Rousseau's Rome: Book IV of The Social Contract and the Specter of Montesquieu

Abstract: Scholars of Rousseau's Social Contract have focused primarily on the text's abstract principles of political right. This theoretical focus has come at the cost of serious consideration of practical aspects of Rousseau's thought, such as his views on bringing the political association into being and what Rousseau calls maxims of politics . One of his extended discussions about political practice occurs in Book IV of The Social Contract , yet this portion of the text largely has been ignored. My central claim is that Book IV merits serious attention since it changes Rousseau's project from one that uses political right merely to condemn institutions to a theory that uses right to identify latent possibilities for changing institutions. Further, this practical theory comes to light most clearly when one understands that he is in conversation with Montesquieu in Book IV on the topic of the Roman Republic.