Scholars often frame the history of democracy as a gradual expansion of voting rights and representative institutions. Camille Creyghton, our guest today, offers a different perspective: democracy also emerged from radical movements and everyday practices of self-government.
In her presentation at the CEU Democracy Institute Annual Conference, held in Budapest in June 2026, Camille Creyghton challenged two assumptions: that democracy was gradually built through parliamentary institutions, and that it followed a gradual, top-down approach emanating from the Rousseau concept of nation-building. In many cases, democratic practices emerged from below to find practical solutions to collective problems.
Her presentation was part of the panel called “Was Democracy Always This Fragile? A Longer Historical View”. In this panel, speakers explored how debates over democracy, self-government, liberty, and equality in the long nineteenth century continue to shape our understanding of democratic challenges today.
Our conversation starts with a bold claim. Democracy had a different understanding in the 19th century. As she stated,
“ in the first half of the 19th century, democracy was not that much talked about in most historical contexts in Europe because of a certain fear of what went wrong in the French Revolution.(..)However, the concept of democracy survived at the extreme left of the political spectrum.”
Thus, democratic practices could be present even when the concept of democracy remained a marginal political ideal. Local guilds in the Netherlands used democratic practices to self-manage local issues, such as managing the drainpipes. Moreover, in the 19th century, those who called themselves democrats were at the fringes of the political spectrum. Many of them did not have access to parliaments. Instead, they gathered and shared political ideas in less formal settings: clubs, associations, or often pubs.
As Camille Creyghton develops, these stories are more historical curiosities. They illuminate broader questions about how people understood and reshaped the concept of democracy beyond the institutional framework. Although the modern understanding of democracy has clear roots in Antiquity, its meaning shifted radically over time, particularly during the era of nation-building. Therefore, local nuances and everyday practices should always be considered.
Creyghton’s approach belongs to a broader movement to recover this historical diversity. Research projects such as Re-Imagining Democracy, thoroughly mapped the nuances of this matter by bringing together historians from across Europe. As she stated:
Historical studies can contribute by showing this breadth and also this wildness of democratic thought at certain periods in history. A lot of what is in the backpack of what democracy is today (…) we tend to forget if we look from a short-term view at institutions and voting rights.
Camille Creyghton is an assistant professor of Political History at the University of Utrecht. Her areas of expertise are intellectual history, history of political culture, and cultural history from the end of the 18th century until the first half of the 20th century. Currently, she is working on a research project on the transfer of ideas among political exiles from various national backgrounds in a couple of European cities in the period 1830-1848.
The interview was conducted by Adrian Matus. Lilit Hakobyan edited the audio file.
Photo: Daniel Vegel / CEU Democracy Institute
