Alexis de Tocqueville 1805–1859

First of all, Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris and lived between 1805–1859. He was a political scientist, diplomat, historian, lawyer. Tocqueville is one of the most considerable political scientist in Anglo-Saxon countries. He has prominent two books to understand his point of view : Democracy in America (De la démocratie en Amérique) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution).

Secondly, he had liberal thoughts and he was a defender of the parliamentary government. Nevertheless, he doubted the excesses of democracy. Tocqueville feared tyranny of the majority. He believed that democracies were dangerous. Because minorities could be persecuted by majority. In addition, he created some theses thanks to America observation. He emphasized the power of civil society organizations, local governments and religious freedom. Because if these were not done, the bad effects of democracy could be revealed. Instead of believing in revolutionary terrorism, he believed in a structure similar to American democracy. The reason why he did not believe the radical revolutions was that he lived bad things. Peaceful democracy in America made him not to believe in revolutionary terrorism. Also he believed in local governments because it was successful in America. The France could not succeed even if the central government tried. But according to him, local governments could have been more successful by making the right regulations. Tocqueville did not ignore the relationship of religion and democracy. He believed that religion has an important place in human life. So he also gave importance to religious freedom. Tocqueville supported the democratic form of government because he believed in the importance of religious and individual freedom. Besides he had many thoughts on his freedom of press. He realized that importance of press freedom during his visit to America. According to Tocqueville, press freedom is very significant point for politician behaviours. If there is freedom of the press, politicians are afraid of the public. The reason for this is society inspection and questioning. Also press freedom helps to announce public problems. That’s why, if the press is free, a more democratic and pluralistic society emerges.

To sum up, the participatory democracy model that Tocqueville propounds and includes civil society, creates one of the most building block of modern democracy consciousness. Freedom idea with liberalism and equality thought with socialism were too important paradigm for Tocqueville. These two concepts were an important point for understand his ideas. He made a serious contributions to the understanding of contemporary democracy.