Raymond Aron is widely recognised as France's greatest twentieth-century liberal, but the specifically liberal quality of his thought has not received the detailed historical analysis that it deserves. His work appears to fit so well within widely accepted understandings of post-war European liberalism, which has been defined primarily in terms of its anti-totalitarian, Cold War orientation, that its liberal status has been somewhat taken for granted. This has been exacerbated by an especially strong perception of a correlation between liberalism and anti-totalitarianism in France, whose late twentieth-century renaissance in liberal political thought is viewed as the product of an 'anti-totalitarian turn' in the late 1970s. While the moral authority accumulated through decades of opposition to National Socialism and Soviet communism made Aron into an anti-totalitarian icon, his early contribution to the rediscovery of France's liberal tradition established his reputation as a leader of the renaissance in the study of liberal political thought. Aron's prominence within this wider renaissance suggests that an historical treatment of his thought is overdue, but while the assumptions underpinning his reputation are not baseless, they do need to be critically scrutinised if such a treatment is to be credible. In pursuit of this end, two main arguments are developed in the present thesis. These are, first, that Aron's liberalism was more a product of the inter-war crisis of European liberalism than of the Cold War and, second, that his relationship with the French liberal tradition was primarily active and instrumental rather than passive and receptive. The first argument indicates that Aron's liberalism developed through a dialogue with and partial integration of important strands of anti-liberal crisis thought during these inter-war years; the second that earlier liberals with whose work he is frequently associated - notably Montesquieu and Tocqueville - had no substantial formative influence on his political thought. These contentions are interrelated in that Aron's post-war interpretation of his chosen liberal forebears was driven by a need to address specific problems arising from the liberal political epistemology that he formulated before the Second World War. It is by establishing in detail the link between Aron's reading of Montesquieu and Tocqueville and these earlier writings that the thesis makes its principal contribution to the existing literature on Aron, but several other original interpretations of his work are offered across its four thematic chapters on 'Political Epistemology', 'Anti-totalitarianism', 'The End of Ideology' and 'Instrumentalizing the French Liberal Tradition'. Regarding Aron's relationship with the wider late twentieth-century recovery of liberal political thought in France, it contends that the specific liberal renaissance to which he contributed most substantially emerged not as part of the anti-totalitarian turn, but in hostile reaction to the events of May 1968. This informs a broader argument that French liberal renaissance of these years was considerably more heterogeneous than is often assumed.

Non-conformiste dans sa méthodologie, hétérodoxe modéré dans sa théorie et réformateur dans ses actions, Rueff apporte une contribution originale à la pensée économique du XXème siècle. L’étude de son œuvre théorique a cependant été limitée à sa seule théorie monétaire et financière et a donné de ce fait une vision incomplète de la nature de ses apports à la théorie économique. Au contraire, ma présente thèse va au-delà de cette vision, pour s’intéresser à des aspects relativement ignorés par la littérature secondaire tels que sa théorie du chômage, les caractéristiques propres de son libéralisme et sa méthodologie. Il s’agit non seulement de présenter la théorie rueffienne, mais également de reconstruire le projet intellectuel dans lequel elle s’insère, afin de mettre en évidence l’unité et la cohérence de sa pensée. Partant du jeune Rueff des années 1920 s’interrogeant sur la méthodologie en économie, pour arriver au Rueff de l’après Seconde Guerre Mondiale questionnant le rôle de la théorie économique dans la structure et l’organisation de la société, ma thèse a pour objet d’identifier les influences intellectuelles qu’il a subies. Il s’agira de montrer, d’une part comment celles-ci sont à la source de sa pensée économique et en assurent la singularité ; et d’autre part comment se construit, à partir de celles-ci, un projet intellectuel global qui est déterminant pour comprendre sa théorie économique et identifier ses apports à la théorie économique. / Methodologically unconventional, moderately heterodox in theory and reformer at heart, Rueff makes an original contribution to twentieth-century economic thought. However, the study of his theoretical work has often been limited only to his monetary and financial theory. Accordingly, it gives an incomplete vision of his true contribution to economic theory. On the opposite, my dissertation focuses on issues relatively unexplored in secondary literature up until now, such as his unemployment theory, the specific features of his liberalism and his methodology. The aim is not just to set out Rueff’s theory, but also to reconstruct the intellectual project in which it fits in order to shed light on the unity and consistency of his thought. Whether it is for the young Rueff of the 1920’s—who wondered about the methodology in economics—or Rueff after the Second World War—considering the role of economic theory in the structure and organization of society—, the aim of this research is to identify his intellectual influences. We show how they constitute the essence of his economic thought and ensure its uniqueness; but also, how a global and intellectual project built, from them which is essential to understand his economic theory and identify his contribution to economic theory.