Tocqueville on Fraternity and Fratricide

Welch, Cheryl B.

doi:10.1017/ccol0521840643.013

Cited by 6 publications

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“…Desde esa perspectiva, analizar el pensamiento y la acción política de nuestro autor nos daría pistas sobre las aportaciones, límites y contradicciones del liberalismo a la hora de responder a los grandes problemas sociales y políticos de la modernidad. De hecho, muchas veces lo que se ha venido en llamar el lado oscuro (Boesche, 2005) de sus planteamientos políticos es interpretado como incoherencias e inconsistencias de su propio liberalismo (Richter, 1963;Pitts, 2000;Welch, 2003Welch, , 2006Welch, , 2015Thomas, 2017).…”

Section: Alexis De Tocqueville Más Allá De Un Liberalismo Estrechounclassified

Alexis de Tocqueville, luces y sombras de un autor ambivalente. A propósito del libro de la profesora María José Villaverde Rico, Tocqueville y el lado oscuro del liberalismo

Usategui Basozabal

2023

eunomia

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El presente trabajo tiene como finalidad entablar un diálogo con la profesora María José Villaverde Rico sobre el pensamiento de Alexis de Tocqueville a través del análisis de las ideas principales de su libro Tocqueville y el lado oscuro del liberalismo. Así, por un lado, se indaga la posición de Tocqueville frente al liberalismo, esto es, su noción de ciudadanía, el papel del Estado en la economía y la educación y sus planteamientos sociales. Al propio tiempo, se cuestiona el lugar que concede a las mujeres en las sociedades democráticas y sus posicionamientos políticos marcadamente colonialista en torno a la cuestión de Argelia y la abolición de la esclavitud. Sin embargo, a pesar de la existencia de un lado oscuro en nuestro autor, sus reflexiones en torno a la democracia son a día de hoy indispensables para trabajar la democracia como problema a pensar.

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Section: Alexis De Tocqueville Más Allá De Un Liberalismo Estrechounclassified

Alexis de Tocqueville, luces y sombras de un autor ambivalente. A propósito del libro de la profesora María José Villaverde Rico, Tocqueville y el lado oscuro del liberalismo

Usategui Basozabal

2023

eunomia

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“…Women of color—Black and Native American—are absent his discussions of the family, though they figure in a remarkable sketch of racial hierarchy in the “Three Races” chapter at the end of volume 1. Pedersen (2019) offers an extensive analysis of this scene, which Welch (2006) describes as an example of “spontaneous feelings of sociability being denatured” (312).…”

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confidence: 99%

Revisiting Tocqueville’s American Woman

Henderson

2023

Political Theory

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This paper revisits Tocqueville’s famous portrait of the American female, which begins with assertions of her equality to males but ends with her self-cloistering in the domestic sphere. Taking a cue from Tocqueville’s extended sketch of the “faded” pioneer wife in “A Fortnight in the Wilderness” and drawing connections to Tocqueville’s criticisms of the division of industrial labor, I argue that the American girl’s ostensibly free choice to remove herself from public life is not an act of freedom. Rather, it is a manifestation of a particular type of unfreedom that reveals underappreciated connections between the two great dangers about which Democracy in America warns: tyrannical majoritarianism and soft despotism. My argument that the girl’s choice to withdraw from public life is coerced rather than free thus highlights the nonpolitical sources of oppression that exist within democratic societies. The paper concludes by raising questions about the need for coercion within Tocquevillian democracy and the implications of this for Tocqueville’s “new” political science—indeed, for his liberalism more generally.

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“…3 Tillery 2008, 2009. While Kohn (2002, Lieske (1999), Mitchell (2002), and Welch (2006) also touch on the contemporary relevance of Democracy in America's discussions of race, they do so either in passing or in a less sustained manner. The bulk of the classic literature focusing on Democracy in America alone argues either that Tocqueville did not fully appreciate the challenge American race relations posed to his portrait of egalitarian democracy (e.g., Crouthamel 1982;Nimtz 2003;Reinhart 1997;Stokes 1990;Welch 2001) or that his bleak prognosis for the future of America's "three races" was overstated (e.g., Colwell 1967).…”

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confidence: 99%

Beyond the “Formidable Circle”: Race and the Limits of Democratic Inclusion in Tocqueville'sDemocracy in America*

Henderson

2021

J Political Philosophy

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D ESPITE his assertion that the first volume of Democracy in America (1835) would concentrate upon institutions, Tocqueville found himself finishing the draft manuscript in 1834 and unable to conclude his study without discussing race relations in the United States. In the end, he quickly penned a final chapter. That chapter-by far the book's longest-offers "Some Considerations on the Present State and Probable Future of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States." Tocqueville begins the chapter by acknowledging that its subject "is American without being democratic" (DA, p. 516), 1 and to the extent that it analyzes slavery in the South and the interactions of the Native Americans with the Anglo-European white Americans, 2 this is true. When read in the context of his broader analyses of the psychology of equality, of majoritarian power, and of the importance of mores over laws, however, Tocqueville's analysis of blackwhite race relations goes beyond its American context to offer an examination of the extra-legal barriers to inclusion and membership within a liberal democracy. As such, it offers a critical perspective on democratic theory, by suggesting that there are certain types of exclusions that cannot be resolved through formal institutions or by reformed processes of democratic deliberation.In spite of the length of the "Three Races" chapter, race has been an underinvestigated theme in Tocqueville scholarship, developing after the mid-1960s. Only recently has a small strand of scholarship begun to explore the "Three 1 All references to Democracy in America (DA) will be made parenthetically in the main text, with page numbers referring to Tocqueville [1835/1840] 1835.2 Tocqueville's discussion of Native Americans is not my focus here, but to move past that topic without drawing attention to the directness and forcefulness of the language in which Tocqueville condemns the injustice and criminality of US governmental policy toward the Native Americans would be remiss.

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Tocqueville on Fraternity and Fratricide

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Alexis de Tocqueville, luces y sombras de un autor ambivalente. A propósito del libro de la profesora María José Villaverde Rico, Tocqueville y el lado oscuro del liberalismo

Alexis de Tocqueville, luces y sombras de un autor ambivalente. A propósito del libro de la profesora María José Villaverde Rico, Tocqueville y el lado oscuro del liberalismo

Revisiting Tocqueville’s American Woman

Beyond the “Formidable Circle”: Race and the Limits of Democratic Inclusion in Tocqueville'sDemocracy in America*

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