Press Policy and the Early Neoabsolutist State: The Melding of Absolutism and Liberalism

Abstract

With the defeat of the revolution, a new system, dubbed Neoabsolutism, developed, attempting to combine the prerogatives of the traditional imperial state with executive, legislative, and judicial authority all held in the hands of a new centralized administration but now functioning, for the first time, under the primacy of the rule of law. Far from being the death of independent journalism and despite its officials’ efforts to the contrary, Neoabsolutism’s focus on the rule of law opened an important opportunity for the survival of opposition expression in the periodical press and therein the continuation of a liberal public sphere.

Substantial materials in this chapter first appeared in Leigh, 2004, reprinted here with permission.