Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy

Alexis de Tocqueville is widely cited as an authority on civil society, religion and American political culture, yet his thoughts on democratization outside the West and the challenges of a globalizing age are less known and often misunderstood. This collection of essays by a distinguished group of international scholars explores Tocqueville's vision of democracy in Asia and the Middle East; the relationship between globalization and democracy; colonialism, Islam and Hinduism; and the ethics of international relations. Rather than simply documenting Tocqueville's own thoughts, the volume applies the Frenchman's insights to enduring dilemmas of democratization and cross-cultural exchanges in the twenty-first century. This is one of the few books to shift the focus of Tocqueville studies away from America and Western Europe, expanding the frontiers of democracy and highlighting the international dimensions of Tocqueville's political thought.

Acknowledgments; Short title key to works cited; Introduction: Tocqueville and the frontiers of democracy Ewa Atanassow and Richard Boyd; Part I. The Meaning of Democracy and the Democratic Revolution: 1. Democracy and revolution in Tocqueville: the frontiers of democracy Nestor Capdevila; 2. The frontier between democracy and aristocracy Ran Halevi; 3. Tocqueville's Burke, or story as history Ralph Lerner; Part II. Democratization in a Non-Western Context: 4. Tocqueville and religion: beyond the frontier of Christendom Alan Kahan; 5. Deliberating democratization with Tocqueville: the case of East Asia Cheryl Welch; 6. Tocquevillean thoughts on higher education in the Middle East Joshua Mitchell; Part III. Challenges of Globalization: Democracy, Markets, and Nationhood: 7. Tocqueville and the unsettled global village Susan McWilliams; 8. Nationhood: democracy's frontier? Ewa Atanassow; 9. Commerce, glory, and empire: Montesquieu's legacy Celine Spector; Part IV. Democracy, Imperialism, and Foreign Policy: 10. The surprising M. Tocqueville: necessity, foreign policy, and civic virtue David Clinton; 11. Democracy and domination: empire, slavery, and democratic corruption in Tocqueville's thought Jennifer Pitts; 12. Tocqueville and the Napoleonic legend Richard Boyd; Part V. Democracy's Old and New Frontiers: 13. Tocqueville, the problem of equality, and John Ford's Stagecoach Robert Pippin; 14. The poetry of democracy Paul Berman; 15. Tocqueville and the local frontiers of democracy Robert T. Gannett, Jr; Epilogue: new frontiers, old dilemmas Richard Boyd; List of contributors; Bibliography; Index.

Ewa Atanassow is Assistant Professor at ECLA of Bard, a liberal arts university in Berlin. Her research focuses on democracy and nationhood, and on the intersection of ethics, psychology and politics in the liberal tradition of political thought.
Richard Boyd is Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, where he teaches courses on liberalism, international ethics, and the history of political philosophy. He is the author of Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism (2004).