Blackwell Reference Online

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Born into a French aristocratic family in 1805, Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political theorist, sociologist, and cultural and historical commentator whose contributions are equally claimed by the disciplines of sociology, political science, American studies, and American history. In 1831, together with his colleague Gustave de Beaumont, Tocqueville embarked on a tour of the nascent American democracy in an effort to understand the inner workings of the democratic spirit in the everyday lives and social institutions of the American people. On returning to France he wrote his famous two-volume investigation, Democracy in America (1835). Tocqueville uncovered within American society a tension between democracy's conflicting imperatives: the egalitarian character of democratic societies, while successfully eliminating forms of despotism identified with feudalism, did not provide sufficient integration of the individual into the social fabric. Hence, democratization, if extended unchecked and in irresponsible ways, could produce excessive individualism (a term Tocqueville coined for this purpose), and ultimately new forms of despotism. In a comparison of the American and French experiences with democracy, Tocqueville pointed to the dangers posed by the French case, in which a sudden leveling of social hierarchies following the French Revolution eliminated the intermediary institutions ... log in or subscribe to read full text