Is Sans-culottes left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Sans-culottes scores −04 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −05. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Sans-culottes 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, Sans-culottes scores −02. Neighbourhood assemblies with permanent session and imperative mandates.

Atlas / Organisations / Sans-culottes

Sans-culottes

1792–1795 · Paris · Radical Democratic · Movement · coding confidence medium

−04ECcollective

−05CUpluralist

−02AUpluralist

−06SClocal

−02IDuniversal

+08CHcoercive

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

Direct democracy in the sections, recall of deputies, cheap bread, hostility to speculators.

Economic model

Price ceilings, small-workshop production, redistribution of large estates — not common ownership.

Organisation of powers

Neighbourhood assemblies with permanent session and imperative mandates.

Reading note

Often labelled proto-communist. Their economics were petty-proprietor, not collectivist.

Check a claim about Sans-culottes. 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 −04

Coded −4: price ceilings and small-workshop production, not common ownership.

Programme textSection petitions demanded the maximum and the requisition of hoarded grain, not the abolition of property.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −05

Coded −5: dechristianising, egalitarian in address and dress.

Documented act or statuteThe sections drove the dechristianisation campaign of late 1793.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −02

Coded −2: direct democracy in permanent session, subordinated to the Committee by 1794.

Documented act or statuteSections met in permanent session until the Convention restricted them to twice weekly in September 1793.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −06

Coded −6: the neighbourhood section as the unit of sovereignty.

Programme textImperative mandates and recall of deputies were standing demands.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −02

Coded −2: patriot status defined by conduct rather than birth.

Documented act or statuteCertificates of civism were issued by the sections on the basis of revolutionary activity.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +08

Coded +8: journées as the instrument.

Documented act or statuteThe armed risings of August 1792, May–June 1793 and Prairial 1795 were the movement's method.

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.

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). Sans-culottes. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/sansculottes/ (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.