Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T17:52:13.181Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Colonization and Democracy: Tocqueville Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

EWA ATANASSOW
EWA ATANASSOW*
Affiliation:
Bard College Berlin
*
Ewa Atanassow is Junior Professor of Political Thought at Bard College Berlin, Platanenstr. 24, 13156 Berlin, Germany ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The prominence of colonization in Tocqueville's life and works has been widely noted, yet scholars disagree about its importance. The perceived tension between Tocqueville's analysis of democracy and his advocacy of colonization continues to be the subject of heated scholarly debate. Revisiting Tocqueville's analytical and practical engagement with colonization, this essay reexamines its relationship to Tocqueville's account of democracy. It argues that, while lending political support to the French empire, Tocqueville was a clairvoyant critic of colonial rule; and that his involvement with colonization could only be properly understood in light of the historical and civilizational vista that informs his oeuvre as a whole. Proposing that Tocqueville viewed European expansionism as an instrument of the global movement toward democratic equality, the essay concludes with an assessment of the significance of Tocqueville's colonial writings for his “new political science,” and their relevance today.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 111 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 83 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I thank Thomas Bartscherer, Harald Bluhm, Alan Kahan, Ira Katznelson, Robert Keohane, Margaret Litvin, and Harvey Mansfield for their encouragement and inestimable comments on earlier versions of this text. I also thank the four anonymous reviewers and the editorial team of this journal for the challenging and constructive criticism.

References

REFERENCES

Abi-Mershed, Osama W. 2010. Apostles of Modernity: Saint-Simonians and the Civilizing Mission in Algeria. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ageron, Charles-Robert. 1991. Modern Algeria, a History from 1830 to the Present. Trenton, NJ: African World Press, Inc.Google Scholar
Allen, Barbara. 2005. Tocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution: Harmonizing Earth with Heaven. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Allen, Barbara. 2009. “Racial Equality and Social Equality.” In. Conversations with Tocqueville: The Global Democratic Revolution in the Twenty-first Century, eds. Craiutu, A. and Gellar, S.. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 85–115.Google Scholar
Allen, Barbara. 2014. “An Undertow of Race Prejudice in the Current of Democratic Transformation.” In Henderson, Christine Dunn, Tocqueville’ Voyages. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 242–75.Google Scholar
Atanassow, Ewa. 2013a. “Nationhood - Democracy's Final Frontier?” In Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy, eds. Atanassow, E. and Boyd, R.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 178–201.Google Scholar
Atanassow, E. 2013b. “Imperium i Liberalizm: Czego nas Uczy Tocqueville.” Przegląd Polityczny 119: 132–44.Google Scholar
Atanassow, Ewa. 2016. “Kolonisation und Demokratie: Tocqueville neu Überdacht.” In Alexis de Tocqueville. Analytiker der Demokratie, eds. Bluhm, H. and Krause, S.. Paderborn, Germany: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 263–90.Google Scholar
Avinieri, Shlomo. 1969. Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernization. Garden City: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Bégin, Christian. 2009. “Tocqueville et l'Algérie.” The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville, XXX (2): 179–203.Google Scholar
Benoît, Jean-Louis. 2001. “Relectures de Tocqueville.” Le Banquet 16. http://www.revue-lebanquet.com/relectures-de-tocqueville/.Google Scholar
Benoît, Jean-Louis. 2004. Comprendre Tocqueville. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Benoît, Jean-Louis. 2014. “Tocqueville's Reflections on a Democratic Paradox.” In Henderson, Christine Dunn, Tocqueville's Voyages. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 276–303.Google Scholar
Boesche, Roger. 2005. “The Dark Side of Tocqueville.” Review of Politics 67 (4): 737–52.Google Scholar
Bohlender, Matthias. 2005. “Demokratie und Imperium. Tocqueville in Amerika und Algerien. ” Berliner Journal für Soziologie 4: 523–40.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 2001. “Tocqueville's Algeria.” Society 66: 65–70.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 2013. “Tocqueville and the Napoleonic Legend.” In Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy, eds. Atanassow, E. and Boyd, R.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 264–90.Google Scholar
Brogan, Hugh. 2006. Alexis de Tocqueville, A Life. London, UK: Profile Books, ch. 16, 399.Google Scholar
Capdevila, Nestor. 2007. Tocqueville et les Frontières de la Démocratie, Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Capdevila, Nestor. 2012. Tocqueville ou Marx. Démocratie, Capitalisme, Révolution. Paris: PUF.Google Scholar
Ceaser, James. 2014. “Alexis de Tocqueville and the Two Founding Thesis.” In Henderson, Christine Dunn, Tocqueville’ Voyages. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 111–41.Google Scholar
Clinton, David. 2003. Tocqueville, Lieber, and Bagehot. Liberalism Confronts the World. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Clinton, David. 2013. “The Surprising M. Tocqueville: Necessity, Foreign Policy and Civic Virtue.” In Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy, eds. Atanassow, E. and Boyd, R.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 264–90Google Scholar
Confer, Vincent. 1966. France and Algeria. New York: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Danziger, Raphael. 1977. Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians. New York, London: Homes & Meier Publishers.Google Scholar
Desjobert, Amédée. 1837. La question d'Algér. Politique, Colonization, Commerce. Paris: P. Dufart.Google Scholar
Desjobert, Amédée. 1846. L'Algérie en 1846. Paris: Guillaumin.Google Scholar
Dion, Stéphane. 1995. “La Conciliation du Libéralisme et du Nationalisme Chez Tocqueville.” La Revue Tocqueville/The Tocqueville Review 16 (1): 219–27.Google Scholar
Doyle, William. 2001. The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Drescher, Seymour. 1964. Tocqueville and England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Drescher, Seymour. 1968. Tocqueville and Beaumont on Social Reform. New York, NY: Harper Torchbooks.Google Scholar
Duan, Demin. 2010. “Reconsidering Tocqueville's Imperialism.” Ethical Perspectives 17 (3): 415–47.Google Scholar
Furet, François. 1995. Revolutionary France. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Gannett, Robert T. Jr. 2003. “Bowling Ninepins in Tocqueville's Township,” American Political Science Review 97 (1): 1–16.Google Scholar
Gannett, Robert T. Jr. 2006. “Tocqueville as Politician: Revisiting the Revolution of 1789.” In Enlightening Revolutions, ed. Minkov, Svetozar. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 235–58.Google Scholar
Halévi, Ran. 2013. In Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy, eds. Atanassow, E. and Boyd, R.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 53–73.Google Scholar
Halévi, Ran. 2016. “Tocqueville, les français et les passions démocratiques,” Revue Des Deux Mondes, Décembre 2016, 37–47.Google Scholar
Hereth, Michael. 1985. Alexis de Tocqueville: Threats to Freedom in Democracy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hamdani, Amar. 1985. La Vérité sur l'Expédition d'Alger. Paris: Balland.Google Scholar
Jardin, André. 1981. “Tocqueville, Homme Politique.” In Hereth, Michael and Höffken, Jutta. Alexis de Tocqueville. Zur Politik in der Demokratie. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlag, 93–119.Google Scholar
Jardin, André. 1988. Alexis de Tocqueville. A Biography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc, pp. 319–20.Google Scholar
Kahan, Alan S. 2012. “Tocqueville: Liberalism and Imperialism.” In French Liberalism from Montesquieu to the Present Day eds. Geenens, R. and Rosenblatt, H.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 152–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahan, Alan S. 2013. “Tocqueville and Religion: Beyond the Frontier of Christendom.” In Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy, eds. Atanassow, E. and Boyd, R., R. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 89–110.Google Scholar
Kahan, Alan S. 2015. Tocqueville on Democracy and Religion: Checks and Balances for Democratic Souls. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kohn, Margaret. 2008. “Empire's Law: Alexis de Tocqueville on Colonialism and the State of Exception.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 41 (2): 255–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, Frank. 2005. The Barbary Wars. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Lawlor, Mary. 1959. Alexis de Tocqueville in the Chamber of Deputies: His Views on Foreign and Colonial Policy/ Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Lerner, Ralph. 1988. The Thinking Revolutionary. Principle and Practice in the New Republic. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lerner, Ralph. 1994. Revolutions Revisited: Two Faces of the Politics of Enlightenment. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Friedrich. 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W. W. Norton & Co.Google Scholar
Mélonio, Françoise. 1991. “L'Idée de Nation et Idée de Démocratie Chez Tocqueville.” Littérature et Nation 7: 5–24.Google Scholar
Palmer, R. R. 2014. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pitts, Jennifer. 2000. “Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 8: 295–318.Google Scholar
Pitts, Jennifer. 2006. A Turn to Empire. The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Richter, Melvin. 1963. “Tocqueville on Algeria.” Review of Politics 25: 362–98.Google Scholar
Sessions, Jennifer E. 2015. “Colonizing Revolutionary Politics: Algeria and the French Revolution of 1848.” French Politics, Culture & Society 33 (1): 75–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepard, Tod. 2006. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Spitzer, Alan B. 2005. “Tocqueville's Modern Nationalism.” French History 19 (1): 48–66.Google Scholar
Thomson, Ann. 1989. “Arguments for the Conquest of Algiers in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” The Maghreb Review 14: 108–18.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1954. Œuvres complètes, Vol. 6, Part 1: Correspondance Anglaise. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1959. Journey to America, ed. Mayer, J. P.. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1962. Œuvres complètes, Vol. 3, Part 1: Ecrits et Discours Politique. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1983a. Œuvres complètes, Vol. 15, Part 1: Correspondance d’ Alexis de Tocqueville et de Francisque de Corcelle. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1983b. Œuvres complètes, Vol. 18: Correspondance d’ Alexis de Tocqueville avec Adolphe de Circourt et avec Madame de Circourt. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1985a. Œuvres complètes, Vol. 3, Part 2: Ecrits et Discours Politique. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1985b. Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. Boesche, Roger. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1995. Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848. Lawrence, George (tr). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1998. Œuvres complètes, Vol. 14: Correspondance Familiale. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2001. Writings on Empire and Slavery, ed. Pitts, Jennifer. Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2003. Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, 1814-1859. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2009. Democracy in America. Historical Critical Edition. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Todorov, Tzvetan. 1993. On Human Diversity. Nationalism, Racism and Exoticism in French Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Waltz, Kenneth. 2001. Man, the State and War: a Theoretical Analysis. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 2015. The Paradox of Liberation. Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, Gillian. 2007. “Imagining Europe through Barbary Captivity,” Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies 4 (1): 49–67.Google Scholar
Welch, Cheryl. 2003. “Colonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Evasion. Tocqueville on Algeria.” Political Theory 31: 235–64.Google Scholar
Welch, Cheryl. 2006. “Tocqueville on Democracy After Abolition.” The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville, XXVII (2): 227–54.Google Scholar
Welch, Cheryl. 2014. “Out of Africa: Tocqueville's Imperial Voyages.” In Tocqueville’ Voyages, ed. Henderson, Christine Dunn. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 304–34.Google Scholar
Winthrop, Delba. 2002. “Writings on Empire and Slavery.” Society, 1 (Nov): 110–3.Google Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon. 2003. Tocqueville between Two Worlds. The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Woodberry, Robert. D. 2014. “Beyond the Usual Suspects: Integrating Religious Actors into the Study of Democratization and Economic Development.” APSA Comparative Democratization Newsletter 12 (1): 16–19.Google Scholar
Zetterbaum, Marvin. 1968. Tocqueville and the Problem of Democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.