In his famous visit to the U.S. early in the nineteenth century, the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville was surprised by what he saw as “an equality of condition” in his travels around the country. Although he commented on the existence of wealth in the new nation, he was impressed by what he saw as its relative lack of concentration (de Tocqueville 1969). Recent studies by social historians...

Students' property worth more than $700 has been stolen in 14 larcenies that have taken place in the gym locker rooms., thief does not look through the wallets before taking them, Hill said. If bank cards and their code numbers are in the wallets, such a thief will try to withdraw money with them. Jerome Holmes . . ·~"'"" As the first phase of the Tocqueville Forum carne to a close Feb. 4 at Wa...

A classical problem in political theory is how to explain unpopular and oppressive minority rule. How can a small minority manage to dominate a much larger population against its will? How come the oppressed majority does not revolt? Two rival approaches can be distinguished: the coordination theory, according to which the power of the minority rests on coordinated action among the minority and...

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The theoretical importance of Tocqueville’s writing about America can be summed up this phrase: Democracy depends on many things besides voting. In this way, he turned Aristotle’s merely political definition on its head, and provided a conceptual translation of what democratic activists, and republican political theorists, had long understood. It is a lesson, I believe, to which many contempora...

Siguiendo a Alexis de Tocqueville, numerosos autores contemporáneos han visto en la vitalidad las asociaciones locales un elemento esencial para salud democracias. Sin embargo, muchos ellos olvidan que asociatividad es Tocqueville una respuesta fenómeno social concreto: el individualismo democrático lúcidamente captó su observación sociedad estadounidense del siglo XIX. El presente trabaj...