A Symposium on

Bertrand de Jouvenel: Introduction

B philosophers of the twentieth century.

ertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987)
was one of the great political
In the years between
1945 and 1965 he produced an impressive body of work in the
tradition known as conservative liberalism. These writings explored
the inexorable growth of state power in modern times, the difficult
but necessary task of articulating a conception of the common good
appropriate to a dynamic, "progressive" society, and the challenge of
formulating a political science that could reconcile tradition and
change while preserving the freedom and dignity of the individual.
As the articles in this symposium amply attest, Jouvenel was the
furthest thing from doctrinaire in his approach to political matters.
A critic of the centralizing propensities of the modern state, he
nonetheless appreciated that political authority was indispensable
for maintaining social trust and the equilibrium of a free society. A
charter member of the classical liberal Mont Pelerin Society, he
rejected the individualist premises underlying modern economics
and reminded his contemporaries that the good life entailed some-
thing much more fundamental than the maximization of individual
preferences. In his mature writings, Jouvenel vigorously challenged
the progressivist conceit at the heart of modern thought, the illusion
that social and economic development necessarily entailed moral
progress. But he never rejected modernity per se. He believed that
politics in the true sense of the term must actively promote civic
friendship, but at the same time he resisted all forms of primitivist
and communitarian nostalgia. An essentially conservative-minded
thinker, he admired Rousseau and was an early advocate of ecology
and a pioneer of "future studies."
 A Symposium on Bertrand de Jouvenel 37

Jouvenel's political judgment was not always reliable: he drifted

to the far Right for a brief time in the late 1930s and inexplicably
supported Mitterrand and the Union of the Left in the 1981 French
presidential elections. But his master works of the postwar period,
On Power (1945), Sovereignty (1955), and The Pure Theory of
Politics (1963), are models of intellectually penetrating and morally
serious reflection on the political condition of modern man. The
wisdom they impart is self-consciously in the best conservative
liberal tradition of Constant, Guizot, and Tocqueville.
In these classic works, Jouvenel freely accepted the inevitability
of what he called the "productivist" or progressive society, marked
by myriad initiatives and sources of change. At the same time, he
crafted a political science that aimed to preserve the preconditions
of "the good life" that were imperiled by those very innovations. In
Jouvenel 's considered judgment, a balanced social order must have
a place both for the innovator, which he called Dux, and the
stabilizer, which he called Rex. Jouvenel's mature writings teach
moderation and reveal the fragility of a liberal civilization that
believed itself to be the pinnacle of modern "Progress." In that
regard, his writings continue to speak to us today since nothing
suggests that we have arrived at some definitive "end of history."
While Jouvenel's major writings are now widely available in
English once more-thanks largely to the good offices of Liberty
Fund and Transaction Publishers-it cannot be said that he is a
major presence in contemporary political philosophy. As the French
political theorist Pierre Manent has suggested, we prefer the allure
of "scientificity" (and, one might add, partisanship) to the urbanity,
finesse, and good sense to be found on almost every page of
Jouvenel's books and articles. The symposium that follows can best
be understood as an invitation to reconsider Jouvenel's humane
model of political and philosophical reflection: In that sense, it
hopes to make a modest contribution to the renewal of academic
political theory.

Daniel J. Mahoney
Assumption College