Alexis De Tocqueville Analysis

Alexis de Tocqueville was a prominent 19th century thinker in French political philosophy. After having witnessed a failed attempt to establish democratic government at home in France, he became interested in studying what he thought was a successful and fluorishing democracy to understand how the system works. This is how Democracy in America came to be. He anticipates a global movement toward democracy and equality, after it had progressed farthest in America at his time and became an unstoppable movement in the years that followed. Tocqueville’s affinity and interest with equality and democracy comes alongside an analysis of the problems it may lead to and the measures that need to be taken for its preservation. With these vices in mind, …show more content…
People are so attracted to the idea of equality and freedom that Tocqueville posits that the only possible result is the rule of the majority which has the potential to lead to despotism. Even before it properly manifest itself, the logic behind a democratic system is that everyone’s voice is equal, making the “just” way to rule would be to follow the word of the majority. In theory, this would be the best way to represent the interests of society, because it is an opinion shared by a large portion of society. Consequently, there would be a tendency for the remainder of the population to abandon their freedom of thought. Opposing the opinion of the majority is therefore disrespectful to a democratic and equal society because he who speaks in attempts to make a change is attempting to have a larger role in the political process than the majority. The servitude problem becomes even more of a threat if the majority is not significant, because a larger portion of the population’s interests would go unnoticed. The functioning of the modern electoral college — rather, a common criticism of the system—- alludes to this problem in a similar fashion. If a candidate wins a particular state by a small majority of the vote as oppose to a large one in another state, the …show more content…
As a result of the legislature supposedly being representative of the will and interests of the people, they are allowed the most power in the governmental system. However, if there are not checks in the form of the legal profession or associations, this power could readily become tyrannical and abusive. The public would also be presumably less suspicious of a government in which they have the power to elect representatives, making the need for these ‘check’ mechanisms even greater. There are modern examples of associations that support the argument that they can help represent opinions of minority groups. If we consider procedures that allow groups of people to stop legislation from being passed or implemented for example, such as the existence of interest groups, pressured filibustering and judicial review, we can see that people’s opinions can be represented even if they are not in the ruling majority if they coalesce. The role of religion in despotism is also one of the considerations that Tocqueville makes to highlight the importance of