Abstract The eighteenth century is doubtlessly an astonishing chapter in human history. Following America¡¦s independence that brought the first new democratic country to the world, the French Revolution further aroused tremendous political effects all over Europe, shocked the foundation of feudalism, and announced the advent of democratic era. Confronted with all these historical impacts, Tocqueville has achieved profound understanding and retrospection on the inevitable prevalence of democracy. The concept of liberty plays a very important role in Tocqueville¡¦s theory. As the wave of democracy crashed outmoded institution of feudalism, it also caused people to grow assimilated, or even philistine. In light of this, Tocqueville proposed that, in order to preclude domination and slavery, people should more actively grasp their liberty and develop the habitude and spirit of participating public affairs. Therefore, township and jury system in American tradition, as well as individual activities of organizing secondary civil groups through gilds, are highly regarded by Tocqueville with democratic connotation. From this viewpoint, Tocqueville¡¦s great expectation on liberty is essentially different from ¡§human¡¦s liberty from interference¡¨ of contractarian liberalism but is in harmony with the conventional idea of people¡¦s ¡§agency¡¨ in republicanism. This connotation of liberty, however, doesn¡¦t imply clashes without limit but suggests reasonable and restrained political participation within the schema of stable political institution. Thus, the concept echoes the conventional appreciation upon institution in roman republicanism. The researcher regards the integration of the aforementioned two aspects as ¡§liberty of institutional republicanism¡¨. This research intends to embody the republicanism value in Tocqueville¡¦s theory with an expectation to broaden the definition of his thought.

Texte remanié de: Thesis Ph. D--Harvard university, 1999. Titre de soutenance : The conversion of Enlightenment. / Notes bibliogr.

Alexis de Tocqueville is widely hailed as one of the most insightful students of democracy and as one of the most perceptive observers of America. While this high praise is fully deserved, Tocqueville was more than simply the author of Democracy in America. Indeed, he completed the journey that inspired his seminal work before he was out of his twenties. The remainder of his life was devoted to the practice of politics. Both as an involved citizen and as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, Tocqueville researched and wrote extensively on French foreign policy. His most notable works are several reports endorsing French colonial projects in Algeria and articles advocating for the emancipation of slavery in the French Caribbean colonies. In this essay I argue that one cannot truly understand Tocqueville the student without analyzing Tocqueville the politician. Approaching his career as a consistent whole, rather than two distinct and incongruous parts, opens new avenues of investigation into his works. First, his incisive examination and critique of the distinct mildness engendered by equality of conditions in America helps fill several theoretical gaps in the democratic peace research program. Second, his arguments in support of both French imperial enterprises as well as the emancipation of slaves reveals that his diplomatic career was animated above all by the desire to forestall the further proliferation of this democratic mildness, which he viewed as one of democracy’s most dangerous vices. Examining his foreign policy positions in light of the lessons he learned in writing Democracy in America is the only way to discover the consistent goal of his life—namely, to educate and guide the future generations of democracy—and thus to understand Tocqueville as he understood himself. / text

The increasing importance of religious and moral issues in American politics makes salient once again the question of the relationship between religion and democracy. The United States is in the midst of a debate pitting secularists and those who adapt their faith to progressive outlooks against conservatives who see a need to ground liberal-democracy in something Biblical. Taking up this debate, I argue that the viewpoints of both secular progressives and religious conservatives suffer from key oversights. While the former fail to notice that their commitment to toleration rests on certain absolute claims, the latter overlook the extent to which religion has been transformed and liberalized. Seeking a more nuanced version of this debate, I compare the Enlightenment’s case for toleration to Tocqueville’s claim that democracy requires religion for moral support. Examining Locke and Spinoza, I argue that the Enlightenment sought to achieve freedom, prosperity, and a rich cultural and intellectual life through the weakening or liberalization of religious belief. I then turn to Tocqueville’s friendly critique of the Enlightenment and try to elucidate his solution for preserving, in times of liberalism and equality, the great human devotions which he saw as inextricably linked to religion. I conclude that that by describing a civil religion capacious enough to permit tolerance but substantive enough to encourage real devotion, Tocqueville gives us a kind of moderate politics seldom found in today’s debates. / text

Texte remanié de: Th. Ph. D.--University of Chicago. / Bibliogr. p. 167-214. Index.

Thesis--Münster. / Bibliography: p. 199-211.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Thesis advisor: R. Shep Melnick / Many political thinkers have suggested that religion is a necessary prerequisite for the proper functioning of American democracy. Foremost among them is Alexis de Tocqueville who argues, in particular, that religion serves as a counterbalance to individualism and crass acquisitiveness—two of the most worrisome aspects of American democracy. Yet, Tocqueville’s own analysis bids us to ask whether religion still serves this beneficial purpose nearly 200 years later, or whether democratization and individualism have not remade religion itself. The primary theme of the dissertation is therefore to investigate whether democratization and individualism have wrought changes of real significance in American religion and religious institutions. In the first part, I argue against the secularization thesis on the grounds that contemporary developments in American religion, such as the so-called rise of the “nones” and the growing distrust of organized religion, are explicable not by secularization but by democratization and individualism. To understand this phenomenon better, I return to the French liberal tradition of Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville to articulate a theory of democratic deformalization—a process whereby American democracy breaks down the “formal” elements of religion. In the second part, I argue that individualism has caused a host of quantitative changes in American religion, including declining church membership, dwindling church participation, and a collapse in the perceived importance of organized religion itself. There are notable qualitative changes as well, including increasingly tenuous connections to churches, a proliferation of religious options within churches, and a new megachurch model that is better able to cater to individual taste and preference. In the third and most substantial part, I take up the question of whether individualism itself has changed or evolved over time, in predictable or unpredictable ways. Here, I argue that there has been a general shift from utilitarian individualism towards expressive individualism, with profound consequences for religious institutions and for society itself. The former, with its connection to the Protestant work ethic and Puritan social philosophy tends to cause an inclination in individuals to partake in community, submit to institutions, and follow moral and religious rules; the latter, with its belief in authenticity, causes a profound disdain for communal sources of authority, social institutions, and moral constraints. I conclude by arguing that the anthropology of expressive individualism, and its historical growth since the 1960s, proves to be the fundamental cause behind all these changes. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal