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1 Manifestations of the Divergence

Liberal constitutionalism emphasizes restricting monarchical and governmental power through parliamentary sovereignty in its regime structure, safeguarding private property and citizens’ fundamental rights, with an emphasis on the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the supremacy of the rule of law. It argues that the majority or minority of different groups cannot justify their dominance over political power. In essence, it represents the modernization of a constitutional monarchy that still concentrates core power in the hands of the upper elite and prioritizes elite interests. Regarding reform methods, liberal constitutionalism holds that progress must rely on gradual improvement rooted in historical traditions, rather than constructing political systems from scratch. When addressing domestic conflicts and reform needs, it advocates incremental reforms and opposes violent revolutions that subvert the existing order.

In contrast, the revolutionary democratic idea of “popular sovereignty” emphasizes that the majority of the population, the lower classes, should possess absolute sovereignty and oppose any form of traditional privilege that would constrain the so-called “will of the people”. The first major climax of revolutionary democracy after its emergence was the French Revolution. In 1789, the Tennis Court Oath, which established the goal of not dissolving until a constitution is formulated, spurred the masses to storm the Bastille. The Girondins, dominated by the haute bourgeoisie, then came to power and executed Louis XVI on charges of “treason”. Later, the Jacobins, representing the petite bourgeoisie and peasants, dissatisfied with the dual oppression of the big bourgeoisie and feudal forces, executed 21 Girondin leaders on charges of colluding with the counter-revolutionary forces. Ultimately, internal divisions within the Jacobins led to the execution of Maximilien Robespierre and his associates. These attempts to overthrow the old system through violent revolution and subsequently reconstruct social order and political institutions represent the form of revolutionary democracy in France.

2 Causes of the Divergence

After the Middle Ages, Europe entered an era of reconciliation between monarchs and nobles. After Henry IV established the Bourbon dynasty in 1589, he reconciled with both Catholic and Huguenot nobles to end the Huguenot Wars. The Edict of Nantes in 1598 guaranteed the Huguenot nobles’ freedom of religious belief and territorial rights; The Edict also restored their hereditary titles and their monopoly on court positions (France, 1598). In return, the nobles swore allegiance to the French king and renounced regional separatism. In Britain, Henry VII and Elizabeth I reached a reconciliation with the nobles of the House of Lancaster and the House of York during their reigns, thus ending the Wars of the Roses. Britain retained the nobles’ seats in the House of Lords and their territorial judicial power, while the nobles relinquished their private armies and recognized the king’s supreme authority. Nearly all nobles of the Tudor Dynasty became court nobles, participating in royal decision-making (Starkey, 2003). Overall, the rights and interests of the upper classes were protected by the government to varying degrees, and in exchange, the government ensured their support for the monarch, thereby establishing an absolute monarchy.

However, against these seemingly similar backgrounds, the internal stability within Britain and France differed significantly, as can be seen from the degree of unity within their upper classes.

Britain’s upper classes were relatively more unified, and domestic conflicts were milder. A prerequisite for this was the establishment of a constitutional monarchy following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, marking the country’s departure from absolute monarchy. Although the Tudor dynasty indeed achieved a relatively stable situation through compromises between the monarch and the nobles, such compromises only temporarily alleviated the conflicts between these two political groups. They could not truly resolve them, which would eventually re-emerge. The Pilgrimage of Grace, led by Yorkshire nobleman Robert Aske in 1536, was sparked by Henry VIII’s attempt to seize and redistribute monastic lands. Since some nobles maintained close ties with the monasteries through marriage and economic dependence, this event was essentially a large-scale armed rebellion triggered by economic interest conflicts between the nobles and the monarch. Thus, Britain’s restriction of monarchical power through constitutional monarchy had begun to address the root cause of these conflicts. Furthermore, unity was also fostered by Britain’s economic prosperity. Threatened with annexation by France, the Dutch chose to invest heavily in Great Britain rather than France (Wallerstein, n.d.: 288). This financial support facilitated the establishment of the Bank of England and the development of commercial capital. Economic prosperity also enabled Britain to maintain an advantageous position in wars throughout the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Politically, during Robert Walpole’s administration, the de facto single-party rule of the Whigs mitigated conflicts between the Tories and the Whigs. Meanwhile, the emerging bourgeoisie had gained “civil liberties” (Wallerstein, n.d.: 286); thus, their interests did not conflict with those of the monarch, whose power had been restricted. These various factors collectively contributed to Britain’s relative political stability.

Compared to Britain, the reconciliation and unity among France’s upper classes were far less thorough, and domestic conflicts were more acute. Louis XIV’s relentless pursuit of grandeur prompted him to construct the Palace of Versailles, which consumed vast amounts of workforce and resources. Simultaneously, he launched successive wars, including the Franco-Dutch War and the Nine Years’ War. To finance these protracted foreign wars, Louis XIV attempted to impose direct taxes such as the poll tax and salt tax on noble territories, while also seeking to reclaim the territorial judicial powers held by landed nobles. However, the core economic privileges of the landed nobles included exemption from territorial taxes, which reduced their expenses, and the right to collect judicial fines through territorial courts, allowing them to control economic gains from their lands. Consequently, conflicts between the monarch and the nobles intensified with each passing year of war. Domestically, due to his Catholic faith, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and issued the Edict of Fontainebleau. This edict ordered Huguenots to convert to Catholicism, threatening confiscation of property and forced labor for non-compliance. It also prohibited Huguenot emigration from France, with severe penalties for violators (Adams, 1992). Ultimately, the French government’s forced demolition of Huguenot churches and schools, alongside its persecution of believers, triggered resistance from Huguenots in southern France, including many landed nobles and the emerging bourgeoisie. To alleviate this chaos, the French government attempted to ease tensions through educational development and tax reductions. The monarchy announced reductions in commercial and land taxes in regions such as Languedoc and Provence. It established Catholic schools in the South to strengthen the predominance of Catholicism in the region. However, genuine reconciliation with the nobility and the emerging classes was never achieved. Thus, 18th-century France remained a country that had not truly accomplished political unification in practice.

This divergent level of internal cohesion played a pivotal role in determining the outcome of the Seven Years’ War between Britain and France. Firstly, it affected the ability to integrate domestic production resources and the scale and sustainability of economic support for the war effort. The British monarch, through a noble-dominated Parliament, formulated tax policies more aligned with noble interests than those of France, allowing a large influx of capital into war-related sectors, providing ample and sustained economic support for the war effort. Additionally, overseas trading companies led by the nobility actively collaborated, channeling wealth accumulated from foreign trade back into the war effort. This ensured that Britain could sustain substantial financial investment over the Seven Years’ War to support military operations. France, by contrast, suffered from inadequate economic support due to conflicting interests between the monarch and the nobility. Louis XV attempted to raise war funds by increasing taxes and issuing massive government bonds, but the nobility, leveraging their tax-exempt privileges, obstructed tax collection efforts.

Furthermore, the pre-war issuance of the Edict of Fontainebleau led to a decline in France’s overall strength while enhancing that of other European nations. According to the investigation of General Vauban, then General of the French Army, the Edict of Fontainebleau resulted in approximately 80,000 to 100,000 Huguenots emigrating, taking with them about 30 million livres (French currency), equivalent to roughly 9,200 kilograms of gold. Militarily, Vauban also noted that the emigration led to the defection of approximately 8,000 to 9,000 sailors, 500 to 600 officers, and 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers to France’s enemies (Bainville, 1926). Meanwhile, these Huguenot emigrants were accepted by other European countries. In Britain, they contributed capital to the nation’s wealth accumulation; in Germany, they established numerous textile mills and workshops in regions like Brandenburg, producing steel, silk, and paper. This fueled the rise of capitalist industry and commerce in other nations.

The Seven Years’ War ended with the victory of the Anglo-Prussian alliance and the defeat of the Austro-French-Russian alliance, culminating in the signing of the Treaty of Paris. France was forced to cede vast tracts of its overseas colonies to Britain. In North America, France abandoned all its territories east of the Mississippi River except New Orleans, solidifying Britain’s colonial hegemony from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi Basin. In India, France agreed to withdraw all its military presence except for a few coastal trading posts such as Pondicherry, retaining only commercial trading rights. Britain, in turn, established its colonial dominance in the Indian subcontinent (Great Britain, 1763).

The Seven Years’ War brought enormous financial burdens, economic damage, and social unrest to both Britain and France. The war caused Britain’s public debt-to-net-income ratio to jump from around 100% before the war to over 150% afterward (Land, 2010), drastically increasing the British government’s financial pressure. Furthermore, the expenditure on colonial governance and the resistance to new tax laws in the North American colonies exacerbated the administrative burden. For France, annual fiscal expenditures during the war exceeded those of the War of the Austrian Succession by more than 100% (Riley, 1986). Military defeat also deprived France of numerous critical financial resources. In the post-war period, Henri Bertin proposed to the king that the two “vingtièmes” (one-twentieth taxes) imposed during the war be extended for another six years, with increased duration and amounts for local donations, office transfers, and annuities (Arrêt du Conseil d’État du roi, 1822–1833). The French parlements quickly opposed this decree, and this resistance sparked widespread public debate on the issue and intensified national discussions about fiscal policy. Undoubtedly, this undermined the monarch’s authority in the eyes of the public. Following the controversy, the King sought to boost the economy by liberalizing grain trade, but this move immediately failed and sparked strong public protests.

By contrast, in Britain, the developmental opportunities stemming from the victory alleviated conflicts between the monarch, the landed nobility, the emerging bourgeoisie, and the lower classes to a certain extent. As inter-class tensions stabilized, the crises arising from the war were mitigated through reform. Firstly, the British monarchy was relatively more compromising and less prone to exacerbating social contradictions. This was due to the constraints imposed on royal power by Parliament, which severely limited the monarch’s economic, military, and political influence. Furthermore, Britain maintained a tradition of local autonomy, with local officials such as sheriffs being landed nobles rather than directly appointed by the king. Secondly, colonial expansion significantly promoted the primitive accumulation of capital and the development of industry and commerce among the emerging bourgeoisie. The East India Company extracted 5.26 million pounds sterling worth of wealth from the Bengal treasury between 1757 and 1765 (Ai, & Cheng, 1982) and collected 2.818 million pounds sterling in land revenue between 1775 and 1776 (Du, 1954). Besides being sources of funds, these colonies also served as vast markets for British goods: by 1761, the value of British exports to India had reached 1.75 million pounds sterling (Furnaux, 1973). Moreover, the post-war intensification of mercantilist policies, such as the Stamp Act, laid the groundwork for the emergence of economic liberalism. The bourgeoisie had a strong demand for expanded free trade. In The Wealth of Nations, first published in 1776, Adam Smith strongly criticized the notion of “state interventionism”, arguing that free market competition could automatically achieve the optimal allocation of resources. He insisted that the state’s role should be limited to maintaining order and protecting property rights (Smith, 1796). By the 19th century, British policy had generally shifted from mercantilism to liberalism. Thirdly, Britain’s increasingly commercially-oriented landed nobility forged closer ties with commerce. The Enclosure Movement expanded further in Britain after the Seven Years’ War victory, a development closely linked to the surge in wool and grain exports. Consequently, the landed nobles evolved from mere feudal rent collectors into profit-oriented agricultural capitalists. For instance, prominent noble families such as the Dukes of Devonshire and Portland enclosed common lands and smallholder plots to establish large-scale pastures and farms, directly engaging in wool trade and grain speculation. In summary, it was Britain’s internal integration that facilitated the long-term fusion of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, forging a relatively stable elite ruling class. The victory in the Seven Years’ War temporarily satisfied the interests of this class, solidifying its dominant position. Consequently, even when confronting issues such as class conflicts, national debt pressures, and external wars, Britain was still able to advance its political and economic modernization process through negotiation and reform.

France, in stark contrast, experienced a crisis brought about by war, combined with the intensification of existing contradictions and the heightening of internal instability, ultimately propelling France onto the path of democratic revolution.

First, the conflict between the landed nobility and the monarch over fiscal power intensified. To safeguard national finances, the king issued the “vingtième” (one-twentieth tax) policy three times—before, during, and after the war. The monarch claimed this tax was “the fairest”, as it broke the long-standing tax exemption privileges enjoyed by the landed nobility, imposing taxes on all subjects. Nevertheless, the parlements (French sovereign courts) opposed the tax decrees under the guise of “defending ancient constitutional traditions”. In the 1750s, the Parlement of Paris launched 15 remonstrances; this number rose to 25 in the 1760s (Liu, 2014). In composition, “the judges were often wealthy and most enjoyed various tax exemptions”, and “they intermarried and socialized with old nobles, those living off seigneurial properties, and new wealthy families who had amassed fortunes through commerce and finance”(Skocpol, 2013). But rather than representing so-called “constitutional traditions”, the parlements actually advocated for the nobility’s interests. The struggle between the parlements and the monarch escalated, reaching a climax with the enactment of the April Edict on economic and tax matters in 1763. The Parlement of Rennes declared the registration of the April Edict as an affront to its dignity and a violation of national constitutional principles. The parlements of Besançon, Pau, Toulouse, and numerous other provincial courts subsequently joined the resistance, and the confrontation ended with Louis XV’s revocation of the April Edict. This demonstrates how the post-war financial crisis further exacerbated the struggle for economic interests between the monarch and the traditional nobility.

Secondly, France’s bourgeoisie remained relatively weak, with its economic development and political status constrained by the absolute monarchical system. In the short term after the war, the monarchy frequently adjusted tax and credit policies between the 1750s and 1760s. Indirect tax rates and tax-farming contracts were altered repeatedly, significantly increasing the risks of commercial activities. The bourgeoisie relied on a stable market order and credit system, but royal debt defaults, tax hikes, and currency devaluation directly undermined their property security. In the long term, the bourgeoisie’s development space in France was severely constrained.

As an agrarian society, France’s highly centralized power structure led to a significant concentration of land ownership in the hands of the church and nobility. At the same time, the majority of the population, the peasants, owned only a small amount of land. This land system resulted in low agricultural productivity and abysmally low purchasing power among the peasants, failing to provide a broad domestic market for capitalist industry and commerce. Meanwhile, the nobility’s monopoly on land prevented the bourgeoisie from expanding production through land capitalization, and the loss of overseas colonies deprived them of adequate raw materials, capital, and markets. Economic constraints, in turn, consigned the bourgeoisie to a marginalized and oppressed political position. As members of the Third Estate in the Estates-General, the bourgeoisie found it increasingly difficult to participate in national decision-making through legal channels after the Estates-General was dissolved in 1614. Moreover, their demands for electoral rights, legislative participation, and involvement in tax policy-making were largely disregarded. In the late 18th century, when France faced a financial crisis, Louis XVI briefly attempted reforms, appointing liberal-minded ministers such as Turgot and Necker. These ministers tried to abolish noble privileges, reform the tax system, and promote industry and commerce. However, these reforms were all thwarted by strong opposition from the nobility and the church; Turgot was dismissed, and Necker was removed from office. The failure of these reforms made the bourgeoisie realize that peaceful reform could not alter their political status.

In essence, France’s internal contradictions were fundamentally the conflict between feudal production relations and the development of productive forces. As the representative of feudal rule, the core of the monarch’s fiscal policy was to maintain the feudal privilege order and ensure the vested interests of the ruling class and the church. However, frequent wars and the expanding commodity economy rendered this privilege-based fiscal system unsustainable. The tax exemption rights of the landed nobility led to insufficient fiscal revenue; the bourgeoisie’s demands for a fair market and stable credit remained unmet. The monarch’s attempts to alleviate the crisis through tax increases and borrowing without touching the foundations of feudalism essentially shifted fiscal pressures to the landed nobility and the bourgeoisie, further exacerbating the conflict of interests. When the fiscal system could no longer maintain the balance of interests among various classes, the originally scattered class contradictions combined under the common fiscal oppression, eventually leading to the rejection of the feudal monarchy. Faced with the monarch’s absolute suppression of reform, such rejection eventually erupted in the form of revolutionary democracy.

3 The influence of the Divergence

Liberal constitutionalism and revolutionary democracy, as two main paths to political modernization, have profoundly shaped the political development trajectories of different regions of the world.

The influence of liberal constitutionalism is primarily concentrated in the Western world, serving as the core ideological driving force behind subsequent parliamentary reforms. Guided by this ideology, Britain, initiated with the Reform Act of 1832, lowered the property qualifications for voters step by step, broke the power monopoly of the landed nobility and the financial bourgeoisie, and granted political participation rights to the emerging industrial bourgeoisie. Subsequent reforms in 1867 and 1884 further expanded the scope of suffrage, extending democratic rights to the working class and sections of the peasantry, ultimately achieving a steady progression toward democratic governance. The U.S. Constitution has been continuously refined through amendments: the Fourteenth Amendment enshrined the principle of equal protection. At the same time, the Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote, thereby gradually refining the system of checks and balances and strengthening the protection of civil rights. Continental European countries followed suit, promoting the institutionalization and standardization of democratic systems. After centuries of development, the path of liberal constitutionalism has gradually become the cornerstone of contemporary Western political traditions.

In contrast, meanwhile, the tradition of revolutionary democracy did not continue to deepen in the West but gradually shifted eastward, taking root in regions such as Russia and China. Since the 19th century, with the intensification of contradictions in the capitalist world and the rise of national liberation movements, revolutionary democratic thought, spread by Russian thinkers such as Herzen and Chernyshevsky, crossed the European continent and entered the Far East. When combined with local social realities and national crises, these ideas evolved into a powerful ideological weapon for driving social transformation in these regions. In Russia, revolutionary democracy awakened the public’s resistance against feudal serfdom and autocratic rule, laying the ideological and mass foundation for the 1905 Revolution and serving as a crucial ideological precursor to the 1917 October Revolution. Vladimir Lenin inherited and developed the radical transformation philosophy of revolutionary democracy, leading the Russian proletariat to overthrow the bourgeois provisional government, break the shackles of capitalism, and establish the world’s first socialist state.

In China, revolutionary democratic thought was initially spread by thinkers such as Yan Fu and Liang Qichao, and later systematized by Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People. This ideology guided the 1911 Xinhai Revolution, which ended over two thousand years of imperial rule in China and established the Provisional Government of the Republic of China. Subsequently, integrating the basic tenets of Marxism with China’s specific realities, inherited and advanced the core spirit of revolutionary democracy, guiding the victory of the New-democratic revolution. The People’s Republic of China, founded in 1949 as a people’s democratic dictatorship, continues to be profoundly influenced by the revolutionary democratic ideal of the people’s status as masters of the country in its contemporary political development.

4 Conclusion

The divergence between liberal constitutionalism and revolutionary democracy in the process of political modernization was the result of multiple factors, including class structure, institutional foundations, and class contradictions, following the Seven Years’ War. Britain, building on the constitutional monarchy established by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, boasted a unified upper class and economic prosperity. Leveraging its victory in the war, Britain achieved colonial expansion and class integration, consolidating its liberal constitutional path centered on parliamentary sovereignty and checks and balances through gradual reforms. In contrast, France grappled with conflicts within its upper class and diminished national strength. The post-war fiscal crisis intensified, while the bourgeoisie faced constraints on both economic development and political participation. Failed reform attempts exacerbated the inherent contradiction between feudal production relations and the development of productive forces, ultimately propelling France onto the path of revolutionary democracy through violent revolution. Therefore, while the Seven Years’ War was not the starting point for the divergence in political modernization paths between Britain and France, it stands as a critical historical juncture that solidified this divide.

Globally today, mainstream Western countries continue to uphold governance systems characterized by incremental reform and elite negotiation, prioritizing institutional continuity and stability. Meanwhile, many developing nations have adopted paths centered on popular sovereignty and radical transformation, emphasizing the dismantling of existing systems to achieve social equity. This paper seeks to explore the historical origins of the core ideologies underlying different political systems worldwide, thereby fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the contemporary global political order from a historical perspective.

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