Peasants into Citizens: Suffrage Expansion and Mass Politics in France

Résumé

The rise of mass politics is conventionally attributed to state expansion and economic modernization. We propose a complementary institutional explanation, highlight-ing how the expansion of voting rights politicizes the general public and enhances their mobilization capacity. To test this argument, we use discontinuous variation in suffrage levels in the French local elections during the July Monarchy (1830-1848). Communes with more suffrage later showed a heightened interest in public affairs, capacity for collective mobilization, and opposition to autocracy. Even when intro-duced and practiced in an autocratic system, the right to vote seems to encourage the development of a pro-democratic mass public.