Alexis de Tocqueville and the Art of Democratic Statesmanship

Contributions by Derek Barker, Richard Boyd, Paul Carresse, Brian Danoff, Albert W. Dzur, Khalil M. Habib Salve Regina University, L Joseph Hebert, Peter Augustine Lawler Berry College, Susan McWilliams Barndt, Thomas L. Pangle, William B. Parsons, Jon D. Schaff, F Flagg Taylor IV, Aristide Tessitore, Alexis De Tocqueville, Conor Williams, Thad Williamson Edited by Brian Danoff, L. Joseph Hebert

Publication date:

13 December 2010

Length of book:

350 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

240x162mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739145296

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville famously called for 'a new political science' that could address the problems and possibilities of a 'world itself quite new.' For Tocqueville, the democratic world needed not just a new political science but also new arts of statesmanship and leadership. In this volume, Brian Danoff and L. Joseph Hebert, Jr., have brought together a diverse set of essays revealing that Tocqueville's understanding of democratic statesmanship remains highly relevant today. The first chapter of the book is a new translation of Tocqueville's 1852 address to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, in which Tocqueville offers a profound exploration of the relationship between theory and practice, and between statesmanship and political philosophy. Subsequent chapters explore the relationship between Tocqueville's ideas on statesmanship, on the one hand, and the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, the Puritans, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution, Oakeshott, Willa Cather, and the Second Vatican Council, on the other. Timely and provocative, these essays show the relevance of Tocqueville's theory of statesmanship for thinking about such contemporary issues as the effects of NGOs on civic life, the powers of the American presidency, the place of the jury in a democratic polity, the role of religion in public life, the future of democracy in Europe, and the proper balance between liberalism and realism in foreign policy.

1 Acknowledgments
2 Introduction
3 Part I: Statesmanship and Political Philosophy
4 Speech Given to the Annual Public Meeting of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences on April 3, 1852
5 Leading by Leaving
6 Aristotle and Tocqueville on Statesmanship
7 Macchiavelli and Tocqueville on Majority Tyranny
8 Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and the Politics of Mores
9 Intellectuals and Statesmanship? Tocqueville, Oakeshott, and the Distinction between Theoretical and Practical Knowledge
10 Part II: Statesmanship and Government
11 Tocqueville's View of the American Presidency and the Limits of Democratic Statesmanship
12 Changing the People, Not Simply the President
13 Moderating the Penal State through Citizen Participation
14 Part III: Statsmanship Outside of Government
15 From Associations to Organizations
16 The Tragedy of American Progress
17 The Catholic Church in the Modern World
18 Tocqueville on How to Praise the Puritains Today
19 Part IV: Statesmanship Abroad
20 Tocqueville's Foreign Policy of Moderation and Democracy Expansion
21 The Twofold Challenge for Democratic Culture in Our Time

At a time when the forces of administrative despotism are on the march and Winfreyesque rhetoric passes for moral leadership and intellectual sophistication, Brian Danoff and Joseph Hebert have assembled a compelling collection of timely essays on the political thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, that liberal thinker of the first rank who endeavored to see further than the parties without any pretense to postpartisanship, who understood that more democracy is not always the answer to every problem of democracy, and who concerned himself with educating democratic peoples so that they may live together as free citizens rather than exist independently as dependent subjects. This fine collection situates Tocqueville within the history of ideas, ancient and modern, and examines the significance of his observations, predictions, and prescriptions as they pertain to a wide variety of topics with contemporary relevance. The essays in this volume give articulation to the proper relationship between political theory, political science, and political practice, emphasizing the necessity for genuine republican statesmanship while honestly wondering about its chances given the trajectory of late modern America.