Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:13:02.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Tocqueville Problem: Civic Engagement in American Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Theda Skocpol
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Over the past 15 years, my scholarship has been devoted to understanding the patterns, the possibilities, and the impossibilities of politics and social policy in the United States. In this essay, therefore, I have decided to use historical evidence to address current public and scholarly debates about civic engagement in American democracy. As I hope to remind us all, social science historians can speak clearly to contemporary public concerns. We may be able to introduce some better evidence and more sophisticated explanations into ongoing debates.

Type
President’ Address
Information
Social Science History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 455 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1997 

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.)

References

Aldrich, J. (1995) Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of Political Parties in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Barone, M. (1996) “Returning to Tocqueville: Are 19th-century values making a comeback in America?” Washington Post National Weekly Edition, January 15-21: 23.Google Scholar
Berry, J. (1984) The Interest Group Society. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Bordin, R. (1981) Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Brint, S. (1994) In an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics and Public Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, R. (1974) “The emergence of urban society in rural Massachusetts, 1760-1820.” Journal of American History 61: 29–51.Google Scholar
Clawson, M. (1989) Constructing Brotherhood: Class, Gender, and Fraternalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clemens, E. (1997) The People’s Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Finegold, K., and Skocpol, T. (1995) State and Party in America’s New Deal. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Gamm, G., and Putnam, R. (1996) “Association-building in America, 1850-1920.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, October 10-13, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Ganz, M. (1994) “Voters in the crosshairs: How technology and the market are destroying politics.” American Prospect, no. 16:100–109.Google Scholar
Gist, N. (1940) “Secret societies: A study of fraternalism in the United States.” University of Missouri Studies: A Quarterly of Research 15: 1–184.Google Scholar
Greenhouse, S. (1996) “Liberal academics and labor’s new leaders pulling in tandem once more.” New York Times, 22 September: 36.Google Scholar
Hansen, J. (1991) Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919-1981. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, A. (1994) Local Attachments: The Making of an Urban Neighborhood, 1890-1925. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
John, R. (1995) Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, R. (1946) A History of the American Legion. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Joyce, M., and Schambra, W. (1996) “A new civic life,” in Novak, M. (ed.) To Empower People: From State to Civil Society, 2d ed. Washington, DC: AEI Press: 11–29.Google Scholar
Kauffman, C. (1992) Faith and Fraternalism: The History of the Knights of Columbus, rev. ed. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Martinek, J. (1955) One Hundred Years of the CSA: The History of the Czechoslovak Society of America. Cicero, IL: Executive Committee of the CSA.Google Scholar
McConnell, S. (1992) Glorious Contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Morris, C. (1996) The AARP. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
National Congress of Parents and Teachers (1947) Golden Jubilee History, 1897-1947. Chicago: National Congress of Parents and Teachers.Google Scholar
Paget, K. (1990) “Citizen organizing: Many movements, no majority.” American Prospect, no. 2:115-28.Google Scholar
Pencak, W. (1989) For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919-1941. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, K. (1994) Arrogant Capital: Washington, Wall Street, and the Frustration of American Politics. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Powell, W., and DiMaggio, P., eds. (1991) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, R. (1995) “Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital.” Journal of Democracy 6: 65–78.Google Scholar
Rosenstone, S., and Hansen, J. (1993) Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ryan, M. (1981) Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shefter, M. (1994) Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Siegel, F., and Marshall, W. (1995) “Liberalism’s lost tradition.” New Democrat 7: 8–13.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1992) Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T., and Ganz, M. (1996) “Casting wide nets: Gamm and Putnam are mistaken about local primacy in late-19th-century U.S. associationalism.” Typescript, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Stevens, A. (1899) The Cyclopedia of Fraternities. Paterson, NJ: Hamilton Printing and Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Tocqueville, A. (1969 [1835-40]) Democracy in America, ed Mayer, J. P. and trans. Lawrence, George. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Verba, S., Schlozman, K., and Brady, H. (1995) Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, J. Jr. (1991) Mobilizing Interest Groups in America: Patrons, Professions, and Social Movements. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Waller-Zuckerman, M. (1989) “Marketing the women’s journals, 1897-1947.” Business and Economic History, 2d ser. 18: 99–108.Google Scholar