Tocqueville: Neutrality and the Use of History

1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 611-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marvin Zetterbaum
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Social System ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Democratic Revolution ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
Democracy In America ◽  
The One

It is not uncommon for a major writer to be seen by his critics in widely divergent, even contradictory terms; Alexis de Tocqueville shares this fate. To the familiar causes of controversy, Tocqueville added his own—a veil of neutrality or objectivity concealing his deepest views. The publication in 1835 of the first part of Democracy in America thus gave rise to an effort, still continuing, to discover Tocqueville's true intent: behind the façade of neutrality does he favor one social system, aristocracy or democracy, over the other?On the one hand, does he not reveal in his writings the ineradicable bias of his aristocratic origins? Was he not hostile to the openended, unformed, and unforeseeable consequences of the democratic revolution? Did he not intend by his criticisms of the democratic system to “carry the reader to the point of wishing for its destruction?” Was not the liberty he defended a “restricted liberty, protecting a small group of privileged people who were really independent so far as economic circumstances went?” Was it not “a liberty for believers, [a] liberty for owners…an aristocratic liberalism?” Did he not believe that “the mass of men should remain bereft of political power?”

Modes of Making War

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-126
Author(s):  
António Tomás
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Cuban Revolution ◽  
The Other ◽  
Guinea Bissau ◽  
The One ◽  
Che Guevara ◽  
The Revolution

By the time the anticolonial war started in Guinea-Bissau, in terms of counterinsurgency doctrine Cabral could choose from two major theories. On the one hand, the theory of movement, proposed by the likes of Mao, that involved the massive participation of the peasantry. On the other, the foco theory, espoused by Che Guevara and experimented in the Cuban revolution, that consisted of the incursion in a given territory of a small group of revolutionaries with the mission to start the uprising. The revolution in Guinea is the mix between the two. It counted on the one hand with a significant adherence of the Guinean peasantry, but the party’s leadership was in the hand of a handful of cadres, most of them from Cape Verde.

Village Elections and Redistribution of Political Power and Collective Property

2009 ◽  
Vol 197 ◽  
pp. 126-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusheng Yao
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Northern China ◽  
The Other ◽  
Village Elections ◽  
Collective Property ◽  
Political Office ◽  
The One ◽  
The Village

AbstractThis study of competitive elections in a northern China village identifies two contradictions: one between villagers and village officials, the other between village elite and those seeking power. The one between villagers and the old leadership in the village focuses on the latter's corruption and bad governance, which had led to serious erosion and unfair distribution of the collective property. The one between villagers and the new leadership lies in the latter's failure to address the problems left by the old leadership. Both led to popular discontent and fuelled political participation. The contradiction between elite members focuses on competing for political office, which has resulted in the formation of factions and factionalism in both election and post-election politics and has become a salient feature of the village politics. The investigation of this village with governing problems found that free elections have brought about a radical redistribution of political power, but little satisfaction to villagers because their deep-seated desire for a fair redistribution of the collective property remains unfulfilled.

An Outsider's View: Alexis de Tocqueville on Aristocratic Society and Politics in 19th Century England

1980 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Spring
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
First Impression ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Special Quality ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century

This brief account of Tocqueville's ideas on aristocratic society and government in England is intended to serve as a sort of introduction to the longer papers that follow in this symposium. For some years the subject of English aristocratic power in the 19th century—especially in connection with the First and Second Reform Acts—has been much discussed. The discussion has dwelt on such questions as whether the aristocracy grew or declined in power, whether the Reform Acts made for a growth or loss of power, whether aristocratic leadership knew precisely what it was doing, and so on. So far this discussion has been carried on, so to speak, exclusively from the inside: that is, in terms of contemporary English events and ideas. In Tocqueville, who was both an Anglophile and an informed and penetrating observer of England from the 1830s until his death in 1859, we have a distinguished outsider. His ideas are always interesting for their own sake. For this symposium they have the added merit of touching on some of its central themes. On occasion, his ideas may strike the reader as exaggerated, ambiguous, even inconsistent, certainly without system. But they are usually suggestive, and merit the historian's serious attention.Tocqueville's first impression of the English aristocracy was one of great power—a power rooted in its monopoly of landowner ship. As he saw it, the contrast between the French landowning aristocracy and the English was that between an aristocracy, on the one hand, that was land poor, and an aristocracy, on the other hand, that was richly endowed in land. Tocqueville also saw that if landed property did not always lead to economic power—since agriculture did not pay that well—it had a special quality, as compared to other forms of wealth, which was bound to lead to political power.

THE CANVAS AND THE COLOR: TOCQUEVILLE'S “PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY” AND WHY IT MATTERS NOW

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES T. KLOPPENBERG
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Past Century ◽  
French History ◽  
French Politics ◽  
Best Friend ◽  
The Past ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
The One ◽  
1848 Revolution

In December of 1850, exhausted by his role in French politics and recuperating from tuberculosis, Alexis de Tocqueville retreated to the Amalfi coast to think, write, and recover. To his best friend Louis de Kergolay, Tocqueville wrote about completing his memoir on the 1848 revolution and his plans to undertake a comprehensive account of French history that would explain the turmoil of the past century. The appeal was powerful, he explained to Kergolay, but “the difficulties are immense. The one that most troubles my mind comes from the mixture of history properly so called with historical philosophy. I still do not see how to mix these two things,” he conceded, “and yet, they must be mixed, for one could say that the first is the canvas and the second the color, and that it is necessary to have both at the same time in order to do the picture.” Tocqueville feared “that the one is harmful to the other, and that I lack the infinite art that would be necessary in order to choose properly the facts that must, so to speak, support the ideas.

scholarly journals SISTEM NILAI PELA SEBAGAI MODAL SOSIAL DALAM RANGKA PENGUATAN KEBANGSAAN PADA BASIS LOKAL DI MALUKU

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
Max Maswekan
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social System ◽  
Regional Level ◽  
The Other ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Value System ◽  
A Value ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Indonesia is a pluralistic country (diverse) in terms of ethnicity, religion, culture, language and social system. This diversity is a blessing that is given as a potential wealth of the nation. On the one hand, this potential can be managed to strengthen nationality and people's welfare, but on the other hand, it can be a potential conflict that can weaken and even solve (disintegration) of nationalism if it is not managed properly. Indonesia has a variety of local wisdom as invaluable social capital. One of them is Pela in Maluku which has a value system that is capable of marching and strengthening (integration) nationalism. The Pela value system has at least four functions that are able to effectively integrate (social cohesion) and strengthen national potential at the local (regional) level, especially in Maluku.

scholarly journals Renhed og urenhed i zarathustrismen

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Reenberg Sand
Keyword(s):  
Small Group ◽  
The Other ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Mary Douglas ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Exact Correlation

This paper deals with the relation between the pure and the impure in the late Avestan text Vendīdād. It is shown how, in this religion, there is an almost exact correlation between the cosmic dualism between the good creation of Ahura Mazdā and the evil creation of Angra Mainyu and the pure and the impure. The world is thus split up between the good and the pure beings on the one hand and the evil and the impure on the other. Between these stands man, on the one side good by origin, but on the other struck by evil in the form of death, his main task being to fight impurity and evil in order to make possible the renewal of the original good creation. Finally, the Zoroastrian cosmology and pollution concepts are compared with the typologies presented by Mary Douglás, and it is concluded that, in spite of some drawbacks of her theory, the Zoroastrian material seems to point to her "small group" typology.

Political Power and Corporate Managerialism in Local Government: The Organisation of Executive Functions

1997 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 347-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
C Collinge
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
The Other ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century

The history of British local government since the 19th century reveals two opposite organisational tendencies. On the one hand there has been the entrenchment of a decentralised political structure based around the committee system; on the other hand there have been recurrent expressions of concern at the absence of executive unity within councils, and the development of a number of reintegrative corporate initiatives. Sometimes these initiatives have taken a political and sometimes a managerial form; the most prominent managerial expression of the pursuit of corporate cohesion is the post of chief executive, but this post is to varying degrees disabled by the absence of a cohesive political structure in those authorities where politicians actively seek to govern. It is only where politicians are relatively weak, and where local democratic accountability is attenuated and power transferred to the officers, that the post of chief executive can live up to its corporate expectations. The perpetuation of these circumstances reflects in part a reluctance amongst councillors to concentrate local political power in a centralised political executive; a reluctance which, in practice, plays into the hands of those who favour a managerialist future for local governance.

A Puzzle of Sovereignity

1998 ◽  
pp. 159-164
Author(s):  
Steven Lee
Keyword(s):  
International Economic ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
Response Strategy ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The One

National sovereignty presents a puzzle. On the one hand, this notion continues to figure importantly in our descriptions of global political change. On the other hand, factors such as the accelerating pace of international economic integration seem to have made the notion anachronistic. This paper is an attempt to resolve this puzzle. Distinguishing between internal sovereignty or supremacy and external sovereignty or independence, I investigate whether some insights from the discussion of the former can be applied to our puzzle concerning the latter. One response to the objection that the notion of internal sovereignty is inapplicable because no group in society holds unlimited political power is to distinguish between different types of internal sovereignty, such as legal and electoral sovereignty. The resolution of the puzzle lies in applying this response strategy to the objection that the notion of external sovereignty is inapplicable because no state is completely independent.

The Changing Relationship between Local Society and the Central Political Power in Former Han: 206 B.C.–8 A.D.

1965 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 358-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cho-Yun Hsu
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Local Society ◽  
Elite Group ◽  
Local Elite ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

The consolidation of China did not come immediately with China's unification. It was not fully accomplished until the middle of the Former (Western) Han. The monolithic2 nature of the political powers and a group of local elite3 were then forming. And the bureaucracy, becoming much elaborated during this era, served to link the two. The elite group functioned, on the one hand as the reservoir of candidates to officialdom, and on the other hand, as the leading element with education, prestige, and often wealth, in the community. Based on these concepts, this paper ventures to present the formation of the local elite group through the changing social base of political power during Western Han.

Why the West is Perceived as Being Unworthy of Cooperation

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 594-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gorik Ooms
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social System ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Natural Sense ◽  
The One ◽  
Sense Of Justice ◽  
In Virtue Of

Natural selection generated a natural sense of justice. This natural sense of justice created a set of natural rights; rights humans accorded to each other in virtue of being members of the same tribe. Sharing the responsibility for natural rights between all members of the same tribe allowed humans to take advantage of all opportunities for cooperation. Human rights are the present day political emanation of natural rights. Theoretically, human rights are accorded by all humans to all humans in virtue of being humans; however, the idea that the corresponding responsibility is now shared among all humans is not broadly accepted. The natural sense of justice creates an ambiguity: on the one hand humans consider the nation they belong to as the social system that should guarantee their human rights (and likewise they do not consider themselves as having responsibility for the human rights of inhabitants of other nations); on the other hand, as cooperation between nations intensifies, expectations of global mutual responsibility increase as well.

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