Is Jacobins left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Jacobins scores +01 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −06. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Jacobins authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Jacobins scores +08. Committee of Public Safety concentrating executive, legislative and judicial power; the constitution suspended.

Atlas / Organisations / Jacobins

Jacobins

The Mountain · 1792–1794 · France · Radical Democratic · Faction · coding confidence high

+01ECmarket

−06CUpluralist

+08AUmonist

+09SCcentral

−06IDuniversal

+09CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Republic of virtue, popular sovereignty, universal male suffrage, secularisation, revolutionary emergency government.

Economic model

Maximum price controls, requisitioning, war economy — but private property never abolished.

Organisation of powers

Committee of Public Safety concentrating executive, legislative and judicial power; the constitution suspended.

Reading note

The origin case for the modern distinction between a movement's radical goals and its concentrated means. Egalitarian aims, near-absolute authority.

Check a claim about Jacobins. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored +01

Coded near the centre, which is the most counter-intuitive placement in the dataset and the most important.

Documented act or statuteThe General Maximum of 1793 fixed prices and wages but did not abolish private property.
Documented act or statuteChurch and émigré lands were sold to private buyers rather than held in common.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −06

Coded −6: dechristianisation, a new calendar, and the abolition of hereditary status.

Documented act or statuteNobility and hereditary titles were abolished; a republican calendar replaced the Christian one in 1793.
Documented act or statuteSlavery was abolished in the colonies by the Convention in February 1794.

AU · Organisation of power · scored +08

Near the ceiling: the constitution was ratified and then suspended, with all powers vested in a committee.

Documented act or statuteThe 1793 constitution was ratified by referendum and immediately suspended for the duration of the emergency.
Documented act or statuteThe Law of 22 Prairial removed defence counsel and limited verdicts to acquittal or death.

SC · Scale of decision · scored +09

Coded +9: the departments subordinated to Paris through appointed representatives on mission.

Documented act or statuteRepresentatives on mission were sent from the Convention with plenary powers over departments and armies.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −06

Coded −6: citizenship defined by adherence to the republic rather than by birth.

Documented act or statuteForeigners including Paine and Cloots were elected to the Convention.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +09

At the ceiling: the Terror was an explicit doctrine of government, not an excess.

Programme textRobespierre defended terror as an emanation of virtue in his report of February 1794.

Where it came from, and what came after

was destroyed byGirondins
Twenty-one Girondin deputies were guillotined in October 1793.
gave doctrine toConspiracy of Equals
The Conspiracy of Equals formed among Jacobins after Thermidor.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

France

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Jacobins. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/jacobins/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.