Tocquevillian Ideas: Contemporary European Perspectives

178 Pages·2014·1.03 MB·English

by  Zbigniew Rau, Marek Tracz-Tryniecki

Tocquevillian Ideas
Contemporary European Perspectives
Edited by Zbigniew Rau
and Marek Tracz-Tryniecki
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Contents
1 TocquevilleandEurope:WhatCanWeLearnfromHimabout
thePast,thePresent,andtheFutureoftheOldContinent? 1
ByMarekTracz-TrynieckiandZbigniewRau
AProphet 1
TheAmericanExperience—Unity 2
EuropeanExperience—Diversity 3
TheEuropeanIdea—Unity 12
TocquevilleandtheCrisisoftheEuropeanIntegrationProject 14
ConcludingRemarks:TowardsaToquevilleanNotionof
EuropeanUnity 19
Notes 21
2 Tocqueville:AThinkerofFreedom 27
ByCengizÇağla
TocquevillianLiberty 27
State,SocietyandDemocracy 29
ThreatstoLibertyinDemocracies:LefortandRichterReadersof
Tocqueville 30
Conclusion 35
Notes 36
3 PatriotisminDemocracy:WhatWeLearnfromTocqueville 39
ByEwaAtanassow
PoliticalSociologyofPatriotism 43
PoliticalPsychologyofPatriotism 47
PsychologyofPatriotismReconsidered 48
PatriotisminDemocracy 51
InConclusion:WhatDoWeLearnfromTocqueville? 53
Notes 54
iii
iv Contents
4 TocquevilleonCitizenParticipation 59
ByMarinusR.R.Ossewaarde
Introduction 59
CitizenParticipationAccordingtoTocqueville 60
CitizenParticipationandtheEraofGlobalCapitalism 63
CitizenParticipation,NatureandtheState 65
CitizenParticipationandtheDivineSignificanceofDemocracy 67
CitizenParticipationandtheHeroismofReason 70
SomeFurtherReflectionsonFreedom 73
Notes 75
5 TocquevilleandtheDemocraticChurning 79
ByAttilaK.Molnar
TheUpgraduationofDemocracy 79
WhatIsDemocracy,andWhatIsNot 82
Individualism—TheEnsCompletum 83
Licentiousness:LackofAuthority,MoralLimits 84
Egoism:PrivatismandSmallandMaterialistJoys 85
TheMultitude 86
Resentment,Jarring 88
SecurityClaim 89
CollectivistIndividualism 91
BeautifulDemocracy? 92
Notes 93
6 Religion,VirtueandtheEnnoblingofDemocracy:
Tocqueville’sVisionofCivicSociety 99
ByOliverHidalgo
TheProblemofModernCivilSociety:Freedomvs.Equality 100
ReligionandVirtueasConditionsofaFreeCivilSociety 102
CatholicismagainstProtestantism 105
Conclusion:EnnoblingDemocracy 107
Notes 108
7 HumanDignityversusGreatness:Tocqueville’sDilemma 111
ByMarekTracz-Tryniecki
HumanDignity 112
Greatness 116
Algeria 124
Conclusion 127
Notes 129
8 TheAmericanMeltingPotasReductionistKettle:Religious
Liberty’sWorrisomeCondition 135
ByWilliamR.Stevenson,Jr.
Notes 152
Contents v
Bibliography 153
Index 163
ListofAuthors 167
InformationontheAlexisdeTocquevilleCentreforPoliticaland
LegalThought 171

Chapter One
Tocqueville and Europe
What Can We Learn from Him about the Past,
the Present, and the Future of the Old Continent?
By Marek Tracz-Tryniecki and Zbigniew Rau
APROPHET
“TheimmediatefutureofEuropeansocietyiscompletelydemocratic;thiscan
innowaybedoubted.”1
Alexis de Tocqueville made this prediction during his trip to England, on 7
September 1833, two years before the publication of the first volume of his
famous Democracy in America. It was also one of the first of a long list of
spectacularpropheciesthathepropounded,whichsubsequentgenerationsof
hisreadershavefoundtobesurprisinglyaccurate.2Thisprophetictalenttoa
large degree ensured that Tocqueville developed a reputation as a major
thinkerofclassicofpoliticalthoughtonbothsidesoftheAtlantic.Todayhe
is not only honored in those countries which constituted the main subject of
his intellectual interest, like the United States, France and Britain, but his
popularityreachesmuchfurtherovertheworld.Forinstance,itissignificant
that his second most important work The Old Regime and the Revolution
became a best seller in China at the end of 2012 after Chinese Communist
Party’s Vice Premier Wang Qishan highly recommended it, despite the fact
that there are only a few references to China in the book.3 What is more,
Tocqueville’s worldwide status is entirely grounded upon the fact that his
other renowned prediction, on the future superpower status of the United
StatesandRussia,cametofruitionandthendominatedinternationalrelations
forhalfofthelastcentury.4
1
2 Chapter1
Nonetheless, Tocqueville’s reflections remain highly relevant, especially
for the Europeans. The above-mentioned prediction concerning the demo-
cratic future of Europe, which he repeated many times in his later writings,
had additional consequences. Tocqueville envisaged that democratic society
would become increasingly similar. This convergence embraces interests,
wants, manners and morality.5 Additionally, similar needs and tastes would
facilitateglobalproductionandexchange.6Wecouldarguethatthisconver-
gence opens new possibilities for international integration. And indeed the
last decades have seen many examples of such efforts, such as the North
American Free Trade Agreement. However, none of these integration pro-
jects goes as far as the European Union. The phenomenon of an integrated
Europe in an age of mass democracy encourages us to pose the question
whether the prophet of modern European democracy is still relevant and
whether he can offer Europeans useful tools of analysis as well as adequate
remedies?7
THEAMERICANEXPERIENCE—UNITY
In order to find the roots of the accuracy of Tocqueville’s prophecies we
havetobeginbyreferringtohisempiricalandanalyticalmethodology.This
leads us to America, where he started to use them on a large scale. His
extensivenotebooksandlettersfromhisAmericanjourney,togetherwiththe
finaltwovolumesofDemocracyinAmerica,giveusaninsightintohowhis
prophetic talent emerged. But this sole methodological approach would not
have provided the proper result had it not been applied to the proper object.
AndtheAmericathatTocquevillevisiteddefinitelyfittedthispattern.Itwas
this specific moment in the history of the United States, called Jacksonian
democracy,whichenabledhimtoresearchtheemergenceofmassdemocra-
cy. But Tocqueville also studied intensely the birth of Anglo-Americans.
AlthoughitistruethatheclearlydiscernedthedifferencebetweentheNorth
and the South, as well as recognizing the specific, distinct situation of the
Indians and the Africans, he found that this new society was particularly
homogenous.
Tocqueville identified the essence of the new American experience with
the states of New England, which he believed wielded significant influence
over the whole Union. This was a Puritan society founded on the spirit of
religion,thepracticeofself-governmentandtheegalitarianidea.Theycame
from the Old World, yet they knew who they wanted to be and had a vision
of a better world which led them to America where: “they might yet be
permitted to live there in their manner and pray to God in freedom.”8 They
sharedandpracticeddemocraticandrepublicanprinciplesofcivicparticipa-
tion,theruleoflawandindividualfreedom.9Tocquevilledescribedthemas
TocquevilleandEurope 3
“asocietyhomogeneousinallitsparts.”10Andhefoundthisoriginalunifor-
mity also in the contemporary America that he visited—a predominantly
English speaking society moved by a passion for material wealth and relig-
ious zeal, which lived on a more or less equal economic level. The people
were characterized by restlessness, and possessed an individualistic ethos
and most of them achieved a “common level in human knowledge.”11 It is
important to note that Tocqueville managed to grasp the original uniformity
of American society in its last moment, since it began to change after his
visit; this was caused, inter alia, by the significant growth of immigration
and the results of the industrial revolution.12 Willian R. Stevenson’s paper
has presented, for example, the way in which this transformation shifted the
religiousstructureoftheAmericancommunity.
Herewecometo theoneof themostimportantsources of thesuccess of
Tocqueville’s scrutiny. He was able to give what was probably the best
descriptionofanemergingdemocraticsociety,sinceheobservedagenerally
homogeneousAmericansocietyandheknewhowtosystematizethisexperi-
ence of mass democracy. Moreover, America offered Tocqueville another
opportunity.There,hecouldstudyhowthisuniformsocietycreatedaproject
forintegrationfromthebottomup,where “thetownshiphadbeenorganized
beforethecounty,thecountybeforethestate,thestatebeforetheUnion.”13
EUROPEANEXPERIENCE—DIVERSITY
Although Tocqueville was fascinated by America, France or more generally
Europe remained his main interest. And in spite of the fact that he enjoyed
thestatusofanexpertinAmerica,heknewEuropeevenbetter.Thisknowl-
edge was certainly not limited only to France; it is enough to mention his
various western European voyages or his appointment to the position of
MinisterofForeignAffairsin1849,duringthetumultuoussecondyearofthe
Spring of Nations. What is more, Tocqueville was well aware that Europe
was a much more complex cognitive problem than America. For him, there
was an inexorability to the democratization and convergence of European
countries, but he also knew that Europe had a different point of departure
fromAmerica—aboveall,Europehadamuchgreaterdegreeofdiversity.As
he states in the preface to the second volume of “Democracy in America”:
“Different causes, also distinct from the fact of equality, would be encoun-
tered in Europe and would explain a great part of what is taking place
there.”14
Wecouldargue that Tocqueville drawsafew importantlinesof division
within Europe, which, as we would further suggest, are still partially rele-
vant. The most significant of these is based upon the influence that absolute