Democracy in America by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

After a nine-month tour of the United States in 1831 and 1832, Tocqueville tried to explain why democracy worked there and what it might do to the people living under it. The first volume, in 1835, studies institutions: township government, juries, a free press, federalism and an independent judiciary. The second, in 1840, turns to habits and ideas.

His central claim is that the movement toward equality of condition is irresistible and neither good nor bad in itself. It can lead to freedom or to servitude. Americans kept freedom, he argued, because of local self-government, voluntary associations, religion that taught restraint, and mores that disciplined ambition.

He also described the dangers: the tyranny of the majority over opinion, an individualism that draws citizens into private life, and a gentle, paternal government that takes care of everything and slowly leaves citizens unable to govern themselves.

Why it matters

Few books are quoted as often in American political argument, and few repay it so well. Conservatives return to Tocqueville because he treats civil society, family and faith as the working parts of self-government rather than decoration, and because his warning about administrative paternalism reads like a forecast of the modern welfare state.

His observations about associations explain why the thinning of churches, clubs and neighborhood groups is treated as a political problem, not just a social one.

About the author

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a French aristocrat and magistrate who went to the United States in 1831 with his friend Gustave de Beaumont, officially to study its prisons. His book made him famous in both countries. He later served in the French legislature and briefly as foreign minister, and wrote The Old Regime and the Revolution, another study of how liberty is lost.

Who should read it

Citizens who want a clear-eyed look at their own country from a friendly outsider. The two volumes are long, but the chapters on associations, religion, individualism and soft despotism stand well alone.