Democratisation and Changing Methods of Electoral Corruption in France from 1815 to 1914

Abstract

Nineteenth century French politics witnessed two empires, two monarchies and two republics.¹ Despite their fundamental differences, each of these regimes held elections because political representation became an imperative in the wake of the French Revolution. However, each regime widely differed in how it organised elections and whose interests it represented. Electoral politics thus ran like a continuous thread through nineteenth-century France and allows us to analyse how political behaviour evolved over time. One such fundamental change relates to the shifting public perception of what constituted legitimate and illegitimate political behaviour.