Theories of Democracy builds on Robert Dahl's observation that there is no single theory of democracy; only theories. Beyond the broad commitment to rule by the majority, democracy involves a set of contentious debates concerning the proper function and scope of power, equality, freedom, justice, and interests. In this anthology, Ronald J. Terchek and Thomas C. Conte have brilliantly assembled the works of classical, modern, and contemporary commentators to illustrate the deep and diverse roots of the democratic ideal, as well as to provide materials for thinking about the way some contemporary theories build on different traditions of democratic theorizing. The arguments addressed in Theories of Democracy appear in the voices of authors who have championed influential theories concerning the opportunities and dangers associated with democratic politics. In this collection, Terchek and Conte have selected excerpts not as a means for promoting a particular way of looking at democracy, but rather they have wisely chosen works that will enable students to carry on an informed discourse on the meaning and purposes of democratic principles and practices. Theories of Democracy is a must for every student of democracy's past, present, and future.

‘A new political science is needed for a totally new world’

In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey throughout America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the strengths and weaknesses of the nation’s evolving politics and institutions. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even that they were the will of God. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority for anyone interested in the future of democracy. This volume includes the rarely translated Two Weeks in the Wilderness, an evocative account of Tocqueville’s travels in Michigan among the Iroquois and Chippeway, and The Excursion to Lake Onéida.

This is the only edition that contains all Tocqueville’s writings on America, and includes a chronology, further reading and explanatory notes. Gerald Bevan’s translation is accompanied by an introduction by Isaac Kramnick, which discusses Tocqueville’s life and times, and the enduring significance of Democracy in America.

Abridged, with an Introduction by Patrick Renshaw. Democracy in America is a classic of political philosophy. Hailed by John Stuart Mill and Horace Greely as the finest book ever written on the nature of democracy, it continues to be an influential text on both sides of the Atlantic, above all in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe. De Tocqueville examines the structures, institutions and operation of democracy, and shows how Europe can learn from American success and failures. His central theme is the advancement of the rule of the people, but he also predicts that slavery will bring about the 'most horrible of civil wars', foresees that the USA and Russia will be the Superpowers of the twentieth century, and is 150 years ahead of his time in his views on the position and importance of women.

American Institutions by Alexis De Tocqueville has attracted great attention throughout Europe, where it is universally regarded as a sound, philosophical, impartial, and remarkably clear and distinct view of our political institutions, and of our manners, opinions, and habits, as influencing or influenced by those institutions. Writers, reviewers, and statesmen of all parties, have united in the highest commendations of its ability and integrity. The people, described by a work of such a character, should not be the only one in Christendom unacquainted with its contents. At least, so thought many of our most distinguished men, who have urged the publishers of this edition to reprint the work, and present it to the American public. They have done so in the hope of promoting among their countrymen a more thorough knowledge of their frames of government, and a more just appreciation of the great principles on which they are founded.

Democracy in America, written by French lawyer Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, documents his travels through America where he finds an equality unknown in Europe. When Alexis de Tocqueville came to study Democracy in America, the trial of nearly a half-century of the working of our system had been made, and it had been proved, by many crucial tests, to be a government of liberty regulated by law, with such results in the development of strength, in population, wealth, and military and commercial power, as no age had ever witnessed. Democracy in America was received at once by the scholars and thinkers of Europe as a profound, impartial, and entertaining exposition of the principles of popular, representative self-government. This book continues to be as important today as when it was first written.

Democracy in America, written by French lawyer Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, documents his travels through America where he finds an equality unknown in Europe. When Alexis de Tocqueville came to study Democracy in America, the trial of nearly a half-century of the working of our system had been made, and it had been proved, by many crucial tests, to be a government of liberty regulated by law, with such results in the development of strength, in population, wealth, and military and commercial power, as no age had ever witnessed. Democracy in America was received at once by the scholars and thinkers of Europe as a profound, impartial, and entertaining exposition of the principles of popular, representative self-government. This book continues to be as important today as when it was first written.

La pensee de Tocqueville Tocqueville defend la liberte individuelle et l'egalite en politique. Exprimant parfois des reserves sur l'evolution possible de la democratie vers une dictature de la majorite au nom de l'egalite, et rejetant nettement a ce titre toute orientation socialiste, il est l'une des plus grandes references de la philosophie politique liberale. Theoricien du colonialisme, legitimant l'expansion francaise en Afrique du Nord (1841-1846), il fustige neanmoins les violences des armees francaises en Afrique, s'oppose a l'application du regime militaire en Algerie (1848), et defend parmi les premiers l'abolition de l'esclavage dans les colonies (1839). Parallelement, Tocqueville refuse les considerations de la these de son ami Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines). Sceptique et hante par la corruption de la democratie et le declin des valeurs aristocratiques, il defendra aussi une vision de la puissance et de la grandeur nationale, annoncant le nationalisme du siecle suivant. Son uvre fondee sur ses voyages aux Etats-Unis est une base essentielle pour comprendre ce pays, en particulier au cours du XIXesiecle. Meme si une des raisons profondes de son voyage est de partir pour eviter les regards malveillants dus a ses origines aristocratiques, Tocqueville est surtout avide de rencontrer une grande republique, liberale et federale. On sait qu'il a aussi consulte une documentation dont on peut citer trois ouvrages essentiels: Le Federaliste par Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, et John Jay, puis James Kent (Commentaries on American Law) et Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States), deux juristes aux opinions conservatrices. Ces ouvrages et commentaires ont le point commun de defendre des positions federalistes. Enfin, il est partisan d'une reforme des prisons, qu'il defendra dans le livre sur le systeme penitentiaire, et ecrit avec De Beaumont, qui suit son voyage en Amerique . Il sera l'auteur de plusieurs rapports et projets de loi. Il preconise le principe du panoptisme (decrit par Michel Foucault dans Surveiller et punir ) pour reformer les prisons francaises, base sur l'isolement cellulaire individuel (prison de Cherry-Hill a Philadelphie). Cet objectif ne sera realise en France qu'a la fin du XIX esiecle. Plus encore que l'amendement du prisonnier, son objectif majeur en matiere de politique penale est la protection de la societe. Il est egalement un des membres fondateurs de la colonie penitentiaire de Mettray pour jeunes mineurs delinquants. Mettray est le modele ou se concentrent toutes les technologies coercitives du comportement.... C'est la face sombre, occultee, de ce liberal democrate

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited the United States on behalf of the French government to study American prisons. In their nine months in the U.S. they studied not just the prison system but every aspect of American life, public and private--the political, economic, religious, cultural, and above all social life of the young nation. From Tocqueville's copious notes of what he had seen and heard came the classic text "De la Democratie en Amerique," published in two large volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. The first volume focused primarily on political society; the second, on civil society. Tocqueville's account of the travels and adventures of the two Frenchmen aimed to get down the truth about America, not only to praise the new country's strengths but also to critique its shortcomings when these were all too evident to outside eyes.
For Tocqueville, virtually every aspect of the new republic was fascinating: the laws and the customs, the manners and the mores of a people so very different from the populations of the kingdoms of Europe. He was particularly interested in the success of democracy in America, specifically of republican representative democracy, which seemed to have failed elsewhere, most conspicuously in revolutionary France. Perhaps because Tocqueville, an aristocrat, was by no means sympathetic to "pure" democracy, which seemed tainted by its associations with the Terror of the French Revolution, he examined American democracy with a thoroughness such as had never been seen before, and seldom if ever since. Tocqueville considered the tendency of democracy to degenerate into either the tyranny of the majority or what he called soft despotism, a sovereign power that "extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules. . . .it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupifies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." (Book IV, chapter 6.)
Tocqueville noted that religion played a leading role in American life in the 1830s, due to its being constitutionally separated from government. Far from objecting to this situation, he observed that Americans found this disestablishment quite satisfactory, in contrast to France, with its outright antagonism between avowedly religious people and supporters of democracy.
The Liberty Fund bilingual "Democracy in America "includes Eduardo Nolla's historical-critical edition of the French text and notes on the lefthand pages and James Schleifer's English translation on the right. This is the fullest historical-critical edition of the "Democracy," and the notes offer an extensive selection of early outlines, drafts, manuscript variants, marginalia, unpublished fragments, and other materials. From the foreword to the French edition: "This new "Democracy" is not only the one that Tocqueville presented to the reader of 1835, then to the reader of 1840. It is enlarged, amplified by a body of texts. . . . the reader will see how Tocqueville proceeded with the elaboration of the main ideas of his book."
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a French writer and politician. With his friend Gustave Beaumont he spent nine months in America and with him published a study of the American penal system and its applicability to France. Tocqueville's fame was established by his "De la Democratie en Amerique," published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1839, was a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1848 and of the Legislative Assembly in 1849, was minister of foreign affairs in 1849, and was imprisoned in 1851 for his opposition to the coup d'etat of Louis-Napoleon. At his

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont visited the United States on behalf of the French government to study American prisons. In their nine months in the U.S. they studied not just the prison system but every aspect of American life, public and private--the political, economic, religious, cultural, and above all social life of the young nation. From Tocqueville's copious notes of what he had seen and heard came the classic text "De la Democratie en Amerique," published in two large volumes, the first in 1835, the second in 1840. The first volume focused primarily on political society; the second, on civil society. Tocqueville's account of the travels and adventures of the two Frenchmen aimed to get down the truth about America, not only to praise the new country's strengths but also to critique its shortcomings when these were all too evident to outside eyes.
For Tocqueville, virtually every aspect of the new republic was fascinating: the laws and the customs, the manners and the mores of a people so very different from the populations of the kingdoms of Europe. He was particularly interested in the success of democracy in America, specifically of republican representative democracy, which seemed to have failed elsewhere, most conspicuously in revolutionary France. Perhaps because Tocqueville, an aristocrat, was by no means sympathetic to "pure" democracy, which seemed tainted by its associations with the Terror of the French Revolution, he examined American democracy with a thoroughness such as had never been seen before, and seldom if ever since. Tocqueville considered the tendency of democracy to degenerate into either the tyranny of the majority or what he called soft despotism, a sovereign power that "extends its arms over the entire society; it covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute, and uniform rules. . . .it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupifies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd." (Book IV, chapter 6.)
Tocqueville noted that religion played a leading role in American life in the 1830s, due to its being constitutionally separated from government. Far from objecting to this situation, he observed that Americans found this disestablishment quite satisfactory, in contrast to France, with its outright antagonism between avowedly religious people and supporters of democracy.
The Liberty Fund bilingual "Democracy in America "includes Eduardo Nolla's historical-critical edition of the French text and notes on the lefthand pages and James Schleifer's English translation on the right. This is the fullest historical-critical edition of the "Democracy," and the notes offer an extensive selection of early outlines, drafts, manuscript variants, marginalia, unpublished fragments, and other materials. From the foreword to the French edition: "This new "Democracy" is not only the one that Tocqueville presented to the reader of 1835, then to the reader of 1840. It is enlarged, amplified by a body of texts. . . . the reader will see how Tocqueville proceeded with the elaboration of the main ideas of his book."
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a French writer and politician. With his friend Gustave Beaumont he spent nine months in America and with him published a study of the American penal system and its applicability to France. Tocqueville's fame was established by his "De la Democratie en Amerique," published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1839, was a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1848 and of the Legislative Assembly in 1849, was minister of foreign affairs in 1849, and was imprisoned in 1851 for his opposition to the coup d'etat of Louis-Napoleon. At his