Alexis de Tocqueville Essay

Alexis de Tocqueville Essay

More de Tocqueville

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And here is the Prompt:

Alexis de Tocqueville worried that “democracies” would become overly individualistic and succumb to “democratic despotism.” Yet Tocqueville believed that the United States had in his time successfully steered clear of this danger. If Tocqueville were alive today, would he revise his evaluation? In your answer you should:

Explain Tocqueville’s concern. How exactly did he link “democracy” to “individualism,” and “individualism” to “democratic despotism.”
Describe and explain the forces that Tocqueville saw in American government and society which checked the tendency towards individualism and democratic despotism.
Imagine Tocqueville were alive today. Would he still be optimistic about the capacity of Americans to avoid the dangers he imagined? Is there evidence of growing individualism in the U.S.? Are the forces in American government and society which Tocqueville believed checked “individualism” and “democratic despotism” still operating, or have they withered?

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Alex de Tocqueville was a French political scientist who is well known for his contributions on the political systems globally, his most notable work is his book Democracy in America in which he carefully analyzed the political and social system in the then United States of America. In his analysis de Tocqueville heaped praise on the then present administration (during the early 19th century period), according to him the American democracy was a political system that set the standards for other administrations to emulate.

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