Democracy, institutions, politics and public life
an argument from Alexis de Tocqueville
Keywords:
Democracy, Public Life, PoliticsAbstract
This essay analyzes Tocqueville's different conceptions on political democratic institutions. Emphasizing the tocquevillian way of dealing with political institutions from the point of view of explicative and normative approaches, the author highlights different dimensions of the construction and evolution ofthese institutions. The artic1e compares his evolutionist and culturalist approaches and "consequentialist" defenses of democracy, with more political and institutionalist approaches that appraise normative engagement in the experimental outcomes of political institutions. The author stresses Tocqueville's inspiration on republicanism, his compromise with active citizenship and with the strengthening of publiclife as well as his attempts to adapt these normative criteria to plural democratic conditions of life open to dissent.
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References
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