Cartografia politica delle passioni: le istituzioni repubblicane in Saint-Just

Abstract

Among the many figures emerging from the controversies surrounding the French Revolution, the name and work of Saint-Just are often forgotten. Discussing the relationship between political theory and political practice, his thought was characterized by a constant attention to connecting social needs within new decision-making arrangements, according to the movements and the divisions occurring within society. The self-governing tendency of society is
a key focus, leading to the overcoming of laws, in favor of a downward distribution of powers: the institutions are spaces of connection between desires, habits, customs and needs, able to connect the different subjectivities. In order to give practical effect to these claims, Saint-Just inscribed the ontological force of social conflicts in a dynamics of transformation, where the equality of rights is the central node in the revolutionary becoming of the people, and virtue is seen as fidelity towards the revolutionary event itself.