(; published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a
classic
A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...
French text by
Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his wor ...
. Its title literally translates to ''On Democracy in America'', but official English translations are usually simply entitled ''Democracy in America''. In the book, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the previous several hundred years.
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont were sent by the French government to study the
American prison system
Incarceration in the United States is a primary form of punishment and rehabilitation for the commission of felony and other offenses. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceratio ...
. In his later letters, Tocqueville indicates that he and Beaumont used their official business as a pretext to study
American society
The society of the United States is based on Western culture, and has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, ...
instead. They arrived in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
in May of that year and spent nine months traveling the United States, studying the prisons and collecting information on American society, including its
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
,
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that stud ...
, and
economic
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
character. The two also briefly visited Canada, spending a few days in the summer of 1831 in what was then
Lower Canada
The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...
(modern-day
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
) and
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...
(modern-day
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...
).
After they returned to France in February 1832, Tocqueville and Beaumont submitted their report, (''On the Penitentiary System in the United States and its Application in France''), in 1833. When the first edition was published, Beaumont was working on another book, (''Marie, or, Slavery in the United States'', published as two volumes in 1835), a social critique and novel describing the separation of races in a moral society and the conditions of slaves in the United States. Before finishing ''Democracy in America'', Tocqueville believed that Beaumont's study of the United States would prove more comprehensive and penetrating.
Purpose
He begins his book by describing the change in social conditions taking place. He observed that over the previous seven hundred years the social and economic conditions of men had become more equal. The aristocracy, Tocqueville believed, was gradually disappearing as the modern world experienced the beneficial effects of equality. Tocqueville traced the development of equality to a number of factors, such as granting all men permission to enter the
clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
, widespread economic opportunity resulting from the growth of trade and commerce, the royal sale of titles of nobility as a monarchical fundraising tool, and the abolition of primogeniture.
Tocqueville described this revolution as a "providential fact" of an "irresistible revolution," leading some to criticize the determinism found in the book. However, based on Tocqueville's correspondences with friends and colleagues, Marvin Zetterbaum, Professor Emeritus at
University of California Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The instit ...
, concludes that the Frenchman never accepted democracy as determined or inevitable. He did, however, consider equality more just and therefore found himself among its partisans.
Given the social state that was emerging, Tocqueville believed that a "new political science" would be needed, in order to:
struct democracy, if possible to reanimate its beliefs, to purify its motives, to regulate its movements, to substitute little by little the science of affairs for its inexperience, and knowledge of its true instincts for its blind instincts; to adapt its government to time and place; to modify it according to circumstances and men: such is the first duty imposed on those who direct society in our day.
The remainder of the book can be interpreted as an attempt to accomplish this goal, thereby giving advice to those people who would experience this change in social states.
Tocqueville's message is somewhat beyond the American democracy itself, which was rather an illustration to his philosophical claim that democracy is an effect of industrialization. This explains why Tocqueville does not unambiguously define democracy and even ignores the intents of the Founding Fathers of the United States regarding the American political system:
Main themes
The Puritan founding
Tocqueville begins his study of the U.S. by explaining the contribution of the
Puritans
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
. According to him, the Puritans established the U.S. democratic social state of equality. They arrived equals in education and were all middle class. In addition, Tocqueville observes that they contributed a synthesis of religion and political liberty in America that was uncommon in Europe, particularly in France. He calls the Puritan Founding the "seed" of his entire work.
The Federal Constitution
Tocqueville believed that the Puritans established the principle of sovereignty of the people in the
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
The Fundamental Orders were adopted by the Connecticut Colony council on . The fundamental orders describe the government set up by the Connecticut River towns, setting its structure and powers. They wanted the government to have access to the ...
. The
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
then popularized this principle, followed by the
Constitutional Convention of 1787
The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention fr ...
, which developed institutions to manage popular will. While Tocqueville speaks highly of the U.S. Constitution, he believes that the mores, or "habits of mind" of the American people play a more prominent role in the protection of freedom. These include:
* Township democracy
* Mores, laws, and circumstances
*
Tyranny of the majority
The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions. This results in oppres ...
* Religion and beliefs
* The family
* Individualism
* Associations
* Self-interest rightly understood
* Materialism
Situation of women
Tocqueville was one of the first social critics to examine the situation of U.S. women and to identify the concept of
separate spheres
Terms such as separate spheres and domestic–public dichotomy refer to a social phenomenon within modern societies that feature, to some degree, an empirical separation between a domestic or private sphere and a public or social sphere. This o ...
. Full text availabl online /ref> The section ''Influence of Democracy on Manners Properly So Called'' of the second volume is devoted to his observations of women's status in U.S. society. He writes: "In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two pathways that are always different."
He argues that the collapse of aristocracy lessened the patriarchal rule in the family where fathers would control daughters' marriages, meaning that women had the option of remaining unmarried and retaining a higher degree of independence. Married women, by contrast, lost all independence "in the bonds of matrimony" as "in America paternal discipline y the woman's fatheris very relaxed and the conjugal tie very strict." Yet despite this lack of independence, He believed America would "raise woman and make her more and more the equal of man" and praised America for having more legal protections for women than in France. Tocqueville believed women would be contributors to America's prosperity and strength despite the limitations of the time, stating:
As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen women occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, ... to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply,—to the superiority of their women.
Summary
The primary focus of ''Democracy in America'' is an analysis of why republican
representative democracy
Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...
has succeeded in the United States while failing in so many other places. Tocqueville seeks to apply the functional aspects of democracy in the United States to what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France.
Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats ''to'' democracy and possible dangers ''of'' democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "
soft despotism
Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the s ...
" as well as the risk of developing a
tyranny of the majority
The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions. This results in oppres ...
. He observes that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. He contrasts this to France, where there was what he perceived to be an unhealthy antagonism between democrats and the religious, which he relates to the connection between church and state. Recent scholarship has pointed out that Tocqueville did not speak to or attend to any African American women in the course of his study, though their views on democracy, autonomy, and freedom largely aligned with his, if slavery were abolished.
Insightful analysis of
political society
A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a population within a territory. There is no undisputed definition of a state. One widely used definition comes from the German sociologist Max Weber: a "stat ...
was supplemented in the second volume by description of
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Hegel.
Tocqueville observed that social mechanisms have paradoxes, as in what later became known as the Tocqueville effect: "social frustration increases as social conditions improve". He wrote that this growing hatred of social privilege, as social conditions improve, leads to the state concentrating more power to itself.
Tocqueville's views on the United States took a darker turn after 1840, however, as made evident in Craiutu and Jennings' ''Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings''.
Impact
''Democracy in America'' was published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the other in 1840. It was immediately popular in both Europe and the United States, while also having a profound impact on the French population. By the twentieth century, it had become a classic work of
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
,
social science
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of so ...
, and
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
. It is a commonly assigned reading for
undergraduate
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...
s of American universities majoring in the political or social sciences, and part of the introductory political theory syllabus at Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton and other institutions. In the introduction to his translation of the book, Harvard Professor
Harvey C. Mansfield
Harvey Claflin Mansfield Jr. (born March 21, 1932) is an American political philosopher. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships a ...
calls it "at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America."
Tocqueville's work is often acclaimed for making a number of astute predictions. He anticipates the potential acrimony over the abolition of
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
that would tear apart the United States and lead to the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, as well as the eventual superpower rivalry between the United States and Russia, which exploded after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and spawned the Cold War.
Noting the rise of the industrial sector in the American economy, Tocqueville, some scholars have argued, also correctly predicted that an industrial aristocracy would rise from the ownership of labor. He warned that 'friends of democracy must keep an anxious eye peeled in this direction at all times', observing that the route of industry was the gate by which a newfound wealthy class might potentially dominate, although he himself believed that an industrial aristocracy would differ from the formal aristocracy of the past.
On the other hand, Tocqueville proved shortsighted in noting that a democracy's equality of conditions stifles literary development. In spending several chapters lamenting the state of the arts in America, he fails to envision the literary renaissance that would shortly arrive in the form of such major writers as
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
,
Herman Melville
Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...
,
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion.
He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that t ...
, and
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
. Equally, in dismissing the country's interest in science as limited to pedestrian applications for streamlining the production of material goods, he failed to imagine America's burgeoning appetite for pure scientific research and discovery.
According to Tocqueville, democracy had some unfavorable consequences: the tyranny of the majority over thought, a preoccupation with material goods, and isolated individuals.
''Democracy in America'' was interpreted differently across national contexts. In France and the United States, Tocqueville's work was seen as liberal, whereas both progressives and conservatives in the British Isles interpreted his work as supporting their own positions.
Translations
* Henry Reeve, translated 1835 This translation was completed by Reeve and later revised by
Francis Bowen
Francis Bowen (; September 8, 1811 – January 22, 1890) was an American philosopher, writer, and educationalist.
Biography
He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was educated at Mayhew School, Boston, Phillips Exeter Academy, and Harva ...
. In 1945, it was reissued in a modern edition by Alfred A. Knopf edited and with an extensive historical essay by Phillips Bradley.
* George Lawrence, translated in 1966 with an introduction by J. P. Mayer
*
Harvey C. Mansfield
Harvey Claflin Mansfield Jr. (born March 21, 1932) is an American political philosopher. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships a ...
Arthur Goldhammer
Arthur Goldhammer (born November 17, 1946) is an American academic and translator.
Early life
Goldhammer studied mathematics at MIT, gaining his PhD in 1973.
Career
Since 1977 he has worked as a translator. He is based at the Center for Europ ...
, translated circa 2004
* James T. Schleifer, edited by Eduardo Nolla and published by Liberty Fund in March 2010 Bilingual edition based on the authoritative edition of the original French-language text.
Economic sociology
Economic sociology is the study of the social cause and effect of various economic phenomena. The field can be broadly divided into a classical period and a contemporary one, known as "new economic sociology".
The classical period was concerned ...
* Manent, Pierre. ''Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy'' (1996)
* Morton, F. L. "Sexual Equality and the Family in Tocqueville's Democracy in America," ''Canadian Journal of Political Science'' (1984) 17#2 pp. 309–32 in JSTOR * Schleifer, James T. ''The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America'' (U of Chicago Press, 2012)
* Schneck, Stephen. "New Readings of Tocqueville's America: Lessons for Democracy," ''Polity'' (1992) 25#2 pp. 283–29 in JSTOR * Welch, Cheryl B. ed. ''Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville'' (2006 excerpt and text search * Zetterbaum, Marvin. ''Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy'' (1967)
Translations
* Tocqueville, ''Democracy in America'' (Arthur Goldhammer, trans.; Olivier Zunz, ed.) The Library of America 2004)
* Tocqueville, ''Democracy in America'' (George Lawrence, trans.; J. P. Mayer, ed.; New York: Perennial Classics, 2000)
* Tocqueville, ''Democracy in America'' (Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, trans., ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)
Honoré Champion
Honoré Champion (1846–1913) was a French publisher. He founded Éditions Honoré Champion in 1874 and published scientific works geared towards laymen, particularly concerning history and literature.
Champion died from an embolism on 8 Apri ...
, 2004.
* Arnaud Coutant, ''Tocqueville et la Constitution démocratique'', Paris, Mare et Martin, 2008.
* A. Coutant, ''Une Critique républicaine de la démocratie libérale'', Paris, Mare et Martin, 2007.
* Laurence Guellec, ''Tocqueville : l'apprentissage de la liberté'', Michalon, 1996.
* Lucien Jaume, ''Tocqueville, les sources aristocratiques de la liberté'', Bayard, 2008.
* Eric Keslassy, ''le libéralisme de Tocqueville à l’épreuve du paupérisme'',
L'Harmattan
Éditions L'Harmattan, usually known simply as L'Harmattan (), is one of the largest French book publishers. It specialises in non-fiction books with a particular focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. It is named after the Harmattan, a trade wind in ...
, 2000
* F. Melonio, ''Tocqueville et les Français'', 1993.
Alan Ryan
Alan James Ryan (born 9 May 1940) is a British philosopher. He was Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford. He was also Warden of New College, Oxford, from 1996 to 2009.. He retired as Professor Emeritus in September 2015PeAlan Ryan' ...
on the writing of the introduction to the 1994 edition of ''Democracy in America''. (Page includes transcript)
''Booknotes'', December 17, 2000 – Interview with
Harvey Mansfield
Harvey Claflin Mansfield Jr. (born March 21, 1932) is an American political philosophy, political philosopher. He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1962. He has held Guggenheim F ...
on the 2000
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...