Sovereignty and European Idea in Voltaire and Rousseau’s Works

Two of the most famous philosophers of the Enlightenment developed comparable conceptions of sovereignty, with very different objectives and implications. Rousseau imagined free and distinct nations that had jointly abandoned war as a means to deal with their counterparts. Voltaire, more of a realist, emphasized the Gallican arguments against the supranational power exercised by the pope. Despite the relative irrelevance of the context in which they expressed their ideas, Voltaire and Rousseau nonetheless remain two influential thinkers on the European idea, whose contributions can shed light on some of the contemporary debates.