Political Figures
Alexis de Tocqueville
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Also Known As Tocqueville
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Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 to 1859) was a French political thinker and historian whose Democracy in America (1835 to 1840), based on his 1831 tour of the United States, examined how democratic societies could preserve individual liberty against the leveling pressures of equality. He argued that Americans' constant recourse to voluntary associations, formed for purposes commercial, religious, educational, and civic, was democracy's essential counterweight to isolating individualism, binding citizens to a shared public life larger than private self-interest.
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Advocated
Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835 to 1840) supplied the concept's most influential empirical account, describing Americans' constant recourse to voluntary associations as democracy's master skill.
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This source names United States directly: "1840), based on his 1831 tour of the United States, examined how democratic societies could preserve individual liberty against the leveling pressures of equality."
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