Simard Augustin

Biography

Simard Augustin is an Associate Professor Co-director of the "German and European Thinking" collection, Presses de l'Université de Montréal. Contact : T elephone 514-343-6111 # 3481 Pav. PAV.M.CARON-L.GROULX-3200 JB \ bur. C-4039 at University of Montreal, Department of Political Science, Canada.

Research Interest

Simard Augustin's research focuses on the development of political thought in Europe since the end of the eighteenth century. I am particularly interested in the crisis of the inter-war period and the process of decomposition / recomposition of liberalism to which it gave rise. How was the trauma of the 1930s "metabolized" by political thought? How did it induce a reconfiguration of liberal ideas, a shift in the fundamental stakes of liberalism and a radical re-reading of tradition? Rather than questioning some great thinkers, my work deals with the more anonymous but no less decisive contribution of public law and constitutional doctrine. I seek to shed light on the role played by lawyers as mediators of political theory in the various efforts of renewal (neoliberalism, planning, economic regulation) and consolidation (defensive democracy, control of constitutionality) of the liberal regime in Europe . Leaving aside questions of normativity, my work focuses first on the historicity of our political and conceptual references, and their inclusion in specific conjunctures. By exposing the appropriations they have been subjected to, one can shake their evidence and subject them to critical judgment. I teach courses and seminars on the history of political thought, law and politics, the theory of democracy and neoliberalism.