . or from subordinate oppressorsthrough whom, by the necessities of devolution, the king is obligedto rule."2 4 Moreover, for Rousseau, the larger the state the smallerthe influence of a given man on the sovereigntythe right of theassembled people to make fundamental law;

2sagain, the larger thestate, the more the likelihood of particular corporate interestsopposing the G eneral Will.Given this view of the small, simple and preferably isolated state,it should come as no surprise that, at the national level, Rousseaupreferred unitary states to federal ones. He agreed with Montesquieuthat small republics were in danger; but he always insisted that de-fensive confederation not "trench on the rights of sovereignty." Infcmile (which contains Rousseau's longest sketch of national federalgovernment), he gave a clear idea of what kind of federalism hefavored. After a repetition of some of the arguments of his essay oninternational relations, L'Etat de Guerrethat international anarchycomes from our very efforts to create peace by establishing states,that states are naturally hostile because they are great only in rela-tion to their neighbors' weakness and misery 26 Rousseau said that"we shall examine finally the kind of remedy that men have soughtagainst these evils in Leagues and Federations, which, leaving eachstate master in its own house, arm it against unjust agression fromwithout. We shall inquire what are the means of establishing a goodform of federal association, what can give it permanence, and howfar we can extend the rights of the federation without trenching onthose of sovereignty."27It is clear that the central concern here is with the defense of thesmall republic, not the creation of a modern federal state with dualcitizenship at central and local levels. The insistence on each state's

being left master in its own house, that federalism not "trench" onsovereignty, is in perfect accord with Rousseau's admiration of iso-Rousseau, Economie Politique, op. cit., p. 301.Rousseau, The Government of Poland, op. cit., pp. 181-182.Rousseau, The Social Contract,op. cit., p. 62.Rousseau, The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, edited Vaughan, op. cit.,L'Etat de Guerre, Vol. I, pp. 293 ff.Rousseau, The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rosseau, edited Vaughan, op. cit.,Vol. I, p. 96.



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10 Patrick Rileylated small republics; the reason that Rousseau never wrote his prom-ised treatise on federalism is that an effective federalism would have"trenched" on sovereignty, would not have left the small republicmaster in its own house.When Rousseau proposed the breaking up of Poland into a unionof small republics,28 his feeling for national unity and for patriotismas a bulwark against selfishness and inequality made him hedge on hisfederalism. This is why he offered simultaneously the incompatibleadvice to lessen the extent of the country ("your vast provinces willnever permit you to enjoy the strict administration of small repub-lics"), and to confederate the existing Polish state as it stood.

29Inthe second vein he advised (following Montesquieu) "extending andperfecting the system of federal government: the only one whichcombines the advantages of large and small states." But at the sametime he insisted that the Poles, in fixing the authority of the localunits, "define their limits carefully, and be sure that nothing canbreak the bond of common legislation which unites them, or disturbtheir common subordination to the body of the republic." 30 Andwhen, later on in the Government of Poland, he recommended thatprovincial assemblies be set up for the manumission of deservingserfs, he made these part of a strictly subordinated national hier-arch y, in which nominees for liberation would be sent to the na tionalking and Senate for approval.31In a word, when Rousseau recommended the "confederation" ofexisting large states, he was always torn between his "small republi-canism" and his feeling for the necessity of national customs andeducation; this is why he advised Poland to "contract," to become asa whole more like a small republic, while at the same time he advisedfederalizing the existing large state. When, however, he recommendedfederalism created de novo out of small republics, he was careful tomake the federation little more than a defensive league. When heasked, in the Social Contract, "how can small states be made strongenough to resist large ones?", he replied that they should "do as theGreek cities once did in resisting the great king, and as Holland andSwitzerland more recently have done in resisting the House of

Austria." 32 The emphasis is plainly on mere defense, on resistance;with his view of the small republic, a true federal state was out of thequestion.Given a chance to recommend the breaking up of Corsica into a2 8 Rousseau , Th e Government of Poland, op . c it . , p . 23 3 .2 9 Ibid, p . 1 8 2 .30 Ibid, p . 1 8 3 .31 Ibid, p p . 2 5 3 - 2 5 4 .Rousseau , Th e Social Contract, op . c i t . , p . 100 .



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Rousseau as a Theoris t of National and Internatio nal Federalism 11confederacy of small states to avoid establishing a great capital cityin any one part, Rousseau balked; to have a rotating capital "itwould be necessary to divide the island into a number of small con-federated states, each of which would assume the presidency inturn." But he rejected this possibility on the grounds that it "wouldcomplicate the operation of the machine" and that (more impor-tantly) "its parts would be less closely knit." 3 3 In a showdownbetween federalizing a fairly large state and keeping its national unityintact, Rousseau picked the latter. Clearly his ideal in all cases was arepublic originally small enough (and self-sufficient enough) tha t fed-eralization was unnecessarya small, self-sufficient rep ublic, with acohesiveness and sense of the common good, fostered by great legis-lators who created peculiar laws and customs, which could, in itspastoral isolation, recreate something of Sparta and Rome.One must conclude, in the end, that despite Rousseau's citation,several times, of Montesquieu's dictum that federalism combinedmonarchical strength with republican liberty,34 his affection for thesmall and isolated republic always overcame his federalism; and that,even whenas in the Polish and Corsican caseshe could have recom-"mended federalization of large states, his feeling for national unityalways carried everything before it.3S Even in the absence of atreatise, then, one can assert on solid grounds that a Rousseaueanfederation would have been little more than a defensive league, andthat (since Rousseau, though a popular-sovereignty theorist, advo-cated government by elective aristocracy)36 Rousseauean federalismwould not have defended the modern "grassroots democracy" theoryof federalism. Nor would his federalism have had anything to do withlong arguments about merely legalistic and juristic questions of inter-national relations theory, of the kind one finds in some federal theor-ists of the 17th and 18th centuries. All of this simply did not interesthim.Just as federalism within the interior structure of a single sta te wasmade equivocal for Rousseau by the tension between his nationalismand his federalism, so too his ideas on an international federation tocreate peace in Europe were compromised by a simultaneous feelingfor the beauty and necessity of a European federal plan, and hisconviction that the division of the world into statesnecessary, forhim, to the turning of man from a "stupid and limited" animal intoan "intelligent being and a man"37 (Social Contract)caused a

R o u s s e a u , Constitutional Project for Corsica, op. ci t. , p . 2 92 .M o n t e s q u i e u , Spirit of the Laws, t r an s. N u ge n t , N e w Y o r k 1 9 4 9 , p. 126 .R o u s s e a u , Constitutional Project for Corsica, op . cit. , p. 2 92 .

3 6 I b i d , pp . 7 4 - 7 5 .3 7 I b i d , p. 20 .



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12 Patrick Ril eynatural hostility between states which no mere league could encom-pass or overcome. Rousseau put it plainly in his introduction to theExtrait du Paix Perp'etuelle. "Each one of us being in the civil state asregards the rest of the world, we have taken all kinds of precautionsagainst private wars only to kindle national wars a thousand timesmore terrible." "In joining a particular group of men," he declared,"we have really declared ourselves the enemies of the whole race." 38The necessary division of men among particular states, forRousseau, created an hostility between those states, because theycould only know themselves by comparison with other states, by aconsciousness of the weakness and misery of their neighbors.39Assuming a fixed international demesne to be divided up betweenstates, and assuming that human affections cannot (indeed shouldnot) extend to universality, Rousseau urged that states, which couldlive only in jealous comparisons with each other, and in efforts toincrease and enrich themselves at the expense of other states, were ina condition of hostility.In the case of Europe, for him, this situation was even worse; forEurope had just enough points of cultural, intellectual, religious andcommercial contact to afford constant grounds of conflict, but nosystem of universal law to obviate these conflicts. "Between thepowers of Europe there is a constant action and reaction which,without overthrowing them altogether, keeps them in continual agi-tation." 40 The partial unity of Europe was for Rousseau worse thanperfect isolation of states, since that partial unity gave Europeanwars the character of civil wars. "There already exists among thenations of E urope a bon d," he said, "imperfect indeed but still closerthan the loose and general ties which exist between man and man inthe sta te of nature . . . [bu t] . . . the imperfections of this associationmake the state of those who belong to it worse than it would be ifthey formed no community at all." 41All of these considerations were at hand when Rousseau wrote hisonly work on international federalism per se, his recasting of theAbbe1 de St. Pierre's Project for Perpetual Peace, a work whosestrange cast (when coupled with the Jugenient du Paix Perp'etuelle)comes from Rousseau's simultaneous praise and condemnation ofEuropean federalism. "The two prominent conclusions of the Extrait[Rousseau's revision of the Abbe] and the Jugement taken together,"as F. H. Hinsley notes, "were that nothing less than the most rigid

York, Elizabeth, Leagues of Nations, Swarthmore Press, London, 1919, pp. 196-197.Rousseau, L 'Etat de G uerre, op. cit., pp. 293 ff.4 1 York, op. cit., p. 208.Ibid, p. 210.



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Rousseau as a Theorist of National and International Federalism 13and unbreakable of confederations could solve the problems whichSt. Pierre had set out to solve; and that it was perfectly Utopian toexpect such a confederation to be established."42The hostility of statesexacerbated, in Europe, by partial unity-could be overcome, said Rousseau (in his first mood), "only in such aform of federal government as shall unite nations by bonds similar tothose which already unite their individual members, and place theone no less than the other under the authority of law."43 He rejec-ted out of hand any scheme for peace through the hegemony of asingle state, mainly on the grounds that there was a balance of toomany nearly-equal states for this to be possible. Then, repeating St.Pierre's list of proposed members of a European federationall theimportant states of Europe, including Russia and Turkey, he insistedthat "we must put all the members of it in a state of such mutualdependence that no one of them is singly in a position to overbear allthe others, and that separate leagues . . . shall meet with obstaclesformidable enough to hinder their formation."44 The European fed-eration, Rousseau continued, "must embrace all the importantpowers in its membership; it must have a legislative body, withpowers to pass laws and ordinances binding upon all its members; itmust have a coercive force capable of compelling every state to obeyits common resolves; . . . finally it must be strong enough to make itimpossible for any member to withdraw at his own pleasure. . . ."4S

Rousseau put to one side (for the moment) his real views on thequestion of how this league could be created, and confined himselfto the federation's rules and requirements. First, the members of theleague would "enter into a perpetual and irrevocable alliance" andappoint representatives to a federal Diet empowered to settle allcontroversies. Second, the number of members, the rotation of thepresidency, the assessment of contributions, and so forth, was to besettled. Third, the federation was to "guarantee to each of its mem-bers the possession and government of all the dominions which heholds at the moment of the treaty"coupled w ith a general renuncia-tion of other claims. Fourth, the terms for placing any member whobroke the treaty under the "ban" of the federation was settled; andlast, "the plenipotentiaries of the federation of Europe shall receivestanding powers to frameprovisionally by a bare majority, defini-tively [after an interval of five years] by a majority of three-fourthsthose measures which, on the instruction of their courts, they shall

Hinsley , Power and the Pursuit of Peace, Cambridge Univers i ty Press , Cambridge,1 9 6 3 , p . 46 .4 3 Y o r k , o p . c i t . , p. 197.4 4 Ib id , p . 2 1 0 .4 5 Ib id , p. 2 1 1 .



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14 Patrick Rileyconsider expedient with a view to the greatest possible advantage ofthe commonwealth of Europe and of its members. . . ." 4

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Rousseau as a Theorist of National and International Federalism 1Ssailors, would rather toss t o and fro among the rocks in a storm thanmoor his vessel at anchor in safety." What prince, Rousseau asked,"would endure without indignation the very thought of seeing him-self forced to be just not only with the foreigner, but even with hisown subjects?" Add ministerial designs and the need for war toprincely vanity, he concluded, and one understands why princes willnot limit themselves through federal schemes even though it is intheir real interest to do so.49It has been plausibly urged that Rousseau, in enlarging on thefollies of princes as the obstacle to European federation , did notmention his own more serious analysis of barriers to internationalcooperation discussed in I'Etat de Guerre. In that work, as wasnoted, Rousseau had said that states can know themselves, feel theirown power, only by comparison with, and aggrandizement at theexpense of, other states; that war was the result of the precautionstaken to create peace (the setting up of particular states to endquarrels over property and to substitute civil equality for naturalinequality). "Between man and man," said Rousseau, "we live in thecondition of the civil state , subjected to laws; between people andpeople we enjoy natural liberty, which makes the situation worse.Living at the same time in the social order [within particular states]and in the state of nature [in relations between sta te s] , we sufferfrom the inconveniences of both without finding security in either."Thus, for Rousseau, even "goo d" states will conflict with each o ther;it is not a question of evil intent but of living half in and half out ofpolitical o rde r. soF. H. Hinsley is arguably right in maintaining that not merely thefolly of princes, but the character of international relations as such,was the real block to a European federal system in Rousseau'sthought. "Since the international struggle was the automatic conse-quence of the international system nothing less than a federation ofall states would eliminate war; bu t noth ing less than the internationalsystem prevented the conclusion of a federation."51 It is doubtlessfor this reason that Rousseauafter describing at length the plan ofHenry IV of France and his chief minister, Sully, to "federally"league all of Europe against Austria in the Great Design of HenryIV concluded that only force and violence could bring a Europeanfederation into existence. But a Sullian federation would have been ahegemony, like Dante's Imperial hegemony, not a true federation ofequals; and this is doubtless why Rousseau, observing that "things of

* Ibid, p. 23 4 ff.Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, op. cit., pp. 50-51 .S1 Ibid, p. 52.



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16 Patrick Rileypub lic utility . . . are seldom brought in but by force and violence,for the simple reason that private interests are almost always rangedagainst them," said that "while we admire so fair a project, let usconsole ourselves for its failure by the thought that it could onlyhave been carried out by violent means from which humanity mustneeds shr in k. "" "No federation," he concluded in a paragraphwhich demolished his pro-federalism, "could ever be established ex-cept by a revolution. That being so, which of us would dare to saywhether the League of Europe is a thing more to be desired orfeared? It would perhaps do more harm in a moment than it couldguard against for ages."53The problem of Rousseau's European league was that it pro-pounded an international federalism at the same time that it arguedthat the character of international relations (not to mention prob-lems of nationalism, sovereignty, and princely "caprice") made suchan international government impossible. Just as Rousseau's federal-ism at the national level was vitiated by the conflict between "smallrepublicanism" and visions of national unity and common-goodcohesiveness, so his European federalism was undone by recommend-ing international leagues in the face of a theory of the perfect hostil-ity of states, by admitting that only force and violence could createpeace. Rousseau's federalism at both levels is fascinating not becauseof its success, but because it tried to fuse so many disparate ele-ments. The failure, however, must be admitted.A distinguished historian of international relations theory isprobably right in saying that Rousseau first reduced the possibility ofEuropean organization to a federal super-government, then demon-strated that the hostility of states made such a system impossible.Further, by pinning all hopes on an impossible federal scheme, andthen denying all possibility of improvement in the behavior ofEuropean statesRousseau was notably chary of ideas of historicalprogress, looking on all of modernity as a degeneration from theperfection of Sparta and RomeRousseau first restricted himself toa single alternativefederalism-and then showed it to be impossiblewithout force and violence, not even leaving the hope of possibleimprovement in state-conduct as a consolation.S4However defective they may be, nonetheless, Rousseau's federaltheories remain quite instructive, because they show thatcontraryto much modern opinionfederalism does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with democracy if one defines democracy in terms of direct

51 York , op . c i t . , p. 2 4 6 .5 3 Ibid, p . 2 4 7 .5 4 Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, op . cit . , p p . 59-61 .



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17 Rousseau as a Theorist of National and International Federalismparticipation by all citizens in the making of all fundamental de-cisions. Federalism is indeed compatible with "republican" politicaltheories such as those of Kant or Madison;" but its insistence ondivided sovereignty, on dual citizenship and multiple allegiances, runscounter to Rousseau's profoundest political convictionsor to someof them at least, since it is obvious that he was sometimes able todefend eloquently a federalism about which he had the deepestdoubts. In the end, then, an inquiry into Rousseau's well-establishedbut unexamined reputation as an "advocate" of national and inter-national federalism reveals, or at least tends to suggest, that he wasreally an advocate of neither.

S On this point see Kant's Eternal Peace, which urges the necessity of a world-widequasi-federal international system comprised of "republics," and Madison's Federalist No.10 , which urges that federalism is compatible with representative republicanism but notwith direct democracy.



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