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Summary Tocqueville Extensive Notes
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- Democracy in America
Democracy in America Notes
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POL 1MODULE II – US REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
LECTURE II – DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY AND DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY
‘the great privilege of the Americans is the ability to make repairable mistakes’
Focus points
- Basis of democracy
- Threats to democracy
- Future of democracy / how democracy is maintained
- Social elements
Past questions
- Is democracy adaptable to change?
- Was Tocqueville right to say that in the United States the republic has
“deeper roots” than the Union?
- Is democracy a set of political rules, or a social commitment of its
citizens?
- Does democracy require a socially united society?
Is democracy adaptable to change?
What threatens liberty in a democracy?
Is democracy the consequence of social equality? (2010)
How far do social mores and beliefs shape democratic politics? (2011)
To what extent is democracy a passion for equality? (2012)
Was Tocqueville right to say that in the United States the republic has “deeper
roots” than the Union? (2019)
Does democracy require a socially united society? (2018)
Can the people ever rule in democracy? (2018)
Was Tocqueville right to suppose that in democracy the majority exercise ‘moral
authority’?
Is representative democracy a method or an end?
5. Does democracy require an active judiciary?
In an ideal society liberty and equality are the same. ‘‘an extreme point at
which liberty and equality touch and become one. Suppose that all citizens take
part in government and that each has an equal right to do so. Since no man will
then be different from his fellow men, no one will be able to exercise a
tyrannical power. Men will be per- fectly free, because they will all be entirely
equal, and they will all be perfectly equal because they will be entirely free.
This is the ideal toward which democratic peoples tend.’’
,POL 1
MODULE II – US REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
LECTURE II – DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY AND DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY
Lecture notes
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, any edition. Please read as
much as you can from Tocqueville’s book Democracy in America but definitely
the following passages:
Vol. 1
part I, chaps 3-6,
part II, chaps 1, 4, 6-10
Vol. 2
part II, chaps 1-9 and 13
part III, chaps 21-26
part IV, chaps. 1-8
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tocqueville/alexis/democracy/comp
lete.html
(Note (i) Tocqueville’s chapter on ‘the probable future of the three races that
inhabit the territory of the United States’ has been added to the set text; (ii) this
initial reading is set in relation to looking at Tocqueville’s arguments about the
claim that democracy is a singularly adaptable form of politics. In answering
students can draw on Tocqueville’s arguments about American racial politics
and democracy.)
Yale Open Courses Lectures
Welch, Cheryl B., The Cambridge companion to Tocqueville. Cambridge: CUP,
2006, Introduction, chapts 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11. PDF
Stephen Holmes, ‘Tocqueville and democracy’ in David Copp, Jean Hampton
and John E. Roemer (eds.), The idea of democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995), 23-63. DOWNING LIBRARY
Argued that in fear of excessive democracy in the social sense led him to
advocate excessive democracy in the political sense – this was the paradox of
Tocqueville
Jon Elster, Tocqueville: the first social scientist (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), chapter 8. PDF
David Runciman, ‘Can democracy cope?’ Political Quarterly, vol 82, no 4, 2011,
pp. 536-545. PDF
Alan Ryan, On politics: a history of political thought from Herodotus to the
present (London: Allen Lane 2012), chapter 20 DOWNING LIBRARY
• David Runciman, The confidence trap: a history of democracy in crisis from
the First World War to the present, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press),
introduction and epilogue.
• Nathan Glazer, ‘Race and ethnicity in America’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 11,
no. 1 (2000).
,POL 1
MODULE II – US REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
LECTURE II – DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY AND DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY
• Stephen Holmes, ‘Tocqueville and democracy’ in The idea of democracy,
David Copp, Jean Hampton
and John E. Roemer, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
• John Dunn, Setting the people free: the story of democracy (London: Atlantic,
2005), ch. 4.
• John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The fourth revolution: the global
race to invent the state
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2014), Parts 2 and 3.
Jon Elster, Tocqueville: the first social scientist (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), ch. 8.
John Dunn, ‘Conclusion’ in Democracy: the unfinished journey (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993).
Larry Siedentop, Democracy in Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000),
chapter 3.
Adam Przeworski et al, ‘What makes democracies endure’, Journal of
Democracy, vol. 7, no. 1 (1996), pp. 39-55
Charles Kupchan, ‘The democratic malaise: globalisation and the threat to the
west,’ Foreign Affairs, vol. 91, no. 1 (2012).
Matthew Flinders, Defending politics: why democracy matters in the twenty-
first century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Slavery, race, and Native Americans
Gustave de Beaumont, Marie, or slavery in the United States: a novel of
Jacksonian America (Baltimore,
MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1998).
Margaret Kohn, ‘The other America: Tocqueville and Beaumont on race and
slavery’, Polity, vol. 35, no. 2 (2002), pp. 169-193.
Laura Janara, ‘Brothers and others: Tocqueville and Beaumont: US genealogy,
democracy and racism,’
Political Theory, vol 32, no. 6 (2004), pp. 773-800.
Alison McQueen and Burke Hendrix, ‘Tocqueville in Jacksonian context:
American expansionism and
discourses of American Indian nomadism in Democracy in America,
Perspectives on Politics, vol. 15, no. 3 (2017), pp. 663-677.
Secondary reading on Tocqueville
Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr, Tocqueville: a very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010).
, POL 1
MODULE II – US REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
LECTURE II – DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY AND DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY
Larry Siedentop, Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
Cheryl Welch, De Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Jon Elster, ‘Consequences of constitutional choice: reflections on Tocqueville’,
in Constitutionalism and
democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
Jennifer Pitts, ‘Empire and democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria question’,
Journal of Political
Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 3 (2000), pp. 295-318.
Alan Ryan, On politics: a history of political thought from Herodotus to the
present (London: Allen Lane
2012), ch. 20.
Debra Satz ‘Tocqueville, commerce and democracy’ in The idea of democracy,
David Copp, Jean
Hampton and John E. Roemer, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995).
Sheldon Wolin, Tocqueville between two worlds: the making of a theoretical life
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).
Cheryl Welch, ed., The Cambridge companion to Alexis de Tocqueville
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
Jill Locke and Eileen Hunt Botting, eds., Feminist interpretations of Alexis de
Tocqueville (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).
Alan S. Kahan, Aristocratic liberalism: the social and political thought of Jacob
Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992).
Jack Lively, The social and political thought of Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1962).
Larry Siedentop, ‘Two liberal traditions’, in The idea of freedom: essays in
honour of Isaiah Berlin, Alan
Ryan, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).
Hugh Brogan, Alexis de Tocqueville: prophet of democracy in the age of
revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).
Aurelian Craitu, Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and other writings
(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009).
Does democracy need religion https://muse.jhu.edu/article/17005
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