AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Understand how **John Locke** and **Jean-Jacques Rousseau** developed Enlightenment ideas about rights and political authority
- Identify the key principles of **natural rights**, **social contract**, **limited government**, and **popular sovereignty**
- Explain the difference between Locke’s emphasis on individual rights and Rousseau’s emphasis on the common good
- Recall key works and dates, including **Two Treatises of Government (1689)** and **The Social Contract (1762)**
- Analyse how both thinkers challenged **absolute monarchy** and **divine-right rule**
- Evaluate their influence on later political developments, especially the **Glorious Revolution** and the **French Revolution**

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand Enlightenment political thought on rights, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that **John Locke (1632–1704)** argued for natural rights to **life, liberty, and property**
- Identify Locke’s view that government rests on the **consent of the governed** and may be resisted if it violates rights
- Know that **Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)** argued that legitimate sovereignty belongs to the people
- Explain Rousseau’s idea of the **general will** as the common good, not merely private interests added together
- Understand that both thinkers used **social contract** theory but meant different things by it
- Distinguish **Locke’s limited government** from **Rousseau’s popular sovereignty**
- Explain how these ideas challenged **absolutism** and influenced revolutionary politics in the Atlantic world and France
- Understand the importance of **property** as a major difference between the two thinkers

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What natural rights did Locke say people possess?
2. How did Locke explain when people may rebel against government?
3. What did Rousseau mean by the **general will**?
4. How were Locke and Rousseau both similar and different in their use of **social contract** theory?
5. Why were the ideas of Locke and Rousseau dangerous to absolute monarchs?

## Introduction

The Enlightenment in **eighteenth-century Europe** applied reason to politics in the same way the Scientific Revolution had applied reason to nature. Instead of asking only how planets moved or how bodies functioned, thinkers began asking who should rule, where political authority comes from, and what rights human beings possess before government even begins.

Among the most important of these thinkers were **John Locke** and **Jean-Jacques Rousseau**. AP European History often uses them to test comparison, causation, and continuity and change. Both attacked the old belief that kings ruled by divine right, but they did not imagine the ideal political order in the same way. That distinction matters in essays and multiple-choice questions.

> **Key Term: Enlightenment**
> An intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that used reason to question traditional authority in politics, religion, and society.

### Locke: natural rights, consent, and limited government

Locke’s political thought grew out of the crisis of seventeenth-century England. Earlier thinkers such as **Thomas Hobbes** had also used social contract theory, but Hobbes concluded that people needed a very strong ruler to keep order. Locke moved in a sharply different direction. He believed human beings were rational enough to possess rights even before governments were created.

His major political work for this topic is **Two Treatises of Government (1689)**. Locke argued that people are born with natural rights to **life, liberty, and property**. These rights are not gifts from kings. They exist before government, which means government cannot rightfully take them away at will.

> **Key Term: natural rights**
> Rights that belong to human beings by nature rather than by grant from a ruler or state.

For Locke, this idea had major political consequences. If rights come before government, then government exists for a limited purpose: to protect those rights. It is not meant to rule absolutely. This is why Locke is closely linked to **limited government**.

> **Key Term: limited government**
> A system in which rulers have restricted powers and government exists mainly to protect rights rather than control all aspects of life.

Locke also argued that legitimate rule depends on the **consent of the governed**. This was a direct challenge to divine-right monarchy. Under divine-right theory, a king ruled because God had placed him there. Under Locke’s theory, rulers govern only because people agree to political society.

This is one of the clearest cause-and-effect chains in AP Euro political thought:

- People possess natural rights
- They form government to protect those rights
- Government is legitimate only by consent
- If government violates rights, it breaks the contract
- Therefore, people may resist or overthrow it

That last point is crucial. Locke defended a **right of rebellion**. He did not think rebellion should be casual or constant, but he did argue that a government attacking life, liberty, or property had put itself in conflict with the people.

> **Key Term: consent of the governed**
> The principle that government is legitimate only because the people accept its authority.

Locke’s emphasis on **property** is especially important. Students often remember “life and liberty” but forget property, which is what distinguishes Locke from later revolutionary language like “pursuit of happiness.” For Locke, property was not a side issue. It was one of the main reasons people entered civil society in the first place.

This helps explain why Locke’s theory was both powerful and limited. Powerful, because it gave a strong argument against absolutism. Limited, because in practice his political vision fit a world in which property-owning men were central political actors. His ideas did not produce full equality for women, enslaved people, or all poor men.

> **Test Tip:** If a question asks which Enlightenment thinker defended life, liberty, and property, choose **Locke**, not Rousseau. If you see “consent,” “limited government,” or “right of revolution,” Locke is usually the best answer.

Locke’s influence reached beyond England. His ideas helped justify the **Glorious Revolution of 1688**, which replaced arbitrary royal power with a stronger constitutional order. Later, his arguments shaped liberal political thought and strongly influenced the American Revolution. In AP Euro, he often represents the move from absolutism toward constitutionalism.

### Rousseau: popular sovereignty, the general will, and the common good

Rousseau wrote later than Locke and responded to a different political and social world. His most important work for this topic is **The Social Contract (1762)**. Its famous opening line, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” captures his belief that society often corrupts rather than protects human freedom.

Rousseau agreed with Locke on one major point: political authority is human-made, not divinely ordained. Kings do not rule because God selected them. Legitimate rule must come from human agreement. But Rousseau did not define that agreement in the same way.

> **Key Term: social contract**
> An agreement among people that creates political authority and defines the relationship between rulers and the ruled.

For Locke, the social contract protects preexisting individual rights. For Rousseau, the social contract creates a legitimate political community in which sovereignty belongs to the people as a whole. This is the basis of **popular sovereignty**.

> **Key Term: popular sovereignty**
> The principle that political authority rests with the people collectively rather than with a monarch.

Rousseau’s most difficult idea, and the one AP questions often test, is the **general will**. This is not simply whatever most people happen to want at a given moment. It is also not the same as each individual pursuing private advantage and then adding those desires together. Rousseau distinguished the common good from the sum of selfish preferences.

> **Key Term: general will**
> The collective will directed toward the common good of the political community.

That distinction matters because students often oversimplify Rousseau into “majority rule.” That is inaccurate. A majority can still be selfish. The general will, in Rousseau’s theory, should aim at what benefits the community as a whole.

A useful contrast is this:

- **Will of all** = everyone’s private interests added together
- **General will** = what serves the common good

Rousseau thought genuine freedom comes when citizens obey laws they have prescribed for themselves as members of the political community. That sounds strange at first. How is obedience freedom? His answer is that if laws express the general will, then obedience is not submission to another person’s private power. It is participation in collective self-rule.

Rousseau was therefore more radical than many other philosophes. He was less interested in just limiting monarchy and more interested in relocating sovereignty itself. In his model, sovereignty belongs to the people, not the king.

Rousseau also differed sharply from Locke on **property**. Locke treated property as a natural right to be protected. Rousseau was far more suspicious. He connected the growth of inequality to social institutions, especially private property and class divisions. This made his work more appealing to later critics of privilege and inherited status.

This is why Rousseau became so important for the **French Revolution**. His ideas supported attacks on aristocratic privilege, claims of political equality among men, and the idea that sovereignty lay in the nation rather than the crown. Later radicals, especially the **Jacobins**, drew on Rousseau’s language of civic virtue and the general will.

However, students need one major caution here. Rousseau did **not** call directly for the **Reign of Terror**. But later revolutionaries such as **Robespierre** used the language of the general will to justify harsh repression. If the government claimed to embody the people’s true will, then opponents could be treated as enemies of the people.

> **Test Tip:** If a source or question stresses the **common good**, **popular sovereignty**, **direct democracy**, or the **general will**, think **Rousseau**. If it stresses protecting private rights from government, think **Locke**.

Rousseau also had limits. Although he argued for broader equality among men than many earlier thinkers, he did not extend political equality to women. That point connects clearly to AP themes about the gap between Enlightenment ideals and actual practice.

### Comparison and historical significance: why Locke and Rousseau both mattered

The easiest AP comparison is to say that both Locke and Rousseau challenged absolutism. That is true, but it is not enough for a high-scoring answer. You need to explain how and why.

First, both rejected **divine-right monarchy**. In both theories, government comes from human agreement, not sacred inheritance. That alone was a major break with traditional hierarchy.

Second, both used **social contract** language. But they used it differently:

- Locke: contract creates government to protect rights people already have
- Rousseau: contract creates a political community ruled by the people as a whole

Third, both shaped later political developments, but in different directions.

Locke is tied most strongly to:

- the **Glorious Revolution**
- constitutional government
- liberalism
- defense of individual rights
- suspicion of arbitrary state power

Rousseau is tied most strongly to:

- popular sovereignty
- democratic participation
- criticism of inequality
- French revolutionary politics
- later ideas of civic nationalism

The property difference is often the sharpest contrast. For Locke, property is one of the central natural rights. For Rousseau, property is bound up with inequality and social corruption. If you can explain that contrast clearly, your answer will usually move beyond description into analysis.

There is also an AP theme of **continuity and change** here. Both thinkers continued the broader early modern trend of questioning inherited authority, seen earlier in the Reformation and in challenges to absolute monarchy. But they changed political thought by grounding authority in people rather than dynasty.

A strong AP thesis might sound like this: both Locke and Rousseau rejected divine-right rule and grounded authority in human agreement, but Locke defended individual natural rights and limited government, while Rousseau emphasized collective sovereignty and the general will as the basis of legitimate freedom.

That kind of thesis does three things:

- states a similarity
- states a difference
- gives a line of reasoning
  > **Key Term: divine-right monarchy**
  > The belief that kings rule by God’s authority and are therefore not answerable to their subjects.

### How to use this in an AP essay or SAQ

For an SAQ, be direct and formulaic. Name the thinker, state the idea, and explain its significance in one or two sentences.

Example structure:

1. Identify the thinker
2. State the principle
3. Link it to absolutism, constitutionalism, or revolution

For a LEQ or DBQ, build comparison paragraphs. One paragraph can explain Locke, one Rousseau, and a third can compare influence or evaluate differences.

A useful essay structure is:

- Context: Enlightenment challenge to traditional authority in Period 2, linked to AP themes **Objective Knowledge and Subjective Visions** and **States and Other Institutions of Power**
- Paragraph 1: Locke’s natural rights, consent, limited government
- Paragraph 2: Rousseau’s popular sovereignty, general will, critique of inequality
- Paragraph 3: comparison and influence on later revolutions

If the prompt asks about influence, be specific:

- Locke → **Glorious Revolution**, **English Bill of Rights**, liberal constitutional thought
- Rousseau → **French Revolution**, sovereignty of the nation, Jacobin political language

If the prompt asks about comparison, avoid vague wording like “they both believed in freedom.” Explain what kind of freedom each meant. Locke meant security for individual rights. Rousseau meant participation in a lawful political community directed toward the common good.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- The Enlightenment applied reason to politics and questioned traditional authority
- **John Locke** argued that people possess natural rights to **life, liberty, and property**
- Locke said government is legitimate only by the **consent of the governed**
- Locke supported **limited government** and a **right of rebellion** when rulers violate rights
- Locke’s major political work for this topic is **Two Treatises of Government (1689)**
- **Jean-Jacques Rousseau** argued that sovereignty belongs to the people as a whole
- Rousseau’s major political work for this topic is **The Social Contract (1762)**
- Rousseau’s **general will** means the common good, not just majority opinion or private interests added together
- Both thinkers challenged **divine-right monarchy** and **absolutism**
- Locke emphasized protection of individual rights, especially property
- Rousseau was more critical of inequality and more focused on collective political freedom
- Locke is linked to constitutionalism and the Glorious Revolution, while Rousseau is linked to popular sovereignty and French revolutionary thought

## Key Terms and Concepts

- Enlightenment
- natural rights
- limited government
- consent of the governed
- social contract
- popular sovereignty
- general will
- divine-right monarchy


The Enlightenment - Locke and Rousseau theorized rights