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Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions

Online ISBN:
9780300274455
Print ISBN:
9780300246926
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Book

Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions

Katlyn Marie Carter
Katlyn Marie Carter
University of Notre Dame
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Published online:
23 May 2024
Published in print:
31 October 2023
Online ISBN:
9780300274455
Print ISBN:
9780300246926
Publisher:
Yale University Press

Abstract

Does “democracy die in darkness” as the saying suggests? Set in the Age of Revolutions, this book reveals that modern democracy was born in secrecy—despite the widespread conviction that transparency was key to self-government. The book shows how state secrecy became associated with despotism in the lead up to the American and French revolutions. But as revolutionaries sought to fashion representative government, they faced a dilemma: where did secrecy fit in a context where gaining public trust seemed to demand transparency? Whether in Philadelphia or Paris, establishing popular sovereignty required navigating between an ideological imperative to eradicate secrets from the state and a practical need to limit transparency in government. The prolonged fight over this contradiction determined the character and durability of the first representative democracies. Unveiling modern democracy’s surprisingly shadowy origins, Democracy in Darkness reshapes our understanding of how government by and for the people emerged during the Age of Revolutions.

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