what is tocqueville's main thesis in democracy in america

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

Alexis de Tocqueville

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 7, 2019 | Original: November 9, 2009

French sociologist and political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) traveled to the United States in 1831 to study its prisons and returned with a wealth of broader observations that he codified in “Democracy in America” (1835), one of the most influential books of the 19th century. With its trenchant observations on equality and individualism, Tocqueville’s work remains a valuable explanation of America to Europeans and of Americans to themselves.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Early Life

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in 1805 into an aristocratic family recently rocked by France’s revolutionary upheavals. Both of his parents had been jailed during the Reign of Terror. After attending college in Metz, Tocqueville studied law in Paris and was appointed a magistrate in Versailles, where he met his future wife and befriended a fellow lawyer named Gustave de Beaumont.

Did you know? During his travels in the United States, one of the first things that surprised Alexis de Tocqueville about American culture was how early everyone seemed to eat breakfast.

In 1830 Louis-Philippe, the “bourgeois monarch,” took the French throne, and Tocqueville’s career ambitions were temporarily blocked. Unable to advance, he and Beaumont secured permission to carry out a study of the American penal system, and in April 1831 they set sail for Rhode Island .

Alexis de Tocqueville: American Travels

From Sing-Sing Prison to the Michigan woods, from New Orleans to the White House , Tocqueville and Beaumont traveled for nine months by steamboat, by stagecoach, on horseback and in canoes, visiting America’s penitentiaries and quite a bit in between. In Pennsylvania , Tocqueville spent a week interviewing every prisoner in the Eastern State Penitentiary. In Washington , D.C., he called on President Andrew Jackson during visiting hours and exchanged pleasantries.

The travelers returned to France in 1832. They quickly published their report, “On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France,” written largely by Beaumont. Tocqueville set to work on a broader analysis of American culture and politics, published in 1835 as “Democracy in America.”

Alexis de Tocqueville: “Democracy in America”

As “Democracy in America” revealed, Tocqueville believed that equality was the great political and social idea of his era, and he thought that the United States offered the most advanced example of equality in action. He admired American individualism but warned that a society of individuals can easily become atomized and paradoxically uniform when “every citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost in the crowd.” He felt that a society of individuals lacked the intermediate social structures—such as those provided by traditional hierarchies—to mediate relations with the state. The result could be a democratic “tyranny of the majority” in which individual rights were compromised.

Tocqueville was impressed by much of what he saw in American life, admiring the stability of its economy and wondering at the popularity of its churches. He also noted the irony of the freedom-loving nation’s mistreatment of Native Americans and its embrace of slavery.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Later Life

In 1839, as the second volume of “Democracy in America” neared publication, Tocqueville reentered political life, serving as a deputy in the French assembly. After the Europe-wide revolutions of 1848, he served briefly as Louis Napoleon’s foreign minister before being forced out of politics again when he refused to support Louis Napoleon’s coup.

He retired to his family estate in Normandy and began writing a history of modern France, the first volume of which was published as “The Old Regime and the French Revolution” (1856). He blamed the French Revolution on corruption among the nobility and on the political disillusionment of the French population. Tocqueville’s plans for later volumes were cut short by his death from tuberculosis in 1859.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Legacy

Tocqueville’s works shaped 19th-century discussions of liberalism and equality, and were rediscovered in the 20th century as sociologists debated the causes and cures of tyranny. “Democracy in America” remains widely read and even more widely quoted by politicians, philosophers, historians and anyone seeking to understand the American character.

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

An Overview of the Book Democracy in America

Photo from Amazon

• Recommended Reading
• Key Concepts
• Major Sociologists
• News & Issues
• Research, Samples, and Statistics
• Archaeology

Democracy in America , written by Alexis de Tocqueville between 1835 and 1840, is considered one of the most comprehensive and insightful books ever written about the U.S. Having seen the failed attempts at a democratic government in his native France, Tocqueville set out to study a stable and prosperous democracy in order to gain insight into how it worked. Democracy in America is the result of his studies. The book was and still remains, so popular because it deals with issues such as religion, the press, money, class structure, racism, the role of government, and the judicial system – issues that are just as relevant today as they were then. ​Many colleges in the U.S. continue to use Democracy in America in political science and history courses.

There are two volumes to Democracy in America . Volume one was published in 1835 and is more optimistic of the two. It focuses mainly on the structure of government and the institutions that help maintain freedom in the United States. Volume two, published in 1840, focuses more on individuals and the effects that the democratic mentality has on the norms and thoughts that exist in society.

Tocqueville’s main purpose in writing Democracy in America was to analyze the functioning of political society and the various forms of political associations, although he also had some reflections on civil society as well as the relations between political and civil society. He ultimately seeks to understand the true nature of American political life and why it was so different from Europe.

Topics Covered

Democracy in America covers a vast array of topics. In Volume I, Tocqueville discusses things such as: the social condition of Anglo-Americans; judicial power in the United States and its influence on political society; the United States Constitution; freedom of press; political associations; the advantages of a democratic government; the consequences of democracy; and the future of the races in the United States.

In Volume II of the book, Tocqueville covers topics such as: How religion in the United States avails itself to democratic tendencies; Roman Catholicism in the United States; pantheism; equality and the perfectibility of man; science; literature; art; how democracy has modified the English language ; spiritual fanaticism; education; and equality of the sexes.

Features of American Democracy

Tocqueville’s studies of democracy in the United States led him to the conclusion that American society is characterized by five key features:

1. Love of equality: Americans love equality even more than we love individual liberty or freedom (Volume 2, Part 2, Chapter 1).

2. Absence of tradition: Americans inhabit a landscape largely without inherited institutions and traditions (family, class, religion) that define their relations to one another (Volume 2, Part 1, Chapter 1).

3. Individualism: Because no person is intrinsically better than another, Americans begin to seek all reasons in themselves, looking not to tradition nor to the wisdom of singular individuals, but to their own opinion for guidance (Volume 2, Part 2, Chapter 2).

4. Tyranny of the majority: At the same time, Americans give great weight to, and feel great pressure from, the opinion of the majority. Precisely because they are all equal, they feel insignificant and weak in contrast to the greater number (Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 7).

5. Importance of free association: Americans have a happy impulse to work together to improve their common life, most obviously by forming voluntary associations . This uniquely American art of association tempers their tendencies towards individualism and gives them a habit and taste for serving others (Volume 2, Part 2, Chapters 4 and 5).

Predictions for America

Tocqueville is often acclaimed for making a number of correct predictions in Democracy in America . First, he anticipated that the debate over the abolition of enslavement could potentially tear apart the United States, which it did during the American Civil War. Second, he predicted that the United States and Russia would rise as rival superpowers, and they did after World War II. Some scholars also argue that Tocqueville, in his discussion of the rise of the industrial sector in the American economy, correctly predicted that an industrial aristocracy would rise from the ownership of labor. In the book, he warned that “friends of democracy must keep an anxious eye peeled in this direction at all times” and went on to say that a new found wealthy class may potentially dominate society.

According to Tocqueville, democracy would also have some unfavorable consequences, including the tyranny of the majority over thought, a preoccupation with material goods, and isolating individuals from each other and society.

Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, trans., ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000)

• 15 Major Sociological Studies and Publications
• Civil Society: Definition and Theory
• What Is Majoritarianism? Definition and Examples
• What Is Democracy? Definition and Examples
• Aristotle on Democracy and Government
• What Is Pluralism? Definition and Examples
• What Is the Democratic Peace Theory? Definition and Examples
• Democracy Promotion as Foreign Policy
• Direct Democracy: Definition, Examples, Pros and Cons
• The Second Great Awakening
• How Athenian Democracy Developed in 7 Stages
• Public Opinion Definition and Examples
• What Is Plutocracy? Definition and Examples
• What Is Public Choice Theory?
• Geography of the United States of America
• What Is a Constitutionally Limited Government?

• Lesson Plans
• Teacher's Guides
• Media Resources

Democracy in America: Alexis de Tocqueville's Introduction

Theodore Chasseriau,  Alexis Charles Henry de Tocqueville, Representant du Peuple , 1848. Lithograph, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

Wikimedia Commons

In 1831 an ambitious and unusually perceptive twenty-five-year-old French aristocrat visited the United States. Alexis de Tocqueville’s official purpose was to study the American penal system, but his real interest was America herself. He spent nine months criss-crossing the young country, traveling mostly by steamboat, but also sometimes on horseback and by foot. He visited the bustling Eastern cities, explored the wilderness on the northwestern frontier, and had several adventures on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. He even stayed in a log cabin. Throughout, he spoke to Americans of every rank and profession, including two presidents and Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. Tocqueville’s sojourn in America did lead to the writing of a book on the American penal system, but its much more important result was the reflection on equality and freedom known as Democracy in America . This great book remains arguably one of the two most important books on America political life, the Federalist Papers being the other one.

Democracy in America is a large book in two volumes (published five years apart, in 1835 and 1840). Volume One describes and analyzes American conditions and political institutions, while Volume Two examines the effect of American democracy on what we would call culture (literature, economics, the family, religion, etc.). The reason for Tocqueville’s interest in these themes is explained in a general Introduction to the whole work. There we learn that although Tocqueville was an aristocrat, he believed that the world was undergoing a “great democratic revolution,” that it is inevitably and irreversibly becoming more and more democratic. And this belief is what motivated his deep interest in America, for his visit convinced him that America had achieved in a peaceful and natural way almost complete “equality of conditions.” By understanding America, he thought that we could not only understand what democracy means, but in a way even glimpse the world’s future. “I confess,” he wrote, “that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress.” This feature examines Tocqueville’s argument that the “great democratic revolution” is inevitable and irresistible.

Part of A Long Tradition

Alexis de Tocqueville is part of a long tradition of well-educated Europeans who traveled to America and published books or diaries about their experiences in the “new” world. Unlike most of the others, however, the book Tocqueville wrote has proved over the years to be a lasting source of information and insight into both America and democracy. Democracy in America is now widely studied in America universities, and it has been quoted by Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, and Congressmen. Humbler instances of its influence abound; for example, the name for the most generous category of giver to The United Way is the “Alexis de Tocqueville Society”.

When Tocqueville visited America, Andrew Jackson was President. It was in this period that the United States first surpassed Europe in per capita income. It was also during Tocqueville’s visit that Black Hawk, the leader of the Sauk and Fox Indians, agreed to move across the Mississippi River to a reservation in Iowa, and that Nat Turner led an uprising of slaves in Virginia.

The current popularity of Democracy in America in the United States might have surprised Tocqueville himself, because he wrote the book primarily for a French audience. The first volume was published forty-six years after the French Revolution. That great upheaval had destroyed the “ancient regime” — the political order comprised of divine right monarchs, hereditary aristocrats, and peasants — but France had still not found political stability. As Tocqueville points out in the Introduction, many leading Frenchmen were unwilling to accept that equality had come to stay: looking to the past with regret some foolishly ignored the fundamental changes taking place around them; others found themselves caught in various unnatural and unhealthy moral and political confusions. It was first and foremost for such people that Tocqueville wrote the book. He hoped that by showing them in detail what democracy was they would be able better to guide France’s own transition to democracy. In so doing, however, he gave the world its richest, most various, and deepest reflection on democracy. But why was Tocqueville so certain that democracy was inevitable and irresistible? His argument for this opinion is the main theme of this book’s introduction.

Note on the text of Democracy in America . Several translations of Tocqueville’s text are available in English. The page numbers and quotations used in this feature refer to the translation done by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (the University of Chicago Press, 2000). This is one of the most recent and highly regarded translations, but it is not available online. Therefore, for those who wish to use an online text, the links provided are to the 1899 revision of the Henry Reeve translation . The two translations differ in many ways, but it should not be difficult to find the parallel passages.

How to Teach Tocqueville’s Introduction

Use the following activities and worksheets to help students understand what specific developments and events in history contribute to the advancement of greater equality in society and which ones Tocqueville regarded as most important.

Suggested Homework Assignment

Have the students read pp. 3–7 and 12–15 of Democracy in America the night before the reading is discussed in class ( "Tocqueville Reading A” in the reading packet ). Each student should draw up a numbered list of the different things that Tocqueville says contribute to equality in society (Link to Equality Worksheet ). They should also define the following words: generative, clergy, Providence, enlightenment, feudal, haphazardly, arsenal (Link to Definitions Worksheet ). The class can have two, or if there is time, three parts. The most important part is the second activity below and the most time should be spent on it.

Activity 1. “Equality of Condition”

Have a student read out loud the first three paragraphs of the Introduction. Follow this with a brief discussion of this passage, beginning with the question, what is it about America that most impressed Tocqueville? This is of course something he calls the “equality of conditions.” Tocqueville does not say much about this here; he doesn’t even define it or tell us what it is. But he does describe in broad strokes how important it is, and the students should get some appreciation of this. Ask them what the equality of conditions is responsible for in America. Students should be able to say several things about this, but one thing they should notice is that it is not the same thing as democracy. According to Tocqueville, equality of conditions shapes laws and otherwise influences government, but it also “creates opinions” and “gives birth to sentiments” in society more broadly. It is the “primary fact” about America, the “generative fact” from which all other facts seem to issue, and the “central point” at which all of Tocqueville’s observations come to an end. Equality of conditions influences and may give rise to democracy, but it is something deeper and more powerful than any particular form of government

Activity 2. “A great democratic revolution is taking place among us”

Tocqueville then shifts his attention to France (and more generally, to Europe) and announces that “a great democratic revolution is taking place among us.” The problem is that there is an important division of opinion in France about what this revolution means. Is it something new and accidental that can be stopped, or is it something deep and old, indeed, “the most permanent fact known in history”? To answer this question, Tocqueville gives us a thumbnail sketch of French history over the past seven hundred years. The core of the lesson is what Tocqueville says in this history in the next two and a half pages . For most of this passage, each paragraph elaborates a different thing that has contributed to the advancement of equality. Have students read and discuss this passage. Students should understand how the thing Tocqueville is discussing (e.g., the development of a taste for literature, struggles between king and nobles, etc.) worked to promote equality. Students will have their lists to consult and the teacher may want to develop a running list on the blackboard or whiteboard.

Since Democracy in America was published in 1835, Tocqueville’s history begins in approximately 1100 CE. The first paragraph of the history gives a brief sketch of Europe at that time, before the great movement towards equality began. Because Tocqueville’s statement is very brief and mentions only the most essential points, help the students understand what he is saying. For example, Tocqueville says that a few families had a monopoly on political power. Moreover, their power is a certain kind, being tied to the possession of land (feudal estates) and passing from one person to another in the same family only by inheritance. These arrangements guarantee that only a very few people have a share of political power — the king and the nobles or aristocrats (warriors); all the rest are peasants or serfs working the land. There is absolutely no equality between a king and a noble, on the one hand, or between a noble and a serf, on the other.

In the paragraphs that follow, Tocqueville describes the important developments and events (usually one for each paragraph) that gradually undermined the feudal system and transformed Europe in the direction of social equality. After having a student read a paragraph, have the class discuss it, asking how the development or event fostered or encouraged equality. For example, the first step is the development of the “political power of the clergy”. Americans are so used to thinking that church and state should be separate, that we might wonder how it can be a good thing (i.e., how it can favor equality) for clergymen to have political power? Tocqueville suggests two answers. First, when the clergy got political power, it introduced into feudal Europe a new route to political power, a route based on the church rather than on inherited land. To put it bluntly, if you can get power through the church, you don’t need land. This did not make everyone in society equal, but it does mean that there were now more ways to get political power and that more people had access to political power than before; and anything that extends access to political power, favors equality. Second, because of the Christian idea that all men are equal before God, anyone — serf, peasant, or lord — could become a clergyman. In other words, inside the church there is a principle of equality, and when the clergy gained political power, this principle began (gradually) to influence politics.

Work through each of the paragraphs, discussing how each of the developments Tocqueville mentions favors equality and therefore democracy. Tocqueville lists four main developments, each of which established a new route to political power: the clergy, law and lawyers, money and trade, enlightenment or the taste for literature and the arts. Then in several paragraphs, he elaborates on various aspects of these four. Finally, he explains that almost all the major events in the past seven hundred years benefitted equality. There are many surprising things in Tocqueville’s brief history and students should begin to get a sense for his view that every development and major event in European history, promoted equality, including a great many that had no intention of so doing. Having worked through the passage, students should have a much better appreciation for the many social, economic, intellectual, and religious changes that help to support democracy because they help to maintain equality in society.

When the class has worked through these three pages, the teacher may want to look at the list and ask which one of the developments the students think was most important for promoting equality. There is no “right” answer to this question, but the paragraph on p. 5 that begins “Once works of the intellect had become sources of force and wealth” is very important ( “Tocqueville Reading B” in the reading packet ). This passage highlights how important the human mind is for democracy, for it points out that the great intellectual and creative talents of humanity are distributed seemingly at random, without any thought for rank or power or class. And it is precisely these talents that, according to Tocqueville, reveal “the natural greatness of man.” Moreover, their products, especially literature, are “an arsenal open to all, from which the weak and the poor came each day to seek arms.” It seems to be Tocqueville’s view that the development of the human mind fosters and goes naturally together with equality and democracy.

To examine in more detail Tocqueville’s description of equality in specifically American conditions, read Part One , chapters 1-3.

Activity 3. “Providential Fact” or “Force of Nature”?

By this point, it should be clear to the students that of the two opinions about the “great democratic revolution” summarized in the fifth paragraph of the Introduction, Tocqueville himself adheres to the second one, namely that it is “irresistible because ... it seems the most continuous, the oldest, and the most permanent fact known in history.” The lesson could end here, but if there is time and interest, the teacher may have a further discussion of how Tocqueville evaluates or judges the brute, if irresistible fact he has just described. What is his attitude towards it?

The crucial passages to answer this question appear on pages 6–7 (from the paragraph that begins “Everywhere the various incidents in the lives of people.” to the paragraph that ends “... takes us backward toward the abyss” ( “Tocqueville Reading C” in the reading packet ). Draw the attention of students to the many references or allusions to God, human power (the weakness of it), Providence, “religious terror,” “the usual course of nature,” and the Creator. What is revealed about Tocqueville’s view when he speaks about the movement towards equality in such highly charged theological language? Does this mean that equality and democracy are not just inevitable and irresistible, but also good? If that is what Tocqueville means, why does he regard this irresistible revolution with a “sort of religious terror”? Finally, ask students to reflect on the significance of the two images Tocqueville uses in this passage: the reference to the creation of the stars and to men floating backwards down a rapidly flowing river (both on p. 7).

Selected EDSITEment Websites

• Alexis de Tocqueville in France
• Democracy in America , American Studies, University of Virginia
• The Alexis De Tocqueville Tour: Exploring Democracy in Americ a

Materials & Media

Democracy in america: alexis de tocqueville's introduction: worksheet 1, democracy in america: alexis de tocqueville's introduction: worksheet 2, democracy in america: alexis de tocqueville's introduction: worksheet 3, related on edsitement, alexis de tocqueville on the tyranny of the majority, alexis de tocqueville’s warning: the tyranny of the majority, the constitutional convention of 1787, the federalist and anti-federalist debates on diversity and the extended republic.

Open Yale Courses

You are here, plsc 114: introduction to political philosophy,  - democratic statecraft: tocqueville, democracy in america.

With the emergence of democracies in Europe and the New World at the beginning of the nineteenth century, political philosophers began to re-evaluate the relationship between freedom and equality. Tocqueville, in particular, saw the creation of new forms of social power that presented threats to human liberty. His most famous work, Democracy in America, was written for his French countrymen who were still devoted to the restoration of the monarchy and whom Tocqueville wanted to convince that the democratic social revolution he had witnessed in America was equally representative of France’s future.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America , trans. Henry Reeve Electronic edition deposited and marked-up by ASGRP, the American Studies Programs at the University of Virginia, June 1, 1997 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/toc_indx.html

Lecture Chapters

• Tocqueville's Problem
• Who Was Alexis de Tocqueville?
• Democracy in America and the Letter to Kergolay
• The Characteristics of American Democracy: Importance of Local Government

Alexis de Tocqueville on Democracy and Its Culture

The dangers of a new tyranny of a minority in our time.

Léon Noël, Alexis de Tocqueville (1848). Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain

This talk was presented at the New School forum “American Democracy in Crisis: Perspectives from Tocqueville, Douglass, Wells, Dewey, and Arendt” on October 13, 2022.

I first read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America as a college freshman. I started reading it more closely and maturely when I embarked on my study of the politics of American culture and the culture of American politics, which eventually led to the publication of my book The Cynical Society . Then, for many years, I taught a course on Tocqueville’s book and his topic at Eugene Lang College, often as a freshman seminar. These three readings are the grounds for this presentation.

As a freshman, in 1967, I read the book, in an American history course, as it is most often admired and cited. It’s intriguing how many of Tocqueville’s observations about the strengths and weaknesses of the American political system and social order have endured: the workings of the federal system, the separation of powers, the promise, perils, and consequences of individualism, the potential dangers of the tyranny of the majority, and much more.

Yet there were also passages I found perplexing, and still do. Tocqueville considered race and racism in America through a racist lens . His analyses of gender relations and the powerful character of American (democratic) women are inventive, but so patriarchal that they are difficult to comprehend. And while, it is intriguing that he saw the likelihood of class conflict in America—in his terms, “the aristocracy of manufacturers”—he sees disaster on the horizon, not a promise for social transformation, as was also the case in his view of the races and their prospects.

On the central problems of race, gender and sexuality, and class, Tocqueville is not the best of guides in considering today’s crisis of democracy in America. Nonetheless, I still think that Tocqueville has much to offer in understanding America and the present crisis in our democracy.

He perceived major tensions knitted into the fabric of the political and social order of the United States. His analysis and judgment about the outcome of these tensions were historically specific. But they do, nonetheless, provide critical insight into the crisis of democracy in our times, the starting point of my work on The Cynical Society .

To anticipate my conclusion: Tocqueville’s investigation of the dangers and remedies of the tyranny of the majority illuminates the dangers of a new tyranny of a minority, and his investigation of democratic culture explains its populist and anti-intellectual features, and suggests the potential to overcome these features.

Moving toward this conclusion, I propose we consider major themes of Volumes 1 and 2 of his classic work, informed by an overview of his general sensibility.

Tocqueville was profoundly ambivalent about democracy. He was a nineteenth-century aristocrat who presciently saw an inevitable democratic future that others didn’t recognize. On the one hand, he thought democracy was inevitable, an unfolding “providential force” that can be shaped for better or for worse, but can’t be stopped. On the other hand, he was deeply concerned about cultural judgments and distinctions that democracy, as a shared civic culture, overwhelms: the unique creative accomplishments, the refinement and excellence, the public virtues to which he was attached.

Tocqueville appreciated the ingenuity of the American experiment. He understood that democracy is not just a system of governance with strengths and weaknesses. He understood how this system was built on a social infrastructure, a product of fortune and design, constituted by social equality and individualism.

He illuminated the connection between equality, individualism, and democracy, and the problems these connections posed. In voluntary associations, “individualism properly understood,” a broad-minded, enlightened individualism, the separation of powers, federalism, and much else, he saw the grounds upon which the ideals of freedom and equality could be balanced.

But he also presented dramatic accounts of the undersides of democracy, the aspects of democracy that inherited political thought recognized as necessary outcomes of democratic rule: “the tyranny of the majority” and what he explained as “the despotism democracies have to fear most,” the despotism that would be later described as the product of mass consumer society. He then shows how he believes American safeguards protect against these undersides.

He thought that American individualism was of a specific variety, in which the calculation of individual interest included consideration of the broader public interest. He understood federalism and the system of checks and balances would temper the concentration of centralized power. He believed that robust civil associations, positioned between a potentially too powerful state and weak individuals, would protect the citizenry. And he thought that widely available newspapers— “the media,” we would say—would support the development of civil and political associations, and the overall pluralism of the society and the decentralization of power.

Yet I believe we’re in a radically different situation now. I think that aspects of the very protections against the tyranny of the majority and democratic despotism that Tocqueville detected seem to be supporting a new tyranny, a tyranny of an anti-intellectual minority.

Voluntary associations, federalism, the judiciary, and the media, are part of the problem, not the solution. Voluntary associations of a new sort, converted into highly motivated special interest groups, such as the NRA, have dominated policy-making. Federalism has given the citizens of small, rural states, often with political perspectives not responding to the crises of our times, much more power than those from large, more urban ones. The judiciary, most dramatically the Supreme Court, is now assaulting the rights of woman, African Americans, democratic advances in the expansion of full citizenship, the voting rights law, and reproductive rights, as it supports the dominant powers of corporations and the super-rich. And the media regime is radicalizing the minority powers, turning cultural and political pluralism into political tribalism, in which the prospect of a civil war is actively imagined by right wing populists, inspired, and provoked by a former president of the United States.

While the first volume of Democracy in America offered an analysis of American political institutions and social arrangements, the second volume is more focused on American—i.e. democratic—political culture: what it does well, what it does poorly, and the dangers it poses.

Tocqueville’s investigation of America culture is based on his most fundamental proposition: America is a society that is egalitarian. At my first reading, this was a proposition that still seemed to make some sense. But since then, this is a more and more difficult to accept. Rising inequality is recognized as a major global problem that is most acute in the U.S., with the rich getting ever richer, especially the super-rich, leaving the rest of us in the dust, especially those without higher education or specialized skills. Social mobility is nothing like what Tocqueville described and most Americans imagine. Realizing the so-called American dream is very far from the lived experience of most Americans.

Yet the Americans’ “habits of the heart,” as Tocqueville put it, are still democratic. I worked to convince my students of this years ago, though I realize my argument is becoming harder to sustain.

The contrast between the lived and imagined reality is perversely expressed in the notion that Donald Trump is a blue-collar billionaire. More seriously, most Americans describe themselves as middle class, even though the wage and wealth differences of those who define themselves as such is immense, from those who must work themselves hard to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves, to those who do so grandly. Although we are not, we imagine ourselves as equals.

We assume that we are all equal and that our opinions are equal as well. Tocqueville got to the core of this in the opening of Volume 2, starting with his most ironic observation:

America is . . . the one country in the world where the precepts of Descartes are least studied and best followed . . . Americans do not read Descartes’s works because their social state turns them away from speculative studies, and they follow his maxims because of the same social state naturally disposes their minds to adopt them.

With this ethos, Americans, as democrats, view inherited and contemporary cultural authority with suspicion. They are radical skeptics, if not confirmed cynics . Expert and refined knowledge and insight must prove themselves. Since we are all equal, no person’s opinion or judgement is inherently superior to others. The most popular opinion can easily substitute for informed opinion. So-called common sense overrules expertise. Experts in the arts and sciences, including medicine, are viewed with suspicion, especially when their assertions are not immediately apparent, hidden in knowledge about microscopic organisms that are not readily apparent. Established grounds for judgment, legitimized with peer review, degrees, and certificates, are not readily accepted. And since Americans imagine that we are all equal, quantity substitutes for quality.

Think about Trump’s suggestion that we use Lysol spray to combat COVID. Think not only of the suspicion of public health authorities, but also of legal experts on the workings of the Constitution, and the idea that the news sources adhering to the highest journalistic standards are no better than blogs, podcasts, and tweets that denounce them. And if everyone you know agrees with you on this or that matter, you know you are right, and “they” are wrong.

In sum, Tocqueville in his analysis of American arts and sciences in the early nineteenth century revealed the way American anti-intellectualism of the twentieth and twenty-first century is a basic characteristic of the American way of life. And this, I believe, has empowered looming dangers of the tyranny of a minority that we are now experiencing.

Tocqueville’s greatest accomplishment, in my judgment, is not that he presciently foresaw the future or that he somehow unlocked the key to the American (democratic) genius, as I was taught as a college freshman. Rather, I believe that he illuminated key tensions in American democratic life. The long-recognized tense relationship between democracy and tyranny, and the more recently recognized tension between democracy and the despotism of an anti-intellectual populist segment of a polarized society. Tocqueville’s gift to us is the illumination of tensions inherent to American democracy. Sometimes this led him to mistaken conclusions, such as in his observations about race, class, and gender.

In promising ways, his conclusions about American democratic culture also were mistaken. Thus, he explained why American literature, given its move toward popularization, was inferior to British literature exactly when American literary brilliance was emerging: Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Dickenson, Whitman, et al. These literary giants drew upon the democratic to develop a uniquely American art. In the graphic and performing arts such accomplishments also developed. Tocqueville did not understand that the tensions between the ideals of refined culture and an egalitarian ethos, could lead to new innovative, excellent culture. That this innovation could make critical contributions to the world of arts and sciences, as well as to the development of democracy. Like Theodor Adorno, the power of jazz would have escaped Tocqueville. He would not anticipate Hemingway is my guess, and even more so Roth, Ellison, and Morrison. Yet, such creativity is the promising result of the tensions he highlighted.

I think the outcomes of these tensions are revealing new looming dangers, the rise of a tyranny of the minority, empowered by anti-intellectualism. But that the tensions persist, and that there have been and will be creative responses to them, suggests that the crisis in democracy of our present moment has promise, as well as perils.

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb is Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies at The New School. He is the founder of Public Seminar.

Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Founding Editor of Public Seminar, Senior Fellow at the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies, and chair of the Democracy Seminar

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Latest + Beyond the Issues

Public Seminar is a journal of ideas, politics, and culture published by the Public Seminar Publishing Initiative at The New School. We are a non-profit organization, wholly supported by The New School, and by the generosity of our sponsors and readers.

Connect With Us

Democracy field notes

Questions about the troubled spirit and ailing institutions of contemporary democracy

Why Read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America?

Professor of Politics, University of Sydney

Disclosure statement

John Keane receives funding from the Australian research Council.

University of Sydney provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

The following remarks on a famous work by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859) were presented as a lecture to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Scholars Program at the University of Sydney, 24th April, 2015.

Alexis de Tocqueville’s four-volume Democracy in America (1835-1840) is commonly said to be among the greatest works of nineteenth-century political writing. Its daring conjectures, elegant prose, formidable length and narrative complexity make it a masterpiece, yet exactly those qualities have together ensured, through time, that opinions greatly differ about the roots of its greatness.

Some observers cautiously mine the text for its fresh insights on such perennial themes as liberty of the press, the tyranny of the majority and civil society; or they focus on such topics as why it is that modern democracies are vulnerable to ‘commercial panics’ and why they simultaneously value equality, reduce the threat of revolution and grow complacent. Some readers of the text treat its author as a ‘ classical liberal ’ who loved parliamentary government and loathed the extremes of democracy. More often, the text is treated as a brilliant grand commentary on the decisive historical significance for old Europe of the rise of the new American republic, which was soon to become a world empire. Some observers, very often American, push this interpretation to the limit. They think of Democracy in America in almost nationalist terms: for them, it is a lavish hymn to the United States, a celebration of its emerging authority in the world, an ode to its 19th-century greatness and future 20th-century global dominance.

How should we make sense of these conflicting interpretations? Each arguably suffers serious flaws, but at the outset it’s important to recognise that the act of reading past texts is always an exercise in selection. There are no ‘true’ and ‘faithful’ readings of what others have written. Readers like to say that they have ‘really grasped’ the intended meanings of dead authors, whose texts belong to a context, but ‘full disclosure’ of that kind is forbidden to the living. Hemmed in by language and horizons of time and space, reading is always a stylising of past reality. Just as walking is a pale imitation of dancing, and dancing an exaggerated form of walking, so interpretations frame past realities. They are acts of narration. Acts of reading past texts are always time- and space-bound interpretations and, as one of my teachers Hans-Georg Gadamer liked to remark, all such interpretations of past texts turn out to be misinterpretations. That is why differences of interpretation are not only to be expected but, in order to prevent any one of them becoming dominant, to be welcomed, especially when they push beyond familiar horizons, towards ‘wild’ perspectives that force us to rethink things that we have so far taken for granted.

Democratic Literature

It is the spirit of ‘wild reading’ that infuses the following notes on Tocqueville’s ‘classic’ work. When approached one hundred and seventy years after its first publication as a four-volume set, Democracy in America teaches us more than a few things about the subject of democracy. But what exactly can we learn from it? It may seem far-fetched, but the first striking thing about the text is not just that it is the first-ever lengthy analytic treatment in any language of the subject of democracy but a treatment whose narrative form both mirrors and amplifies (‘mimics’) the dynamic openness of its subject matter: a way of life and a method of handling power Tocqueville repeatedly calls democracy. Democracy in America is a democratic text. Striking is its openness, its willingness to entertain paradoxes and juggle opposites, its powerful sense of adventure constructed from extensive field notes gathered by means of a grand adventure.

It may not seem obvious, but this sense of adventure has everything to do with the spirit of ‘democracy’. Democracy in America brilliantly captures and mimics in literary form the growth of an open, experimental society, a dynamic political order deeply aware of its own originality. Its grasp of these qualities of democracy was undoubtedly nurtured by Tocqueville’s peripatetic through the young American republic. It opened his eyes, widened his horizons, and changed his mind about democracy. In 1831, for nine short but action-filled months, the 26-year-old young French aristocrat (1805-1859) travelled through the United States. Accompanied by his colleague and friend Gustave de Beaumont , he ventured almost everywhere. Like a well-briefed tourist, he rode on steamboats (one of which sunk), found himself trapped by blizzards, sampled the local cuisine, and slept rough in log cabins. He found time for research and for rest, and for conversation, despite his imperfect English, with useful or prominent Americans, among them John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster.

Setting out from New York, he travelled upstate to Buffalo, then through the frontier, as it was then called, to Michigan and Wisconsin. He sojourned two weeks in Canada, from where he descended to Boston and Philadelphia and Baltimore. Next he went west, to Pittsburgh and Cincinatti; then south to Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans; then north through the south-eastern states to the capital, Washington; and at last back to New York, where he returned by packet to Le Havre, France. At the beginning of his journey, in New York, where he sojourned from May 11th for some six weeks, Tocqueville was openly hesitant about this bustling market society whose system of democratic government was still in its infancy. ‘Everything I see fails to excite my enthusiasm,’ he wrote in his journal, ‘because I attribute more to the nature of things than to human will.’

Talk of the God-given nature of things appears from time to time between the lines of Democracy in America . Seemingly still under the influence of the political false starts of his native France, the ‘nature of things’ principle stands in some tension with its sense of adventure, with its feeling for the novelty of democracy as a transformative experience. But Tocqueville, the slightly built son of a count from Normandy - the Château Tocqueville still stands, within sight of the harbour of Cherbourg - was soon to change his mind about democracy. Sometime during his stay in Boston (7 September - 3 October, 1831), Tocqueville became a convert of the American way of life. He began to talk of ‘a great democratic revolution’ now sweeping the world from its American heartlands. He was persuaded that ‘the advent of democracy as a governing power in the world’s affairs, universal and irresistible, was at hand’. He became convinced that ‘the time was coming’ when democracy would triumph in Europe, as it was doing in America. The future was America. It was therefore imperative to understand its strengths and weaknesses, he thought. And so, on January 12th 1832, just before boarding his packet for France, he sketched plans to bring to the French public a work about democracy in America. ‘If royalists could see the internal functioning of this well-ordered republic,’ he wrote, ‘the deep respect its people profess for their acquired rights, the power of those rights over crowds, the religion of law, the real and effective liberty people enjoy, the true rule of the majority, the easy and natural way things proceed, they would realise that they apply a single name to diverse forms of government which have nothing in common. Our republicans would feel that what we have called the Republic was never more than an unclassifiable monster…covered in blood and mud, clothed in the rages of antiquity’s quarrels.’

Tocqueville’s epiphany produced a string of extraordinary insights, as well as paradoxes. Consider his claim in Democracy in America that the political form known as democracy, all things considered, extinguishes the aesthetic dimension of life. It produces no lasting works of art, no poetry, no fine literature. Lacking a leisure class, he reasoned, the young American democracy cultivated people with practical minds. ‘The language, the dress, and the daily actions of men in democracies are repugnant to conceptions of the ideal’, he wrote. The whole ‘philosophical method’ of democracy is pragmatic, centred on the effort of individuals to make sense of their world by harnessing their own individual understanding of things. Even in matters of religion, ‘everyone shuts himself up tightly within himself and insists upon judging the world from there’.

The often-beautiful narrative prose, self-conscious reflection and fragmented ‘open text’ structure of Democracy in America contradicts this thesis. Democracy in America is arguably a great work of modern democratic literature, a highly engaging and thought-provoking text that markedly stands at right angles to the dull-witted science of politics that is today dominant in the American academy, and elsewhere. The point can be put in a different way: Tocqueville positively contradicted himself. He failed to foresee the many ways in which the young American democracy, with its palpable ethos of equality with liberty manifested in simple body language, tobacco-chewing customs and easy manners, would give rise to self-consciously democratic art and literature. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855), a celebration of the potential boundlessness of the American experiment with democracy and of the power of the poet to rupture conventional language springs to mind. So also does the greatest of all nineteenth-century American novels, Hermann Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851), a tale that warned against the hubris and self-destruction that awaits all those who act as if the world contained no boundaries, rules or moral limits. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America stands tall among these ‘classics’. It is in fact their progenitor.

Contingency

But there’s more to say about Democracy in America : much more, in fact. Democracy in America is a genuine breakthrough in the understanding of democracy as a unique political form, as a whole way of life that is fundamentally transformative of people’s sense of being in the world. Standing behind Tocqueville’s fascination with democracy is his awareness of its profound role in shaping modern times by stirring up people’s sense of the contingency of things. The four-volume work is still regarded, justifiably, as one of the great books about the subject, in no small measure because at a crucial moment in the democratic experiment in America Tocqueville managed to put his finger on several sources of its dynamic energy. For Tocqueville, it is not just capitalism and the law-enforcing territorial state that define modern times. The ‘great democratic revolution’ marks off modernity from the prior world structured by what he repeatedly calls ‘aristocracy’. Democracy is a sui generis but seemingly irreversible feature of the modern age.

It is true there are more than a few hints that Tocqueville, backed by the belief that God stands in favour of democracy, is tempted by evolutionary thinking, of the kind (in much more secular form) that later gripped Fukuyama’s grand generalisation of the 1776 revolution as the beginning of the end of history. Yet in contrast to Fukuyama and others, Tocqueville insisted there is no certain progress at the level of ‘general evolution’. Tocqueville emphasises to his readers that democracy challenges settled ways of thinking and speaking and acting. It reveals that humans are capable of transcending themselves. Really striking is Tocqueville’s grasp of the way democracy breaks down life’s certainties and spreads a lived sense of the mutability of the power relations through which people live their lives. For him, democracy is the twin of contingency.

The point is not often noted by readers of Tocqueville, but it is of fundamental importance when trying to come to terms with the ‘spirit’ of democracy. What we learn from Democracy in America is that democracy nudges and broadens people’s horizons. It tutors their sense of pluralism. It prods them into taking greater responsibility for how, when and why they act as they do. Democracies encourage people’s suspicions of power deemed ‘natural’. Citizens come to learn that ‘perpetual mutability’ is their lot, and that they must keep an eye on power and its representatives because prevailing power relationships are not ‘natural’, but up for grabs. In other words, democracy promotes something of a Gestalt switch in the perception of power. The metaphysical idea of an objective, out-there-at-a-distance ‘reality’ is weakened; so, too, is the presumption that ‘reality’ is stubborn and somehow superior to power. The fabled distinction between what people can see with their eyes and what they are told about the emperor’s clothes breaks down. ‘Reality’, including the ‘reality’ promoted by the powerful, comes to be understood as always ‘produced reality’, a matter of interpretation - and the power to seduce others into conformity by forcing particular interpretations of the world down others’ throats.

The Spirit of Equality

What are the wellsprings of this shared sense of contingency? Why does democracy tend to interrupt certainties, impeach them, enable people to see that things could be other than they presently are? Tocqueville might have been expected to say that because periodic elections stir things up they are the prime cause of the shared sense of the contingency of power relations. Not so. Tocqueville actually thought that elections trigger herd instincts among citizens. He worried that ‘faith in public opinion’ might well become ‘a species of religion, and the majority its ministering prophet’. Though frequent elections ‘keep society in a feverish excitement and give a continual instability to public affairs’, periodic elections are not seen by Tocqueville to be the core dynamic of democracy. The proximate cause of the ‘spirit’ of restlessness of democracy lies elsewhere: it is above all traceable to the way democracy unleashes struggles by groups and individuals for greater equality.

Tocqueville reminds us in Democracy in America that the core principle of democracy is the public commitment to equality among its citizens. The reminder seems lost these days on most politicians, political parties and governments. It’s true that Tocqueville showed little interest in the finery of contested understandings of the meaning of equality. He was no doubt aware of Aristotle’s famous distinction between ‘numerical equality’ and ‘proportional equality’, a form of equal treatment of others who are considered as equals in some or other important respect, but not others. Yet Tocqueville openly sided with Aristotle’s view that democrats ‘think that as they are equal they ought to be equal in all things’. Equality is for him not the equal right of citizens to be different. Equality is sameness ( semblable ). Proof of its allure was the way the new American democracy unleashed constant struggles against the various inequalities inherited from old Europe, thus proving that they were neither necessary nor desirable. Democracy, argued Tocqueville, spreads passion for the equalisation of power, property and status among people. They come to feel that current inequalities are purely contingent, and so potentially alterable by human action itself.

Tocqueville was fascinated by this trend towards equalisation. In the realm of law and government, he noted, everything tends to dispute and uncertainty. The grip of sentimental tradition, absolute morality and religious faith in the power of the divine weakens. Growing numbers of Americans consequently harbour ‘instinctive incredulity of the supernatural’. They also look upon the power of politicians and governments with a jealous eye. Government structured by the good blood of monarchs is anathema. They are prone to suspect or curse those who wield power, and thereby they are impatient with arbitrary rule. In the field of what Tocqueville calls ‘political society’, government and its laws gradually lose their divinity and charm. They come to be regarded as simply expedient for this or that purpose, and as properly based on the voluntary consent of citizens endowed with equal civil and political rights. The spell of absolute monarchy is forever broken. Political rights are extended gradually from the lucky privileged few to those who once suffered discrimination; and government policies and laws are subject constantly to public grumbling, legal challenges and alteration.

Thanks to democracy, something similar happens in the field of social life, or so Tocqueville proposed. The American democracy is subject to a permanent ‘social revolution’. Himself a self-confessed sentimental believer in the old patriarchal principle that ‘the sources of a married woman’s happiness are in the home of her husband’, Tocqueville nevertheless pointed to a profound change in the relationship between the sexes in American society. Democracy gradually destroys or modifies ‘that great inequality of man and woman, which has appeared hitherto to be rooted eternally in nature’. The more general point he wanted to make is this: under democratic conditions, people’s definitions of social life as ‘natural’ or ‘taken for granted’ are gradually replaced by self-consciously chosen arrangements that favour equality as sameness.

Democracy speeds up the ‘de-naturing’ of social life. It becomes subject to something like a permanent democratisation. This is how: if certain social groups defend their privileges, of property or income, for instance, then pressure grows for extending those privileges to other social groups. ‘And why not?’, the protagonists of equality ask, adding in the same breath: ‘Why should the privileged be treated as if they were different, or better?’ After each new practical concession to the principle of equality, new demands from those who are socially excluded force yet further concessions from the privileged. Eventually the point is reached where the social privileges enjoyed by a few are re-distributed, in the form of universal social entitlements.

That at least was the theory. On the basis of his travels and observations, Tocqueville predicted that American democracy would in future have to confront a fundamental dilemma. Put at its simplest, it was this: if privileged Americans try, in the name of such-and-such a principle, to restrict social and political privileges to a few, then their opponents will be tempted to organise themselves, for the purpose of pointing out that such-and-such privileges are by no means ‘natural’, or God-given, and are therefore an open embarrassment to democracy. Democratic mechanisms, said Tocqueville, stimulate a passion for social and political equality that they cannot easily satisfy. He thought there was much truth in the view of Jean-Jacques Rousseau that democratic perfection is reserved for the deities. The earthly struggle for equalisation is never fully attainable. It is always unfinished. Democracy lives forever in the future. There is no such thing as a pure democracy and there never will be a pure democracy. Democracy (as Jacques Derrida later put things) is always to come. ‘This complete equality’, wrotes Tocqueville, ‘slips from the hands of the people at the very moment when they think they have grasped it and flies, as Pascal says, an eternal flight’.

The less powerful ranks of society, including those without the vote, are especially caught in the grip of this levelling dynamic, or so Tocqueville thought. Irritated by the fact of their subordination, agitated by the possibility of overcoming their condition, they rather easily grow frustrated by the uncertainty of achieving equality. Their initial enthusiasm and hope give way to disappointment, but at some point the frustration they experience renews their commitment to the struggle for equality. This ‘perpetual movement of society’ fills the world of American democracy with the questioning of absolutes, with radical scepticism about inequality, and with an impatient love of experimentation, with new ways of doing things, for the sake of equality. America found itself caught up in a democratic maelstrom. Nothing is certain or inviolable, except the passionate, dizzying struggle for social and political equality. ‘No sooner do you set foot upon American soil then you are stunned by a type of tumult’, reported Tocqueville, stung by the same excitement. ‘A confused clamour is heard everywhere, and a thousand voices simultaneously demand the satisfaction of their social needs. Everything is in motion around you’, he continued. ‘Here the people of one town district are meeting to decide upon the building of a church; there the election of a representative is taking place; a little farther on, the delegates of a district are hastening to town in order to consult about some local improvements; elsewhere, the labourers of a village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon a road or public school project.’ He concluded: ‘Citizens call meetings for the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation of the conduct of government; while in other assemblies citizens salute the authorities of the day as the fathers of their country, or form societies which regard drunkenness as the principal cause of the evils of the state, and solemnly pledge themselves to the principle of temperance.’

Civil Society

Tocqueville was certainly impressed by ‘civil society’ ( société civile ). He was not the first to use the term in its modern sense (see my earliest works Democracy and Civil Society and Civil Society and the State ), but he did find the new American republic brimming with many different forms of civil association, and he therefore pondered their importance for consolidating democracy. Tocqueville was the first political writer to bring together the newly-invented modern understanding of civil society with the old Greek category of democracy; and he was the first to say that a healthy democracy makes room for civil associations that function as schools of public spirit, permanently open to all, within which citizens become acquainted with others, learn their rights and duties as equals, and press home their concerns, sometimes in opposition to government, so preventing the tyranny of minorities by herd-like majorities through the ballot box. He noted that these civil associations were small-scale affairs, and yet, within their confines, he emphasised how individual citizens regularly ‘socialise’ themselves by raising their concerns beyond their selfish, tetchy, narrowly private goals. Through their participation in civil associations, they come to feel themselves to be citizens. They draw the conclusion that in order to obtain others’ support, they must often lend them their co-operation, as equals.

Tocqueville’s account of democracy in America shows, at a poignant moment in the nineteenth century, just how popular thinking had become self-conscious of the novelty of civil society under democratic conditions. Tocqueville called upon his readers to understand democracy as a brand new type of self-government defined not just by elections, parties and government by representatives, but also by the extensive use of civil society institutions that prevent political despotism by placing a limit, in the name of equality, upon the scope and power of government itself. Tocqueville also pointed out that these civil associations had radical social implications. The ‘great democratic revolution’ that was underway in America showed that it was the enemy of taken-for-granted privileges in all spheres of life. Under democratic conditions, civil society never stands still. It is a sphere of restlessness, civic agitation, refusals to cooperate, struggles for improved conditions, the incubator of visions of a more equal society.

Pathologies of Democracy

Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is worth reading for yet one more reason: it is the first-ever analysis of democracy to dissect democracy’s pathologies, and to do so in a manner that remained basically loyal to the spirit and substance of democracy as a normative ideal. Readers of Democracy in America often brush aside this point. While they admit that Tocqueville was well aware that democracy is prone to self-contradiction and self-destruction, they note that he tended to exaggerate the momentum and geographic extent of the busy levelling process that was underway in America. According to this view, Tocqueville, who was blessed with a remarkable sixth sense of probing the difference between appearances and realities, sometimes, when looking at life in the United States, swallowed whole its own best self-image.

He wasn’t the only nineteenth-century visitor to be charmed by the new democracy. Consider the Italian fashion of visiting the new democratic republic, to see what it was like. ‘Hurrah to you, oh great Country!’, wrote one traveller, shortly after Tocqueville had published his great work. ‘The United States is a free land, essentially because its sons drink together the milk of respect for each others’ opinions…this is what makes them beautiful, and their air more easily breathable for us who are thirsty for freedom from old Europe, where the liberties we have gained with so much blood and pain have for the most part been suffocated by our mutual intolerance.’ Another Italian traveller expressed similar excitement. ‘Ah, this is the democracy that I love, that I dream of and yearn for’, he wrote, contrasting it with the ‘presumption and snobbishness’ guarded back home by the ‘people of high rank’. The same visitor was struck by the way American citizens casually wore caps and hats, how they spurned moustaches, chewed tobacco, and liked to chew the fat, hands in pockets. ‘Simple people, simple furniture, simple greetings’, he wrote, adding that Americans ‘extend you their hand, ask you what you need, and quickly respond.’ Still another visitor brimmed with exuberance. ‘There is no lying by officials. Truth, always truth. No prejudices, no red tape. From every street corner come the cries of a people intoxicated with hope and immortal charity: “Forward! Forward!"’. He added an immodest prediction: ‘Just as Rome impressed the seal of its laws and its cosmopolitan culture on the old world of the Mediterranean, and Romanised Christianity, so the federated democracy of the United States will prove to be the guiding model for the next political phase of humanity’.

Tocqueville was much less sanguine about the fledgling American democracy. Many of his observations were both astute and prescient, for instance concerning the grave political problem of slavery. Tocqueville was perhaps the first writer to show at length why modern representative democracy could not live with slavery, as classical assembly-based democracy had managed to do, admittedly with some discomfort. He highlighted how the ‘calamity’ of slavery had resulted in a terrible sub-division of social and political life. Black people in America were neither in nor of civil society. They were objects of gross incivility. Legal and informal penalties against racial intermarriage were severe. In those states where slavery had been abolished, black people who dared to vote, or to serve on juries, were threatened with murder. There was segregation and deep inequality in education. ‘In the theatres gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and although they are allowed to invoke the same God as the whites, it must be at a different altar and in their own churches, with their own clergy.’ Prejudice even haunted the dead. ‘When the Negro dies, his bones are cast aside, and the distinction of condition prevails even in the equality of death.’

Lurking within these racist customs was a disturbing paradox, Tocqueville observed. The prejudice directed at black people, he noted, increases in proportion to their formal emancipation. Slavery in America was in this sense much worse than in ancient Greece, where the emancipation of slaves for military purposes was encouraged by the fact that their skin colour was often the same as that of their masters. Both within and outside the institutions of American slavery, by contrast, blacks were made to suffer terrible bigotry, ‘the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the race, and the prejudice of colour’, a prejudice that drew strength from false talk of the ‘natural’ superiority of whites. Such bigotry cast a long shadow over the future of American democracy, to the point where it now seemed to be faced not only with the equally unpalatable options of retaining slavery or organised bigotry, but also with the outbreak of ‘the most horrible of civil wars’. Tocqueville’s political forecast was understandably gloomy: ‘Attacked by Christianity as unjust and by political economy as prejudicial, and now contrasted with democratic liberty and the intelligence of our age, slavery cannot survive. By the act of the master, or by the will of the slave, it will cease; and in either case great calamities may be expected to ensue. If liberty be refused to the Negroes of the South, they will in the end forcibly seize it for themselves; if it be given, they will long abuse it.’

Tocqueville’s white-skinned suspicion of black people should be noted, as should his accurate spotting of the poisonous contradiction between slavery and the spirit of modern representative democracy. He was right as well to be anxious about the magnitude of the problem. By 1820, at least ten million African slaves had arrived in the New World. Some 400,000 had settled in North America, but their numbers had multiplied rapidly, to the point where all the states south of the Mason-Dixon line were slave societies, in the full sense of the term. Even in New England, where there were comparatively few slaves, the economy was rooted in the slave trade with the West Indies. As David Brion Davis has pointed out (in Challenging the Boundaries of Slavery ), Afro-Americans did the hard and dirty work of the democratic republic. They cleared forests, turned the soil, planted and tendered and harvested the exportable crops that brought great prosperity to the slave-owning classes. So successful was the system of slavery that after 1819 Southern politicians and landowners and their supporters within the federal government agitated for its universal adoption. As a mode of production, and as a whole way of life, slavery went on the warpath, as Abraham Lincoln made clear in his not inaccurate claim that Slave Power was hell-bent on taking over the whole country, North as well as South.

The aggressiveness of Slave Power during the 1820s and 1830s disturbed the dreams of some Americans; it forced them to conclude that the American polity required a re-founding. Reasoning with their democratic hearts, they spotted that slavery was incompatible with the ideals of free and equal citizenship. These same opponents of slavery were to some degree aware of a contradiction that lurked within the contradiction. The problem, simply put, was whether or not the abolition of slavery could be done democratically, that is, by peaceful means such as petitioning and decisions by Congress, or whether military force would be needed to defeat slavery’s defenders.

In the end, as we know, armed force decided, bringing with it four years of terrible misery. An ugly struggle between two huge armies that locked horns 10,000 times, the Civil War was the first recorded war between two aspiring representative democracies, whose political elites were prone to think of themselves as defenders of two incompatible definitions of democracy. The conflict was in a way a clash between two different historical eras. The military crushing of the Southern fantasy of Greek democracy, in the name of a God-given vision of representative democracy, proved costly. Death, disability and destitution ruined hundreds of thousands of households, on both sides. There were an estimated 970,000 casualties, 3 per cent of the total population of the United States. Some 620,000 soldiers died, two-thirds from neglect and disease.

Perhaps the most profound intuition of _Democracy in America _has to do with the long-term problem of despotism in the age of democracy . The complex story it tells arguably remains highly relevant for our times.

Tocqueville was acutely aware of the dangers posed by the rise, from within the heart of the new civil society, of capitalist manufacturing industry and a new social power group (an ‘aristocracy’, he called them) of industrial manufacturers, whose power of control over capital threatens the freedom and pluralism and equality so essential for democracy. (In Democracy in America Tocqueville does not consider workers as a separate social class but rather as a menial fragment of la class industrielle . Here Tocqueville stood against Marx and sided with such contemporaries as Saint-Simon , for whom workers and entrepreneurs comprised a single social class: les industriels . This partly explains why Tocqueville later reacted in contradictory ways to the events of 1848; as François Furet and others have pointed out, he interpreted these events both as a continuation of the democratic revolution and, rather spitefully, as a ‘most terrible civil war’ threatening the very basis of ‘property, family and civilisation’.) This new ‘aristocracy’ applied the division of labour principle to manufacturing, he noted. This dramatically increased the efficiency and volume of production, but at a high social cost. The modern system of industrial manufacturing, he claimed, creates a manufacturing class, comprising a stratum of workers, who are crowded into towns and cities, where they are reduced to mind-numbing poverty, and a stratum of middle class owners, who love money and have no taste for the virtues of citizenship.

Tocqueville was among the first political writers to spot that a middle class gripped by selfish individualism and live-for-today materialism was prone to political promiscuity. A class of so-called citizens ‘constantly circling for petty pleasures’ could easily be persuaded to sacrifice their freedoms by embracing an ‘immense protective power’ that treats its subjects as ‘perpetual children’, as a ‘flock of timid animals’ in need of a shepherd. Against Aristotle (‘a government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government’), Tocqueville argued that in fact the middle class have no automatic affinity with power-sharing democracy. Francis Fukuyama has said recently that ‘the existence of a broad middle class’ is ‘extremely helpful’ in sustaining ‘liberal democracy’. But what Tocqueville long ago pointed out is that under democratic conditions, especially when the poor grow uppity, the middle class might well display symptoms of what might be called political neurasthenia: lassitude, aching fatigue and general irritability about social and political disorder. Guided by fear and greed and professional and family honour and respectability, they would be happy to be co-opted or kidnapped by state rulers, willing to be bought off with lavish services and cash payments and invisible benefits that brought them stable comforts.

With good reason, looking into the future, Tocqueville worried not only about the decline of public spirit within this middle class. Yes, he was particularly exercised by its tendency to pursue wealth for the sake of wealth. That is why he worried his head about such bad ‘habits of the heart’ as cupidity and selfishness, possessive individualism and narrow-minded cunning. But his worries ran deeper than this. Unlike Marx, Tocqueville predicted that both fractions of the new manufacturing class would press for government support of their interests, for instance through large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the provision of roads, railways, harbours and canals. They would regard such projects necessary for the accumulation of wealth, the nurturing of equality and the maintenance of social order. When done in the name of the sovereign people, as Tocqueville expected it would, government intervention and meddling in the affairs of civil society would choke the spirit of civil association. It might well lead, Tocqueville argued, to a new form of state servitude, the likes of which the world had never before seen.

The point is sketched in the fourth volume of Democracy in America , in ‘What Type of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear?’ ‘I think the type of oppression threatening democratic peoples is unlike anything ever known’, he wrote. Unlike past despotisms, which employed the coarse instruments of fetters and executioners, this new ‘democratic’ despotism would nurture administrative power that is ‘absolute, differentiated, regular, provident and mild’. Peacefully, bit by bit, by means of democratically formulated laws, government would morph into a new form of tutelary power dedicated to securing the welfare of its citizens - at the high price of clogging the arteries of civil society, thus robbing citizens of their collective power to act.

Tocqueville was sure that the fundamental problem of modern democracy was not the frantic and feverish mob, as critics of democracy from the time of Plato had previously supposed. Modern despotism posed an entirely new and unfamiliar challenge. Feeding upon the fetish of private material consumption and the public apathy of citizens no longer much interested in politics, despotism is a new type of popular domination : a form of impersonal centralised power that masters the arts of voluntary servitude, a new type of state that is at once benevolent, mild and all-embracing, a disciplinary power that treats its citizens as subjects, wins their support and robs them of their wish to participate in government, or to pay attention to the common good.

The thesis was certainly bold, and original. Tocqueville was the first modern political writer to see and to say that a new form of despotism born of the dysfunctions of modern representative democracy might well be our fate. He taught us that in the age of democracy forms of total power can only win legitimacy and govern effectively when they harness the trimmings and trappings of democracy – when they mirror and mimic actually-existing democracies, in order better to go beyond them. When we look back at the long crisis that gripped democracies a century after Tocqueville wrote, wasn’t the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia and Pol’s Cambodia marked by more than a few democratic features in this sense? And when we look today at the new despotisms of the Eurasian region , Russia and China for instance, shouldn’t we ask whether these regimes are simulacra of Western democracies now bogged down in various dysfunctions and pathologies? Don’t they make us wonder where our own so-called democracies are heading? Might they be signals of the emerging fact, unless something gives, that despotism is once again fated to play centre stage of our political lives in the coming years of the 21st century? Do we not have to thank Alexis de Tocqueville for warning us that they may well be the future of democracy?

Sydney Horizon Educators (Identified)

Faculty of Law - Academic Appointment Opportunities

Operations Manager

Senior Education Technologist

Audience Development Coordinator (fixed-term maternity cover)

Democracy in America

Alexis de toqueville, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

• Student Opportunities

About Hoover

Located on the campus of Stanford University and in Washington, DC, the Hoover Institution is the nation’s preeminent research center dedicated to generating policy ideas that promote economic prosperity, national security, and democratic governance. 

• The Hoover Story
• Hoover Timeline & History
• Mission Statement
• Vision of the Institution Today
• Key Focus Areas
• About our Fellows
• Research Programs
• Annual Reports
• Hoover in DC
• Fellowship Opportunities
• Visit Hoover
• David and Joan Traitel Building & Rental Information
• Newsletter Subscriptions
• Connect With Us

Hoover scholars form the Institution’s core and create breakthrough ideas aligned with our mission and ideals. What sets Hoover apart from all other policy organizations is its status as a center of scholarly excellence, its locus as a forum of scholarly discussion of public policy, and its ability to bring the conclusions of this scholarship to a public audience.

• Scott Atlas
• Thomas Sargent
• Stephen Kotkin
• Michael McConnell
• Morris P. Fiorina
• John F. Cogan
• China's Global Sharp Power Project
• Economic Policy Group
• History Working Group
• Hoover Education Success Initiative
• National Security Task Force
• National Security, Technology & Law Working Group
• Middle East and the Islamic World Working Group
• Military History/Contemporary Conflict Working Group
• Renewing Indigenous Economies Project
• State & Local Governance
• Strengthening US-India Relations
• Technology, Economics, and Governance Working Group
• Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region

Books by Hoover Fellows

Economics Working Papers

Hoover Education Success Initiative | The Papers

• Hoover Fellows Program
• National Fellows Program
• Student Fellowship Program
• Veteran Fellowship Program
• Congressional Fellowship Program
• Media Fellowship Program
• Silas Palmer Fellowship
• Economic Fellowship Program

Throughout our over one-hundred-year history, our work has directly led to policies that have produced greater freedom, democracy, and opportunity in the United States and the world.

• Determining America’s Role in the World
• Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
• Empowering State and Local Governance
• Revitalizing History
• Confronting and Competing with China
• Revitalizing American Institutions
• Reforming K-12 Education
• Understanding Public Opinion
• Understanding the Effects of Technology on Economics and Governance
• Energy & Environment
• Health Care
• Immigration
• International Affairs
• Key Countries / Regions
• Law & Policy
• Politics & Public Opinion
• Science & Technology
• Security & Defense
• State & Local
• Books by Fellows
• Published Works by Fellows
• Working Papers
• Congressional Testimony
• Hoover Press
• PERIODICALS
• The Caravan
• China's Global Sharp Power
• Economic Policy
• History Lab
• Hoover Education
• Global Policy & Strategy
• National Security, Technology & Law
• Middle East and the Islamic World
• Military History & Contemporary Conflict
• Renewing Indigenous Economies
• State and Local Governance
• Technology, Economics, and Governance

Hoover scholars offer analysis of current policy challenges and provide solutions on how America can advance freedom, peace, and prosperity.

• China Global Sharp Power Weekly Alert
• Email newsletters
• Hoover Daily Report
• Subscription to Email Alerts
• Periodicals
• California on Your Mind
• Defining Ideas
• Hoover Digest
• Video Series
• Uncommon Knowledge
• Battlegrounds
• GoodFellows
• Hoover Events
• Capital Conversations
• Hoover Book Club
• AUDIO PODCASTS
• Matters of Policy & Politics
• Economics, Applied
• Free Speech Unmuted
• Secrets of Statecraft
• Pacific Century
• Libertarian
• Library & Archives

Support Hoover

Learn more about joining the community of supporters and scholars working together to advance Hoover’s mission and values.

What is MyHoover?

MyHoover delivers a personalized experience at  Hoover.org . In a few easy steps, create an account and receive the most recent analysis from Hoover fellows tailored to your specific policy interests.

Watch this video for an overview of MyHoover.

Log In to MyHoover

Forgot Password

Don't have an account? Sign up

Have questions? Contact us

• Support the Mission of the Hoover Institution
• Subscribe to the Hoover Daily Report
• Follow Hoover on Social Media

Make a Gift

Your gift helps advance ideas that promote a free society.

• About Hoover Institution
• Meet Our Fellows
• Focus Areas
• Research Teams
• Library & Archives

Library & archives

Events, news & press.

What Tocqueville Would Say Today

The enduring lessons of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, "both the best book on democracy and the best book on America—two subjects that for Americans, at least, are inseparable." By Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop.

R ussell Baker once said that in our time people cite Tocqueville without reading him even more than they do the Bible and Shakespeare. Every American president since Eisenhower has quoted him, no doubt without reading him, and some of our professors, to say nothing of lesser citizens, have picked up their habit of fishing for what they like and throwing back the rest in Tocqueville’s great work Democracy in America .

It’s no mystery why everyone wants Tocqueville’s support: his work is both the best book on democracy and the best book on America—two subjects that for Americans, at least, are inseparable. We cannot fail to be interested in a book so renowned, but because of a certain laziness whose source is our partisanship, we fail to read it through or read it carefully, lest we come on something difficult to accept. The purpose here is not to invoke Tocqueville in a vain attempt to transcend partisanship, a possibility he rejected; but perhaps he can do something to raise the awareness of both liberals and conservatives and get them to see that their own party, not just the other party, has questions it needs to face.

We address liberals and conservatives rather than independents. Most thinking people are either liberals or conservatives, and most independents, instead of standing above party as they believe, actually pick from both parties unthinkingly, trying to have their cake and eat it too. Tocqueville’s first lesson to our independents is the inevitability of partisan opinion. For "in all free societies," he says, there exists a set of two opinions "as old as the world." One wants to restrict "popular" or "public" power, the other to extend it indefinitely.

Clearly, the parties of Tocqueville’s France were not the same as America’s today. Back then one party, nostalgic for the traditional order of hierarchy and religion, bitterly rejected the postrevolutionary order in toto, and the other party, zealously championing the revolution’s principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, set itself in opposition to everything—bad or good—associated with the Old Regime. Despite the differences one may find, Tocqueville in fact has a good deal to say about the central doctrines of present-day conservatives and liberals—self-interest for conservatives and community for liberals. Let us see what he would say to current promoters of these hot ideas.

Lessons for Conservatives

We begin with conservatives, the party that would narrow popular or public power principally in the name of self-interest. This party, because of its own sometimes inept rhetoric as well as the caricature given it by its opposition, appears as the party of the rich and powerful. It is the party that has long defended "rugged individualism" and is accused of protecting callous self-interest. Tocqueville is, of course, famous for his firm, if not heartfelt, embrace of the American doctrine of self-interest well understood. So he would seem to have much to say to any party that adopts the doctrine. Tocqueville’s defenders of self-interest argue from its strength, and rather than urge people to deplore and transcend an inclination so powerful, they defend its legitimacy. They hope to turn self-interest against itself by maintaining that one’s own interest is, as a rule, best secured in pursuing a general good. Well understood, self-interest even requires a certain degree of sacrifice. In the end, the doctrine may "form . . . citizens who are regulated, temperate, moderate, farsighted, masters of themselves." It is meant to provide a substitute for virtue, instilling the habits of virtue if not requiring elevated motives of generosity or pious self-forgetting. It does not reject religion but finds it useful for a human purpose. Rather than defining self-interest as obedience to God, the doctrine goes so far as to interpret hopes for the afterlife as an aspect of self-interest.

Self-interest well understood, Tocqueville says, is the moral doctrine best suited to the needs of modern democratic life. His endorsement of it is, however, qualified in several ways that are useful to recall. He never justifies the pursuit of self-interest for its own sake but only as the best means available to our moralists of encouraging "association." Further, he believes that the doctrine will work only when supported by free political institutions. Third, he stresses that the principle is democratic, as do today’s conservatives, because it is within the reach of all. But by the same token, he recognizes that it will not inspire great virtue or even true virtue. In fact, he suggests that it may do little to sustain one aspect of virtue that ought to be within reach of almost all democratic citizens, namely, courage. Finally, the doctrine is not quite true. Tocqueville does not try to deny, like some free market economists, that everyone has an interest in the common good. On the contrary, he affirms that some concern for the good of others is a part of human nature, a spontaneous impulse rather than behavior learned by adhering to a doctrine.

American conservatives today hardly dare profess any determination to restrict popular power: democratic feeling is too strong for that. But they seek to narrow or contain public power, especially that of the national government. In the form that they espouse the doctrine of self-interest well understood, they want to bolster local and state governments, but even more, they promote private economic enterprise together with the exercise of religion. Here, we know, are the two chief components of the Republican Party, economic libertarians and religious or social conservatives. Their cooperation, Tocqueville saw, is more than just an uneasy alliance requiring luck or extraordinary political skill. The alliance has a common ground in the shared desire to restrict public power, even if each component wants to protect a quite distinct sphere from government interference.

As their critics point out, conservatives fail to see clearly that an interested self is not necessarily a strong self. Today Americans pride themselves on their "individualism," which they understand in a strong sense. But Tocqueville uses the term pejoratively to refer to the weakness of individuals in a democratic society. Democratic individuals suppose themselves to be independent, but in fact they are incapable of providing for their own well-being, still less for society as a whole. He finds something positive in the desire for independence, in the determination to "get government off our backs." It is not, however, the mere hostility to government that conservatives often convey. Instead, he sees an inchoate aspiration for free political institutions in which citizens can be active participants.

Lessons for Liberals

Thus there is an important place in a democracy for a party of community to articulate the long-standing goals of liberals: security for all, compassion for those in need, full and equal participation of all citizens in social and political life.

On behalf of liberals Tocqueville willingly affirms—no small concession to them—the justice of democratic equality. So why should popular power, the power of all the people equally, not extend indefinitely? Neither does he deny—how could anyone?—that security is a legitimate concern. And even as he holds that self-interest well understood is the most suitable moral doctrine for modern times, he acknowledges that mores, "habits of the heart," will increasingly be shaped by a disposition to compassion. These two inclinations, self-interest and compassion, are by no means incompatible. Democracy’s increasingly equal and similar citizens can all but "feel the pain" of their fellows, and they will readily come to their assistance in case of need because they can identify with them, imagining themselves in trouble and needing help. Democratic citizens tend to experience their common humanity as a common neediness. Thus the compassionate concern they express for the security and dignity of the disadvantaged or of elderly parents left financially dependent on their children, is also a matter of present or potential interest to everyone.

With liberals, Tocqueville shares a critique of "the market," whose unfailing beneficence and sufficiency is often assumed by conservatives. He foresees as clearly as did Marx the cruel indifference to others of modern meritocratic elites. Yet he fully appreciates that the desire for material goods sustaining the modern market is not only universal but especially characteristic of the middle class. And unlike liberal wishful thinkers, he doubts that the demand for material goods can be effectively met without generating considerable inequalities. Restiveness drove earlier generations of Americans to the western frontier with an avaricious energy that Tocqueville calls a "sort of heroism." Today Americans are still restive, longing for both material pleasures and equality that are presently beyond their grasp and that set them ever on the move. At the same time, they are insecure in what they already have, and their restive motion unravels whatever social ties they will have hastily established in passing. It is democracy, not merely the market, that makes community, or even association, difficult. The more we extend democracy, the more we instill the restive, individualizing desire for material goods.

Today, liberals have champions who promise to fight for the people against the rich and powerful. What Tocqueville might say to them is that the people are better served by being enabled to fight for themselves, under a government that directs its energies to shoring up the social and political institutions and habits that make it necessary and possible for citizens to "associate"—or, in today’s parlance, to participate.

Tocqueville reserves his most somber rhetoric for a description of a democracy in which citizens are shepherded into his famous "mild despotism," under which power is exercised by "school-master" administrators. Such a government may be well meaning, competent, and effective. But its great appeal is that it promises, with all compassion, to make citizens secure and to promote their happiness, while depriving them, he says sarcastically, of "the pain of living" and "the trouble of thinking."

Modern liberals resemble to some extent the eighteenth-century intellectuals whom Tocqueville analyzed in his later book, The Old Regime . These intellectuals were determined to rationalize human life with the aid of new scientific knowledge. To this end they were eager to do away with traditional authority and institutions, replacing them with a simplified, centralized administration cleansed of partisan politics. Consumed with ambition themselves, they failed to recognize or prize it in others. Their rationalism did not take account of the irrational in human passions, and thus in its political effects turned out to be a new kind of irrationalism that stifles rather than oppresses. Our liberals today have a similar overconfidence in a similar social science, with its focus on security, its preference for centralization, its tendency to simplify problems as well as solutions.

Democratic America, Tocqueville contends, has other, better schools, open to all and free of charge—its political institutions, both formal and informal. Local governments, epitomized by the New England township, are "primary schools" of freedom, where one acquires the taste for freedom and learns habits of freedom. Juries, too, are schools, where the people learn how to reign as they reign. In serving, each juror acquires a respect for law, for justice, and for everyone’s rights. And in being made to render a verdict, randomly selected citizens, a dozen at a time, learn to take personal responsibility for their actions.

While participating in a vast array of associations—economic, social, moral, intellectual, but especially political—citizens become accomplished in the art and science of association. When individuals pool their efforts, they may be able to meet more of their common needs without the assistance of a strong central government. They become better prepared to preserve their freedom against government, should that ever be necessary. It is always necessary to enlarge citizens’ hearts and minds through participation in associations. Here they expose themselves to the various sentiments and ideas democracy can foster in interested, if not independent, selves, instead of supposing that all are alike, as they must do when they show their compassion. Finally, each participant learns to subordinate his or her will to common purposes, as members of a free community should. Especially in political associations, which aspire to the formidable goal of governing society, they can see just how worthwhile it might be to make the effort needed to succeed at associating. As Tocqueville presents associations, they are the people’s best hope for becoming the rich and powerful themselves.

The Best of Both Worlds

Conservatives are right to accept the inevitability of self-interest and the need for understanding it well and wrong to trust too much in either the market or religion as individual solutions to public problems. Liberals are right when they worry about the well-being of the community as a whole and wrong when they trust more in compassionate government than in the on-the-job training of democratic politics. Neither conservatives nor liberals say enough about what they as partisans experience—the extent to which their partisanship confirms and corrects the point of view of each party and shows the necessity of the other.

Liberals don’t have much to say about the political ambition that drives some of them to seek public office in liberal communities; and conservatives too have trouble understanding ambition from the standpoints of homo economicus or homo religiosus. Tocqueville grants that democracy tends to impoverish ambition by putting it in the service of crass materialism or vulgar self-indulgence. Yet he also finds in democratic politics the potential to keep ambition vigorous and healthy, to diffuse it widely, and to make the self-interest of the rich or powerful beneficial to everyone. Out of self-interest, rich or eminent people who would curry popular favor to gain political office will dissemble their selfishness and pride. Eventually what begins as a calculating, feigned desire to fight for the people’s interest in general prosperity may be transformed by the pleasurable experience of winning election and reelection, becoming a matter of habit and choice, even of self-imposed obligation. So defenders of self-interest might look to politics to enlighten that interest. And those who oppose self-interest in the name of community might come to see that communities actually need more vigorous self-interest in the form of ambition. The more we nourish widespread ambition, the less we have to fear the overweening power of mild despotism. In that way we can have more government and less dependency.

Both conservatives and liberals have something to learn from Tocqueville on religion. He addresses the political woes of skeptical democraticpeoples, who are too much given to unstable desires and brief exertions. Tocqueville recommends that democratic governments extend the horizons of democratic communities by setting distant goals to be achieved by moderate, yet steadfast, ambition. The seemingly limited goal he specifies is seeing to it that political office comes as a reward for skill and effort. But this modest goal is in truth an infinite one. Winning the favor of a democratic electorate with unstable desires will always depend in some part on chance, and so it is beyond the capacity of a democracy to reward virtue regularly. Partial success comes within reach when political institutions and mores are well shaped, but without the support of a greater power, the goal will always remain elusive. But insofar as people can act confidently in the hope that their virtue will be rewarded—accomplishing much along the way—they will, in effect, have returned to a kind of religious faith from which politics may benefit. A democratic electorate can do God’s work by seeing to it, as much as it can, that the virtuous are elected. Here is religion in the public square, as conservatives want, but not to promote religion, as liberals fear.

Special to the Hoover Digest. Available from the Hoover Press is Individual Rights Reconsidered: Lasting Truths of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, edited by Tibor R. Machan. Also available is More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well, by Walter E. Williams. To order, call 800-935-2882.

View the discussion thread.

Alexis De Tocqueville: The Dangers Of Democracy In America

Democracy in America is a literary masterpiece written from the perspective of a visitor to America who was able to combine his ability to see America as a member of European aristocracy with his first hand experiences of democracy in the States. This visitor, a French noble known as Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America in 1831 in order to study American prisons and examine the form of democracy which the newly founded United States had adopted as their mode of government. Tocquville was fascinated by the democratic foundations of America because he perceived that many of the nations of Europe would soon follow suit by abolishing the aristocratic aspects that had dominated European society for centuries and replacing the feudalistic standards …show more content…

Speaking about majority rule and its dangers in Democracy in America, Tocqueville stated, “I am therefore of opinion, that social power superior to all others must always be placed somewhere; but I think that liberty is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard its course, and give it time to moderate its own vehemence”. Tocqueville acknowledged that majority rule gave power to a greater portion of the people, but that it undeniably suppressed the voices of minorities and underrepresented certain parties and factions. According to Tocqueville, majority rule had the potential and the tendency to plant weeds of tyranny that, unless identified and removed, would overtake the beautiful garden bed of democracy. Tocqueville describes the difficulty of remedying the advancement of “tyranny of the majority” because the principles that cause this negative and disastrous political phenomenon are the same principles that democracies are founded on and revolve around throughout their existence. The very principles and values that swell the bosom of mankind with aspirations of liberty, freedom, and equality can be the ultimate cause of their societal individuality. Looking to the future of America, Tocqueville firmly believed that the ultimate undoing of America and most democratic entities would be in the demeaning and degrading of the transcendent and noble attributes and traits of democracy by the tyrannical acts of the ruling

More about Alexis De Tocqueville: The Dangers Of Democracy In America

Brazil Supreme Court strikes down military intervention thesis in symbolic vote for democracy

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s Supreme Court unanimously voted Monday that the armed forces have no constitutional power to intervene in disputes between government branches, a largely symbolic decision aimed at bolstering democracy after years of increasing threat of military intervention.

The court’s decision came in response to an argument that right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies deployed in recent years. They have claimed that Article 142 of Brazil’s Constitution affords the military so-called “moderating power” between the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Bolsonaro presented this interpretation in an April 2020 meeting with his ministers, telling them that any of the three powers can request the armed forces take action to restore order in Brazil. In the years since, posters invoking Article 142 became a fixture at rallies calling for military takeover – and culminated in an uprising by Bolsonaro supporters seeking to summon the military to oust his successor from power.

All of the 11 justices — including both justices appointed by Bolsonaro — rejected that thesis.

While the constitution empowers the military to protect the nation from threats and guarantee constitutional powers, “that does not comport with any interpretation that allows the use of the armed forces for the defense of one power against the other,” the case’s rapporteur, Justice Luiz Fux, wrote in his vote.

Article 142’s vague wording had allowed room for some interpretation — although the one espoused by Brazil’s far right was “absolutely crazy,” said João Gabriel Pontes, a constitutional lawyer at Daniel Sarmento e Ademar Borges in Rio de Janeiro.

“This is not a Supreme Court ruling that will safeguard Brazilian democracy from new attacks,” Pontes said by phone. “However, it sends an important message to society that a military intervention has no constitutional basis.”

The constitution dates from 1988, three years after the country cast off its 21-year military dictatorship.

Bolsonaro’s 2018 election in a sense marked the return of the armed forces to power. The former army captain who openly waxed nostalgic for the dictatorship era appointed high-ranking officers to his Cabinet and thousands of active-duty service members and reservists to civilian positions throughout his administration.

For his 2022 reelection bid, he tapped a general as his running mate and tasked the military with auditing electronic voting machines whose reliability he cast doubt upon, without ever providing evidence. Following his defeat to leftist rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , his supporters set up camp outside military barracks for months to demand military intervention.

Bolsonaro never conceded defeat nor asked them to demobilize, and on Jan. 8, 2023 they stormed the capital , Brasilia, invading and vandalizing the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace.

Federal Police later confiscated the cell phone of Bolsonaro’s aide-de-camp and found conversations between close advisers and military officials debating whether conditions and the constitution allowed for military intervention. The seizure was part of an investigation into whether the former president and top aides incited the uprising to restore him to power. He has denied any involvement.

Debate over the constitutional role of the armed forces reflects “the historic vice of an institution that never conformed to subordinating itself to civil order,” and the court’s vote reaffirms what is clear from any constitutional law textbook, said Conrado Hubner, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sao Paulo.

“Nothing has the power to avoid a coup in the future. Nothing,” Hubner said. But the court’s position helps to combat justifications for a coup, he said.

Meantime, Lula has endeavored to stay on good terms with the military’s top brass. Last week, he forbade any official events observing the 60th anniversary of the date the military deposed the president and ushered in Brazil’s dictatorship, on March 31, 1964.

Virtually all historians characterize it as a coup. Others disagree, including Bolsonaro’s then-vice president, Gen. Hamilton Mourão, who wrote Sunday on X that the date represents the day “the nation saved itself from itself!” and that history cannot be rewritten.

In his vote, Justice Flávio Dino wrote that “echoes of that past stubbornly refuse to pass,” and that the court’s decision should be forwarded to Lula’s defense minister for dissemination to every military organization in the country.

Doing so “would aim to eradicate misinformation that has reached some members of the armed forces,” Dino wrote. “Any theories that go beyond or distort the true meaning of Article 142 of the federal constitution must be eliminated.”

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

2024 Truman Scholars

The Foundation reviewed 709 files from 285 institutions. Students were nominated by their institution based on their records of leadership, public service, and academic achievement. Our Finalist Selection Committee selected 193 students from 136 institutions to interview with the Foundation’s Regional Review Panels between March 1 and April 4. The complete listing of the 2024 Truman Scholarship Finalists can be found in our News section .

In 2024, we selected 60 outstanding college students from 54 institutions as Truman Scholars. Read more about them in our Press Release . Biographies, provided by the Scholars, appear below.

Kaylyn studies social policy and legal studies and recently returned from Ecuador where she held a Gilman Scholarship. Kaylyn is co-president of the Undergraduate Prison Education Partnership, was selected as a Debarry Civic Scholar, was among GLAAD’s 20 Under 20 LGBTQ+ Activists in 2021, and testified in front of Illinois General Assembly to help unanimously pass a bill to reform sexual assault law. She was appointed by Governor J.B. Pritzker to serve on the Illinois Council on Women and Girls, serves on the advisory board for the National Organization for Victim Advocacy, and serves on the advisory board for The Harbour, a youth homeless shelter. She interned with KAN-WIN, a nonprofit for Asian survivors of domestic violence, and will work for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawai’ians, and Pacific Islanders in spring of 2024. Last summer, Kaylyn worked at the US Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights. She is a Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Resolution Pipeline Fellow and will work in the US Embassy in South Africa this summer. From keynotes to panels, she has spoken across the country about her experiences as a survivor of domestic and sexual violence.    

Daniel Arakawa

Born and raised in the Aloha State of Hawai'i, Daniel is double-majoring in political science and sociology. Inspired by his interest in the criminal justice system and commitment to addressing its inherent disparities, he is dedicated to pursuing a career in public service that allows him to work directly with those affected by these disparities. He intends to pursue a JD focusing on criminal law and prosecutorial experience. While serving in the Lieutenant Governor’s Office and subsequently joining the Governor’s Office of Hawai'i, he developed his passion for public service and an understanding of the political process by working closely with and supporting underserved communities. After graduate school, he plans to continue his commitment to service as an Assistant United States Attorney and aspires to serve as a federal judge. In his spare time, Daniel enjoys cooking, lifting weights, and practicing jiu-jitsu (no-Gi, of course).    

Daniel Block

Daniel is pursuing a double-major in environmental studies and American studies, with a minor in legal studies. He plans to pursue a JD/MEM from Yale, focusing on novel greenhouse gas regulations and the Clean Air Act. Currently, Daniel works as the farm and program director at Zumwalt Acres, a leading carbon-negative farm in rural Illinois that is rooted in Jewish values of justice. His role involves fostering consensus among scientists, farmers, and government agencies to equitably transition the Midwest agricultural landscape toward sustainability. Through connecting farmers to Zumwalt Acres' $5 million US Department of Agriculture Climate Smart Commodities Grant, Daniel has seen how federal policy plays a key role in the transition to a carbon-negative society. Motivated by this, he aims to push the administrative state to adopt innovative, just, and market-based regulatory solutions to climate change. Daniel also serves as the senior content editor for the Brandeis Undergraduate Law Journal, where he authored an article on gender affirming care and religious liberty, with another forthcoming on the administrative state and the major questions doctrine. Daniel is an incoming summer intern for the Honorable Judge Lee Rudofsky of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Jackson Boaz

Jackson is completing his studies in communications, legal institutions, economics, and government. After growing up in a small town in rural Northern California, he has spent the last half-decade moving around the country working on campaigns, from city councils to presidential races and everything in between. This work has brought him to California, Iowa (three times!), Georgia, Ohio, Rhode Island, and now Washington, DC. He intends to pursue a JD, with a focus in constitutional law, and has a particular interest in democratizing the federal grantmaking process. More specifically, he is passionate about expanding access to technical assistance for small towns and rural communities that need the most support in discovering and applying for much-needed federal dollars. Jackson currently works in digital communications for Representative Adam Schiff’s campaign for the US Senate, as well as in the Congressman’s official office. Past work includes staff roles on the campaigns of US Senator Jon Ossoff, California Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire, Iowa State Senator Zach Wahls (IA 13), Congresswoman Cindy Axne, and many more. When he is not working, Jackson is an avid cook and likes to prepare elaborate dinner parties for friends.

Christian Boudreaux

Christian has always been fascinated by the ocean. He is currently majoring in biology and minoring in environmental studies, Spanish, and chemistry. His goal is to work as a marine biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He is a passionate environmental advocate and works to promote environmental service in his community. As a freshman, he started an aquatic conservation organization at his institution and became the leader of a tree-planting organization. From leading efforts to clean Mississippi’s waterways and remove invasive species with Aqua Culture, to maintaining a large tree farm and organizing plantings at various locations in his community, Christian has connected hundreds of volunteers with meaningful projects to make a positive environmental impact across his state and in his hometown of Oxford. Aspiring to earn a PhD exploring the genetic components underlying stress tolerance and survival in marine organisms, he plans to continue empowering communities to care for their marine environments and to create management and conservation strategies that can be implemented into meaningful policy. In his free time, Christian enjoys playing soccer, taking photos, kayaking, camping, SCUBA diving, and anything and everything that has to do with nature. 

Allison Boyd

Originally from Washington, Indiana, Allison is a first-generation college student majoring in aeronautical engineering technology and pursuing airframe and powerplant certifications. Once certified, she can conduct, inspect, and supervise air vehicle inspection and maintenance activities, giving her a unique perspective on aircraft maintenance procedures and publications. She intends to pursue an MS in computational analysis and public policy with the goal of ensuring safe and reliable aviation transportation. In 2022, Allison interned on the Lunar Surface Integration team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Center, where she developed an interest in policy and its impact on safety regulations. On campus, Allison is devoted to serving her local aviation community. She is president of ATEaM, director of activities for Purdue Aviation Day, an ambassador for the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology, and a member of the Aviation Technology Student Council. As Purdue Aviation Day’s director of activities, Allison created initiatives to lower barriers for students entering the aviation workforce, including creating a scholarship and collaborating with the Federal Aviation Administration to increase recruitment opportunities in the Midwest. Her long-term goals are to address aerospace workforce development and tackle aviation safety challenges.

Paul is a student of philosophy and religion. Shaped by his justice-impacted background, he is committed to advocating for marginalized communities, particularly the formerly incarcerated. Paul aspires to a PhD exploring the philosophy of science and cognitive science, with the goal of bridging his research and teaching to influence policy. His seeks to contribute to substantial criminal justice reform through collaboration with prestigious think tanks. Paul honed his research skills in a computational biology summer internship at Princeton University via the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates program. He also serves as an instructor with the First Year Rutgers-Camden Experience Program, as well as a member of the Vice Chancellor's External Affairs Program. Beyond his scholarly pursuits, Paul enjoys exercise and fostering connections with his university peers. 

Elizabeth Caldwell

Elizabeth is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in genetics with a minor in biochemistry. Inspired by her lived experience with an understudied genetic disability, she intends to pursue an MD/MPH and bridge the gap between patient care, policy, and rare disease research. On campus, Elizabeth serves as the co-founder and president of Tigers 4 Accessibility, Clemson’s first disability-focused student group, organizes an annual campuswide Accessibility Awareness Week, and serves on the University’s Accessibility Commission to voice the concerns of students with disabilities. Elizabeth has also conducted extensive rare disease research at Clemson and St. Jude in an effort to alleviate the research deficit on such conditions. She is an active volunteer at the local Free Clinic, where she founded and fundraised for its Mobility Aid Program, which provides durable medical equipment to patients with financial need. Elizabeth plans to dedicate her career to advocating for accessible, equitable healthcare for patients, particularly those with disabilities, and seeking greater understanding of understudied genetic disorders.

Anna Dellit

Anna double-majors in legal studies and Black studies, with a minor in Asian American studies and a certificate in civic engagement. She serves as a lead tutor in Chicago's juvenile detention centers, bringing college preparatory materials to incarcerated students while developing her mentorship pedagogy. Additionally, she conducted research with the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching to center minoritized student perspectives at a predominately white institution. She remains involved with her hometown of Portland, Oregon, through work with those experiencing houselessness with Blanchet House of Hospitality, and carries that perspective to her advocacy for affordable housing with Evanston’s Connections for the Homeless. Cognizant of how education, race, and poverty operate in context with one another, Anna intends to pursue a JD with an emphasis on civil rights to uproot mass incarceration as a symptom of poverty and anti-Blackness. After studying abroad in Vietnam as the first person in her family to return since the Fall of Saigon, and interning with the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Anna hopes to bring a transnational lens to her legal and advocacy work and create further space for Black and Asian solidarity. 

Grant Dillivan

Grant studies criminal justice and psychology. Their understanding of the American criminal justice system and the disproportionate imprisonment of the mentally ill have compelled them to focus on a career in correctional psychology. Grant intends to pursue a PsyD in clinical psychology with a concentration in forensic psychology. They are particularly interested in expanding substance abuse treatment available to incarcerated populations. Previously, Grant interned in the Wyoming Department of Corrections (WDOC) central office. They also conduct independent research on public perceptions of private prisons, and how education affects these perceptions. Grant has presented his research findings at the University of Wyoming Thyra and Keith Thompson Honors Convocation, the annual American Psychology-Law Society Conference, and the annual Rocky Mountain Psychology Association Conference. Grant enjoys reading and spending time outdoors in the Mountain West. One of Grant’s most interesting facts is meeting convicted serial killer Robert Joseph Silveria, Jr. – AKA “The Boxcar Killer” - during his WDOC internship. 

Juan is a dedicated individual currently pursuing his bachelor's degree in social work and intends to pursue an MSW. Despite facing abuse, foster care, and a period of incarceration in his past, Juan has overcome this adversity and currently serves as a behavioral health case manager and senior peer recovery support specialist, where he provides crucial support to individuals in need. Juan is a first-generation, nontraditional college student, who is passionate about substance abuse awareness. He served as the student representative on the Substance Abuse Coalition at Rose State College, where he organized a panel discussion, shared his story, and gathered professionals to educate students on the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. Beyond academia, Juan is a dedicated single father of two and an active member of his community, where he coaches soccer and volunteers with youth programs. His commitment to service extends to volunteering at the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and aiding post-prison placement. Involved in charitable endeavors like the Oklahoma City Rescue Mission, Juan's journey illustrates the transformative power of resilience and service. His unwavering dedication serves as a beacon of hope, inspiring others to overcome obstacles and effect positive change. 

Alex Drahos

Alex majors in international relations, political science, and urban studies as a Foundation Fellow. He is passionate about reimagining urban systems and structures to better align with human sociology, psychology, and physicality. Alex intends to pursue an MPA focused on urban innovation with the goal of leading a city in implementing equitable policies to improve livability and social connection. This interest prompted him to create a $75 million regional economic development plan with the Center for Advancing Innovation, propose civic infrastructure legislative outreach strategies for a coalition of 100 local nonprofits/governments, and advise a Georgia county commissioner on affordable housing and transportation policies. Leading teams as a University Innovation Fellow, Alex has prototyped smart city technology products, modeled urban economic impact for the National Hockey League, and designed sustainable transportation systems for Delta Airlines. On campus, he researches urban public spaces and hate crimes in post-conflict societies, redesigns class curricula with active learning pedagogy, and helps lead the Georgia Political Review . Alex enjoys backpacking, political history books, playing cello, and board game nights.

Jane Drinkwater

Jane studies political science and digital product (UX) design. Volunteering in low-income communities showed her technology’s vital role in connecting people to government services. Ever since then, she has had a goal to make online government tools more user-friendly so that barriers like disability, digital literacy, age, socioeconomic status, and language do not inhibit Americans’ access to government programs. She is currently a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy and serves as the president of her university’s UX Design Association. In addition to researching the usability of Orem City and Utah County websites, Jane has developed extensive technological experience as the lead UX designer of a software startup (PROPOR) and a language-learning platform (the Missionary Training Center). In the summer of 2024, she will be a user research intern at Vivint. She plans to pursue an MPP/PhD in psychology with a focus on public sector technology. When she has free time, Jane loves to make music and ski in Utah’s beautiful mountains.    

Adelaide Easter

Hailing from Salina, Adelaide studies agricultural economics and global food systems leadership with minors in leadership and international agriculture. Through 4-H, she presented the problem of feeding an estimated 10 billion people by 2050 to the US Department of Agriculture, sparking her passion for food security. Adelaide intends to pursue an MS in food and agriculture law to work at the intersection of policy and development, making agriculture more equitable and addressing the root causes of hunger. Her academic journey is enhanced by her advocacy work. As a Flinchbaugh Food & Agriculture Policy Fellow, she interned at the state and federal levels, including with Kansas Grain Sorghum, National Sorghum Producers, and US Senator Jerry Moran's office (co-founder of the Senate Hunger Caucus), furthering her knowledge of agricultural policy and international food assistance issues. Serving as the basic needs director for student government and a member of the leadership team for Food Security Scholars, Adelaide was motivated to create the Student Basic Needs Coalition to address food insecurity and promote access to resources like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Additionally, Adelaide enjoys supporting K-State sports and spending time with friends at the local coffee shop.

Desaree Edwards

Originally from Mississippi, Desaree is a first-generation college student studying neuroscience and human rights advocacy. After high school, she enlisted in the US Navy as a Nuclear Machinist’s Mate and was handpicked for the initial integration of women into submarines, becoming the first enlisted nuclear-trained female submariner in the Atlantic Fleet. Aboard the USS FLORIDA (SSGN 728), she deployed three times and served as her division leading petty officer and as a sexual assault victim advocate. The challenges she and other female crewmembers faced during the integration motivated her to separate from the Navy and pivot towards a career in advocacy. Combined with her personal experiences, Desaree’s work as a legal assistant for a Judge Advocate General and her internship at a criminal defense firm sharpened her focus towards combatting human trafficking. She seeks to earn a JD with an emphasis on public interest law. Desaree is passionate about advocating for adult survivors of human trafficking by increasing awareness and victim identification, strengthening legal advocacy and support services, and developing survivor-centric policies. In her spare time, she enjoys hosting crawfish boils, making friends with the crows in her neighborhood, and cuddling her lab, Sandy, and pit bull, Ramses.

Ray Epstein

Ray is double-majoring in English (with a concentration in creative writing) and communication and social influence. She has been a committed activist organizing to prevent sexual violence since middle school, and has since become the founding president of Temple University’s chapter of It’s On Us: Student Activists Against Sexual Assault. Through a partnership between her student organization and Uber, Ray secured $350,000 in free rides for Temple students needing to escape vulnerable situations. She currently occupies the first LGBTQ+ Caucus Chair position at It’s On Us National, where she is developing programming to better represent the experiences of queer survivors. As vice president of Planned Parenthood Generation Temple University, she is spearheading an initiative to bring emergency contraceptive vending machines to her campus. She is also an ambassador for Callisto, an encrypted matching system for survivors of sexual violence, and a campus lead for the Every Voice Coalition, where she promotes survivor-based legislation in Pennsylvania. Previously, she interned at Take Back the Night Foundation, Network for Victim Recovery of DC, and Break the Cycle. She intends to pursue a JD and support survivors through further legislative efforts. 

Gavin is an aspiring research meteorologist and climate science communicator. Growing up in rural Southeast Missouri, he was exposed to all types of weather which fascinated him at a young age. He is passionate about the social and economic vulnerabilities exacerbated by extreme weather events, particularly in the American Mid-South. He intends to pursue a PhD in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma focusing on behavioral insights surrounding severe weather preparedness and communication strategies. Gavin intends to inform public policy through the lens of the National Weather Service’s mission to protect life and property in the United States. He has enjoyed volunteering as a SkyWarn Storm Spotter with the National Weather Service and previously interned at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, presenting his research at the American Geophysical Union’s annual fall meeting. Gavin is a first-generation college student at Dartmouth College, where he enjoys fishing, club golf, and taking daily weather observations at the Shattuck Observatory. 

Bitaniya Giday

Bitaniya is a first-generation Ethiopian American residing in Seattle. As a community organizer, she hopes to dismantle internalized carceral logics through storytelling, community care, and healing to incite imaginative capacities for abolition. Her first collection of poems, Motherland , explores her experiences as a first-generation Black woman, reflecting her own family’s path of immigration across the world. As a cultural worker and university student, she works to restore autonomy to history’s originators by researching Black women’s erasure and contradictory relationships to historical geographies. She was heavily involved in the community design and implementation of Restorative Community Pathways a multimillion-dollar juvenile pre-court diversion program based in King County. She also serves as part of Wa Na Wari’s Black Spatial Histories cohort, learning community-based oral history and Black memory work.

Eli Glickman

Eli studies political science and is interested in national security and emerging technologies. As the grandson of a sailor in the US Navy and a mathematician who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he aims to work at the intersection of national security and science and technology. He intends to pursue a master’s degree in security studies with an emphasis on nuclear weapons policy. Eager to expand opportunities for students to engage with national security and foreign policy issues, Eli co-founded and leads the Alexander Hamilton Society at Berkeley and established a fellowship for ROTC and non-ROTC students to bridge the civil-military divide on campus. He was a 2023 Hertog War Studies Scholar at the Institute for the Study of War, interned for both US Senator Tom Cotton and the Coalition Defense of Taiwan Project at the American Enterprise Institute, and is an undergraduate research fellow at the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab. Eli is also an assistant debate coach at the College Preparatory School in Oakland and an Eagle Scout.

Axel Hawkins

Axel is a first-generation college student majoring in history with a minor in political science. Her roots, coming from a family that was lifted out of generational poverty by union jobs in rural, isolated Port Royal, Kentucky, inspired her to pursue a career in the labor movement. She began volunteering with Communications Workers of America (CWA) in 2016, joined as a member herself in 2021, and became a CWA NextGen Lead Activist for Public Sector Workers in 2023. She has also served as both treasurer and vice president of her university’s student government association, and was recently elected president, becoming the first openly LGBT person to win this office. She has also served as a delegate to the 2022 Georgia Democratic Convention, an ex-officio member of the Henry County Democratic Committee, chairwoman of the Young Democrats of Georgia Labor Caucus, and is finishing her second term as president of GCSU Young Democrats. She plans to pursue a JD and work to create pro-union policies to benefit America’s working families. She is also a member of the Delta Gamma fraternity, a devotee of all things “Sex and the City,” a perfume collector, and an avid Dolly Parton fan. 

Lezlie Hilario

Born to Dominican immigrants in Perth Amboy, Lezlie is a first-generation college student pursuing a double-major in political science and global interdisciplinary studies, along with minors in peace and justice and public administration. Lezlie's academic focus is driven by her aspiration to empower low-income communities of color in urban areas through the nonprofit sector. Her policy interests encompass advocating for diversity in K-12 curriculum, expanding college readiness programs, and championing equitable voting laws, particularly within communities of color. At Villanova, Lezlie is actively involved in various leadership roles. She is a cheerleader on the Villanova cheer team, serves as co-president of the Latin American Student Organization, and is a member of the leadership team for BIPOC, a multicultural student-athlete group on campus. Lezlie is an alumna of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, where she worked on Capitol Hill in the US House of Representatives. This summer, she will participate in the Public Policy & International Affairs Program's Junior Summer Institute at Princeton University, further preparing herself for graduate school. Post-graduation, Lezlie aims to pursue an MPA while engaging in community organizing efforts in her hometown. 

Adaure Iwuh

Adaure is a public health honors student in Detroit. Prior to this, she spent several years in Malawi, studying nursing and midwifery at Malamulo College of Health Sciences. Her clinical experiences as a midwife in high-demand, low-resource settings inspired her to pursue systemic work that could improve maternal and child health through policy and institutional reform. Adaure uses her personal, professional, and academic experiences to engage in understanding political institutions and how they interact with sociocultural questions that affect health and societal wellbeing. Adaure was a Mayoral Fellow for the City of Detroit, where she conducted vector and disease surveillance and community health education in the Environmental Health division of the Detroit Health Department. After the fellowship, she continued to work at the Detroit Health Department, where she now pursues outreach efforts in housing, environmental health, and process improvement. She plans to earn an MPH/MPP in community health sciences and health policy to address policy and research gaps at the intersection of housing and maternal health. She is committed to coordinating community-facing activities in Detroit that promote sustainability and efficiency in public health practice.

Rincon Jagarlamudi

As the proud son of two immigrant parents, Rincon majors in biochemistry with minors in medicine, health, and society and data science. On campus, Rincon is the co-president of Next Steps Ambassa’dores, which is the dynamic peer support group for Vanderbilt’s inclusive higher education program for neurodiverse individuals, and serves as the campus policy chair for Active Minds, a group committed to heightening awareness and supporting mental health on college campuses. He founded the flagship ambassador site for the nonprofit Hip Hop Public Health, using hip-hop music and culture to break down cultural barriers to health literacy and equity in Nashville. Rincon intends to enter medical school and earn an MPH degree post-graduation. He aspires to pair his existing role as a disability rights advocate with his eventual status as a physician to care for patients with neurodevelopmental conditions. Outside of advocacy and service, Rincon can be found watching Formula 1 races, singing karaoke, or playing pickup basketball with friends. 

Elijah Kahlenberg

As an aspiring academic and civil servant, Elijah is currently pursuing a degree in government, Middle East studies, and Jewish studies. Elijah intends to specialize in legal, historical, and policy matters impacting conflict de-escalation and conflict resolution in the Middle East. Accordingly, Elijah has undertaken and led various grassroots peace initiatives pertinent to the Middle East. In the summer of 2022, he worked out of a Palestinian farm on behalf of the Roots peace movement, the only organization in the West Bank erecting joint initiatives for mutual understanding and reconciliation between local Jews and Palestinians. For the past two years, Elijah has led Atidna International, an organization establishing joint frameworks for dialogue and peacebuilding between Jewish/Israeli and Arab/Palestinian students on college campuses as the organization’s founder and president. From The Forward to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth, Elijah’s peacebuilding initiatives have been heralded in both print and televised media. He also writes extensively about Middle East and North African politics. To prepare for his future endeavors, Elijah hopes to pursue a joint JD/PhD concentrating on international law, Middle East studies, and international security.

Alyssa Kemp

Alyssa is an environmental engineering student with minors in interdisciplinary problem-solving and climate change. Originally from Cavalier, a rural town in northeast North Dakota, she is passionate about improving climate change resilience and economic development in rural communities. Alyssa's career goal is to become an environmental attorney, focusing on securing cleaner, more affordable energy, revitalizing rural areas, and collaborating with environmental justice partners to drive change. On campus, she is currently a Nina Henderson Provost Scholar, where she builds capacity in local workforce development organizations to implement climate transition job training programs. Additionally, Alyssa develops and teaches undergraduate engineering curricula that incorporate social and environmental justice lessons to empower future engineers to advocate for equitable and sustainable solutions in their professional practice. She has conducted research on community-based heat mitigation techniques, the impacts of increased flooding on various social vulnerabilities, and the use of community gardens to promote access to healthy foods, reduce flooding, and improve economic development. In her free time, Alyssa volunteers at a local after-school program, where she introduces high school students to careers in technology. She also enjoys hiking, stargazing, and cooking with friends.    

Lisa Kopelnik

Lisa studies in the politics honors program and double-majors in economics. As a first-generation American born to Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants, she is deeply committed to public service and making change through law and the justice system. She aspires to focus her career on expanding civil rights, promoting restorative justice, and uplifting values aligned with our democracy. She is passionate about facilitating dialogue across difference and civil discourse, believing that seeking common ground and understanding is a necessary starting point to bringing about change. As the chair of the University Judiciary Committee, she adjudicates Standards of Conduct violations with a focus on restorative and educational approaches that promote safety, freedom, and respect for all students. She cultivated her passion for civil rights as an intern with Equal Rights Advocates, a gender justice policy and legal nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. As a legal intern, she worked with attorneys to provide legal aid to women seeking justice and accountability in discrimination cases, and worked on California policy to provide legal and economic support for women. In her free time, she enjoys attending Jewish community events and spending time with her friends and family. 

Aravind Krishnan

The son of Indian immigrants, Aravind studies molecular & cell biology, healthcare management & policy, and statistics. His backgrounds in community health and basic science motivated him to pursue a career focused on addressing health disparities in under-resourced communities through advancing care for infectious diseases, due to their disproportionate impact on these populations. He intends to pursue an MD/PhD focused on immunology and communicable diseases, and subsequently hopes to work with the National Institutes of Health on continuing this research and also translating his findings by implementing community-informed interventions, with the aim of developing his own lab with these foci. Aravind founded ToxiSense, a research organization focused on creating more cost-effective, sustainable, rapid diagnostics for bacterial toxin contamination and infection. He also helps lead the Shelter Health Outreach Program, an organization of over 100 students alleviating health disparities faced by Philadelphians experiencing homelessness and other barriers to care. They do so through city-wide hypertension screening clinics, partnerships with Penn Medicine and Penn Dental to provide on-site care, case management, community health research, and a permanent free clinic in West Philadelphia. Aravind thanks his mom and dad for being his greatest inspirations, and all his other mentors that have supported him along the way.

Pranav Krishnan

Pranav studies political science and economics and is interested in international security, foreign policy, and strategic competition in an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape. On campus, he leads the Alexander Hamilton Society for Foreign Policy, is an editor for the Wisconsin International Review , and volunteers with the Missing in Action - Recovery and Identification Project, as well as Service to School. Previously, he worked as an international development researcher for Dane County and interned at the Center for American Progress and the US Department of Defense. He plans to pursue an MSc in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science before attending law school and seeking a career in public service to promote principled and prudent American engagement abroad in championing democracy, human rights, and international law.

Kayle Lauck

Kayle studies political science with minors in politics, philosophy, and economics, and education, schooling, and society. She has completed research assistantships focused on rural development, domestic agricultural policy, coastal resiliency, Native American history, and stream ecology. Kayle is passionate about improving rural mental healthcare access and worked with South Dakota State University Extension to distribute mental healthcare vouchers and coordinate suicide prevention training. She also co-founded South Dakota College Connections, an organization dedicated to aiding South Dakota high school students navigate the college admissions process. Kayle's commitment to rural development brought her to Washington for the National Farmers Union Legislative Fly-In, where she advocated for small farmers and sustainable agricultural policies. She continued that work during a 4-month internship with the US House Committee on Agriculture. Kayle has also studied and volunteered in Poland, Israel, and Ireland, to further understand histories of oppression, environmental peacebuilding, and agricultural sustainability. While on campus, Kayle has served as a sustainability co-chair in her student government and co-founded the Agricultural Student Association. Kayle intends to return to South Dakota and work to remedy the diverse issues that harm rural populations throughout her home state.

Julie Ann Laxamana

Born and raised in Guam, Julie is majoring in criminal justice and minoring in biology. She intends to pursue an MPA to further her public service around her region and the national community. On campus, she is currently the student regent member on her university’s Board of Regents, and served as treasurer for the Public Administration and Legal Studies Society Club for three years. She uses these platforms to amplify and address her community needs of homelessness and recidivism. In the local community, she serves as legislative secretary for the 34th Guam Youth Congress, and is a recipient of the 2024 Congressional Gold Medal. Julie will intern at the White House this summer. She strives to foster and promote social justices in the interest of those whose voice have been muted in the participation of policy. Julie’s goal is to grow into an educated individual who is worthy of public trust, and who solves problems with the highest ethical consideration while practicing the principles of democracy. When she is not serving the public, she enjoys watching movies, playing with her cats, and taking pictures.

Reese Lycan

Born and raised in Lexington, Reese is a biochemistry and molecular biology major at the Honors College with minors in computer science and public health. As director of government relations, Reese oversaw the crafting of policy proposals that were presented to city, state, and national officials, based in part on a student insight survey she created. She led a student advocacy mission to Washington, where she championed to White House and Congressional leaders for improved resources for first-generation and immigrant students, stricter legislation regarding sexual assault and hazing, and increased higher education support. Reese’s passion for advocacy intersects with her passion for healthcare. She volunteers weekly in her city’s emergency department and is published in the Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry Journal as a member of the Simoska Research Lab, where she researches mechanisms of bacteria that affect immunocompromised patients. These experiences have inspired her pursuit of an MD/MPH for a career in medicine and public health policy. Her goal is to work as a physician for underserved populations to build a foundation to lead healthcare policy reform and advocate for rural Appalachia at the federal level. 

Kelsey Monaghan-Bergson

Kelsey studies behavioral sciences, concentrating in sociology, with a minor in diversity and inclusion. Motivated to capitalize on the unique strength of American diversity to outthink US adversaries, particularly through neurodiversity as a key force multiplier, she aims to reform the US Department of Defense (DOD) accessions and retention policy. Her goal is not only to accept neurodiverse (ND) individuals into the military, but also to break down stereotypes and promote greater acceptance and empowerment in society as a whole. She aspires to pursue a master's in social innovation with a concentration in neurodiversity studies before serving as an information operations officer in the US Air Force (USAF). She plans to continue her joint research on astro psychiatric artificial intelligence and apply her education across the full spectrum of military operations to influence relevant actors' perceptions, behavior, and actions through gray zone tactics. Kelsey is an action officer for the USAF's ND Initiative, a DOD Intellectual Edge Alliance Fellow, and a Certified Professional Innovator from the University of Michigan College of Engineering. Outside of the military, Kelsey loves drawing, hiking, Garfield the Cat, and Pokémon.

Alexandra Mork

Alexandra studies political science and history. On campus, she served as editor-in-chief of the Brown Political Review , the largest political publication in the Ivy League.  Currently, she is conducting research on voter registration in high schools as a fellow for the Taubman Center for American Politics. Motivated by her interests in education, democracy reform, and criminal justice issues, she has interned for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the Center for American Progress, the Rhode Island Center for Justice, Organize New Hampshire, Public Citizen, and Loyola’s Project for the Innocent. She also serves as a tutor for system-impacted students in Rhode Island and a coach for debate students in California. Particularly passionate about access to legal services for low-income people, she founded the Student Legal Association Supporting Housing, which organizes Brown student volunteers to assist Providence tenants in their eviction proceedings. Alexandra hopes to earn a JD/MPA to pursue her interest in legal justice and ultimately work as a civil rights appellate lawyer. 

Jackson Morris

Born and raised in Omaha, Jackson studies biomedical engineering with a minor in applied math and statistics. His experiences as a disabled student and observation of the lack of representation in STEM professions has led him to advocate for the rights and aspirations of disabled Americans. He is especially interested in improving higher education for disabled students. As part of a Biomedical Engineering Design Team, he is creating a better ventricular catheter for hydrocephalus patients and will be leading his own team next year. Jackson is a Lime Connect Fellow and gratefully serves his peers as vice president of the his university’s student government association, co-chair of its university-wide student advisory body, and chair of advocacy and activism for Advocates for Disability Awareness. After graduation, Jackson plans to pursue a JD with an emphasis in disability law. In his free time, he performs acrobatics, runs, and enjoys hanging out with his friends and Design Team.

Laila Nasher

Born in Aden, Yemen, and raised by a single mother in Detroit, Laila is an immigrant whose experiences push her to fight for impoverished communities like her own. Having grown up beneath the poverty line and as a product of school closures, Laila believes education is a fundamental civil right. She plans to pursue a JD/EdM and aims to protect access to an equitable K-12 education through legal and public office in her home city. Over the past eight years, Laila has dedicated herself to understanding how education inequity differently impacts disparate communities like her own. She bridges the gap between policy and people by both working with local policymakers and mentoring young Detroiters. Laila runs bazaars for Yemeni migrant women and is currently creating a scholarship to encourage Yemeni-American girls to pursue college. At Harvard, she studies history and anthropology, is a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, and acts as a liaison between the campus’s first-generation students and administration. Through this role, Laila has founded some of Harvard’s most impactful first-generation student initiatives. In her free time, you can find her trying new cafes and reading.     

Yudidt Nonthe Sanchez

Originally from Mesa, Yudidt is a first-generation college student studying public service and public policy. She comes from Indigenous descent from the Otomi people from Mexico. After graduating high school, Yudidt interned in Washington, volunteered as a missionary in Brazil, and studied international relations as a US Department of State Gilman Scholar in Sydney, Australia. She served as student body president at Mesa Community College and interned at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and Smithsonian National Zoo. As a community organizer for the Arizona Education Association, Yudidt advocated for higher pay for teachers. She is a former IGNITE National Fellow, Andrew Goodman Ambassador, and Smithsonian Young Ambassador. She intends to pursue a JD at Arizona State University with an emphasis on gender equity and immigration policy. Dedicated to inspiring the next generation of women leaders, she aspires to serve as Mesa’s first Latina mayor. In her spare time, Yudidt likes to visit her friends who live in other countries and regularly volunteers at College Bound AZ, which helps students apply for college. She enjoys practicing yoga and likes to listen to Billie Eilish.

Tej is studying molecular biology, healthcare management & policy, and statistics. Inspired by his experiences as an advocate and volunteer, Tej seeks to make healthcare systems more equitable and cost-effective. Focused on health economics, radiation oncology, and human-algorithm collaboration in clinical care, his research has been published in Nature Medicine , JAMA Health Forum , Journal of National Cancer Institute , IJROBP , and Journal of Clinical Oncology . Tej co-founded the Social Equity Action Lab, a youth-led think tank that brings together students, institutional partners, and policymakers across the country to inform legislation on key issues such as America’s mental health crisis, value-based payment reform, and healthcare decarbonization. On campus, he is the director of the Locust Bioventures group, coordinator for the Netter Center High School Pipeline Program, and policy/outcomes researcher for the Shelter Health Outreach Program. He also interned with the Mongan Institute for Health Policy and Institute for Healthcare Improvement, working on projects covering Medicare Part D policy and alternative payment models. Following graduation, Tej intends to pursue an MD/MPP and leverage insights from medicine and policy to improve nationwide care delivery.

Yadira Paz-Martinez

Originally from Clinton, North Carolina, Yadira is the proud daughter of Mexican blue-collar and farmworker immigrants. She is studying public policy with a minor in history and a certificate in human rights. As a first-generation low-income student, Yadira serves as the Duke Student Government vice president for equity and outreach, addressing equitable fees, aiding DACA students, and advocating for marginalized students. Yadira is also the co-president of Duke Define America, leading a team that supports immigrants at Duke, in Durham, and beyond. Advocating for farmworker justice, she was an Into the Fields intern for Student Action with Farmworkers and currently serves on their theater committee. In the summer of 2023, Yadira worked for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in the office of US Representative Yadira Caraveo and learned about systemic barriers within the agricultural industry. She is also a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, researching the socialization of farmworkers in rural North Carolina based on the influences of geopolitical power that impact their experiences. Yadira aspires earn a JD to advance labor rights for farmworkers and low-wage workers.

CJ Petersen

Born and raised in southwest Iowa, CJ is hard of hearing and grew up using American Sign Language at home. Living at the intersection of the LGBTQ+ and disability communities, CJ strives for inclusion and acceptance for all who want to participate in the political process. Whether he is running for Iowa Senate, leading a rural queer working group, or clerking for Representative Sami Scheetz in the Iowa Legislature, strengthening civic engagement among rural Iowans is the priority for CJ. He is pursuing a degree in political science while serving as communications director for the Iowa Auditor of State, Rob Sand (IA 05). CJ and his husband live on a small farm in rural Audubon County, where they are active members of the Iowa Farmers’ Union and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. CJ is passionate about working toward climate solutions as part of a robust rural economic development agenda.

Jay Philbrick

Jay is passionate about evidence-based policy to promote equitable economic opportunity. He currently studies economics, applied mathematics, and computer science. Growing up in rural Maine, Jay saw firsthand the life-changing impact of public investment in education and defense. Inspired by this, he has interned with the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, the US State Department's Office of Monetary Affairs, and in Maine's Governor's Economic Recovery Committee, helping save Americans nearly $4 billion and guiding $1 billion in effective investments in broadband and workforce development. Jay has also conducted research at Yale Law School, the Federal Reserve, and Brown University, focused on evaluating retirement, rural development, and social safety net policies. He has presented his research to executive and legislative branch policymakers, as well as academics. Jay also stays involved politically, serving on his county and state political party committees, a Maine gubernatorial campaign, and as a presidential elector in 2020. He intends to pursue a JD and a PhD in economics to analyze and implement evidence-based policy as a researcher and policymaker in Maine. In his free time, Jay enjoys playing trivia, promoting inclusion, running, and traveling with friends and family.

Marley Ramon

Raised in Albuquerque, Marley is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in political science and art, with a minor in English as a National Merit and National Hispanic Scholar. Merging traditional and unconventional backgrounds for a legal occupation, each discipline intertwines to drive her focus on presentation and individual expression within the political world. Leading university groups focused on representing student voices, Marley is passionate about nurturing a sustainable community and does so as her university’s chief editor and Phi Sigma Alpha political science honor society president. Inspired through her work interning with the executive director of the Democratic Party of New Mexico, Marley intends to pursue her JD with concentrations in constitutionality and civil rights. Previously, Marley interned with the Air Force Research Laboratory. Outside of class, Marley enjoys writing creative fiction and poetry, making jewelry, and playing water polo for her university. 

Thomas Riggs

TJ Riggs is a student activist studying political science and Spanish. He has spent his life moving both internationally and around the United States, inspiring his interest in the ways different communities overcome setbacks. His freshman year, he was tasked with reviving Samford University’s chapter of Amnesty International, which served as his introduction to the world of human rights activism. TJ became involved with death penalty advocacy in Alabama and was asked to serve as Amnesty International’s Alabama state death penalty abolition coordinator. In his role, he has worked closely with local legislators, partner organizations, and international human rights groups to advance the fight for abolition in the state. Outside of his activism, TJ is a varsity policy debater for his university’s team and has earned three consecutive bids to the National Debate Tournament. TJ also serves as the head coach of a youth outreach debate program through ImpactAmerica. He intends to pursue a JD and continue his death penalty work through both legislative activism and on-the-ground legal representation. In his free time, TJ enjoys spending time with friends, researching for debate, and visiting local restaurants

Camila Rios-Picorelli

Camila is majoring in secondary education with a concentration in history and social sciences and a minor in human rights studies. Since childhood, she knew she wanted to be a teacher and dreamed of someday opening her own school. Her background in education, combined with her human rights studies, inspires her to work to make a quality education accessible for everyone. Camila intends to pursue a master's degree with an emphasis in educational psychology and learning design. Camila is particularly interested in how people learn, including how best to design curricula, materials, and learning spaces to better support that learning process. As part of her honors thesis, she is creating a manual to guide educators in Puerto Rico to incorporate social-emotional learning in their classrooms. 

Edwin Santos

Edwin, from Northern Virginia, is a first-generation Salvadoran-American majoring in legal studies within the Politics, Policy & Law Scholars Program. He is also in the Community-Based Research Scholars Program and the School of Public Affairs Combined Program concurrently earning his MPA. On campus, he co-founded Latinos En Acción, which is a chapter of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth network and serves as student body president. Off campus, he is involved in organizations centered around immigration, such as the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition and Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), and gained experience in state and federal government. Edwin has been selected for the Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholarship, the Henry Clay College Student Congress, and the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute at UC-Berkeley. He plans to attend law school to become an attorney and support low-income families at the intersection of criminal and immigration law. Years later, he hopes to serve his community as an elected official dedicated to creating inclusive and representative policies.

Diego Sarmiento

Born and raised in Santa Ana, Diego Antranik is the proud son of Bolivian and Mexican immigrants. From a young age, his mom, dad, and aunt instilled in him the value of public service, education, resilience, and community. Over the past four years, Diego has mobilized thousands of his neighbors to engage and vote in local politics through community organizing. Interning at the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ office, Diego helped push forward an unprecedented homelessness prevention program. The pilot program provides $400 a month to 100 single-parent households and senior citizens on the brink of losing their homes. Diego hopes to continue the fight to give his community a political voice through his “Santanero Voter Initiative,” a program to increase voter turnout among Latino youth. He is committed to a life of public service, believing that politics should be responsive to everybody, not just large corporations, and that every person is entitled to basic needs such as healthcare, housing, and a life of dignity. Diego studies political science and public affairs and intends to pursue a JD/MA in economics.

Isaac Seiler

Isaac is driven by a love for public service and a commitment to community. His career in advocacy began when he organized hundreds of students to protest his former college’s decision to fire a professor for officiating a gay wedding. Isaac organized protests, events, and petitions, working to support and protect queer students along the way. He then pursued a year in politics and government, starting as a congressional campaign intern before being promoted to oversee digital operations and strategy. Isaac played a pivotal role in a landslide victory. At just 20 years old, he went on to direct the creation of a new congressional office and served as communications director, building an entire program from the ground up in a matter of months. Isaac also has substantial formal research experience, writes for student publications, and consults for political campaigns. He is completing his BA in sociology and political science and plans to earn his JD to enforce tax law and drive tax reform. Isaac intends to eventually run for public office, working to represent his community and advocate for positive change.

Albiona Selimi

Albiona is pursuing a major in political science, with minors in justice and women’s studies. As a daughter of Macedonian-Albanian immigrants, she grew up knowing the value of an individual’s vote in America. Her interest in voting rights and civic engagement inspires her to advocate for voting rights in her future legal career. She intends to pursue a JD with an emphasis on public interest and social justice. On campus, Albiona previously served in student government and currently serves the university as student regent on the University of Alaska Board of Regents. In her free time, she loves to read, scrapbook, and listen to podcasts. 

Jahneé Smith

Jahneé is a dedicated community organizer and cultural worker, passionate about empowering youth. Currently a full-time youth organizer at Miami Homes for All, Jahneé mobilizes youth with firsthand experience of housing insecurity. They have organized around homelessness nationwide through internships with organizations like The Bronx Defenders and Causa Justa: Just Cause via the Center of Third World Organizing’s Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program. Committed to combating discrimination based on having a criminal record, Jahneé actively contributes to Beyond the Bars as a member, advocating for fair access to employment and housing. As a 2023 Changemaker with The Alliance for LGBTQ+, they led a banned book and people’s history campaign, establishing little libraries of banned books across Miami-Dade County Public Schools zones. Expressing art and passion through zines and poetry with Art for the People South Florida, Jahneé integrates personal experiences as a homeless, justice-impacted, queer, Latine individual to challenge the status quo. Majoring in global studies and women and gender studies, Jahneé aspires to earn an MPA and a PhD in community well-being.    

Jaiden Stansberry

Growing up in the National Park Service encouraged a dedication to natural resources for Jaiden. She is currently studying forestry with a minor in fire sciences and management and has worked as a wildland firefighter for the National Park Service for the past two years. Her experience inspired her to focus on prescribed fire implementation and challenges. She intends to pursue an MS in natural resources stewardship with a concentration in forest sciences to expand her knowledge of the influence of policy in forest management. Jaiden is particularly interested in designing prescribed fire programs for the National Park Service to support natural disturbances on a landscape while mitigating fuel to protect property and life. She hopes to encourage collaborative efforts between National Parks and local tribes to perform burning in areas with cultural significance. In her free time, Jaiden can be found flyfishing the Blackfoot River and traveling to different National Parks.

Sophia Stewart

Sophia studies political science, foreign area studies, and Japanese. Her background in policy development and personal understanding of sexual crimes has compelled her to focus her undergraduate studies and research on sexual crimes and justice. She intends to pursue an MS in data science. Sophia is focused on data collection and effective prevention education and plans to use her further education to support the development of these goals. Sophia has previously conducted research on sensitive-subject surveying to evaluate the effectiveness of current military sexual crime prevention efforts with the Office of Labor and Economic Analysis, as well as conducting personal and team research projects with both the Academy and Stamps Foundation. Sophia also enjoys Brazilian jiu-jitsu, volunteering with children and young adults with learning disabilities via The Resource Exchange, and supporting the Academy’s Public Affairs projects. 

Anitvir Taunque

Anitvir is currently studying biomedical science and is passionate about health literacy, particularly how it impacts the ability of patients to receive and follow through with prescribed medical care. He founded the Columbus chapter of Red Saree, a nonprofit organization devoted to raising awareness for and decreasing the prevalence of heart disease within ethnically diverse communities. For the last several years, Anitvir has also been an involved volunteer in multiple free clinics and spent a summer abroad in India volunteering at a mission hospital surgical center. He built ServUS, a sustainability start-up devoted to empowering and incentivizing students to engage in service. He is currently pursuing a fellowship through the Asia Foundation’s LeadNEXT ambassadors program focused on global leadership and collaboration. He hopes to pursue a combined MD/MS with a concentration in health policy management to guide health literacy decision making. In his free time, Anitvir enjoys playing basketball, playing chess, and trying all kinds of different food.

Alex Taylor

Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Alex is majoring in political science. He serves as vice president of the Columbia Political Union, program coordinator for the Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative, and justice intern for the Brennan Center for Justice. During his freshman year of college, Alex co-founded "Reachout!" an initiative to empower marginalized high school students with the resources to create competitive college resumes. A current Obama-Chesky Voyager Scholar, Alex has a broad interest in movements to end mass incarceration. His background in prison volunteering, interning as an investigator for The Bronx Defenders, and researching death penalty litigation at Columbia Law School inspires him to pursue a career in criminal justice reform. He plans to pursue a JD with an emphasis on progressive prosecution. After graduating, he aspires to work as an assistant district attorney with an emphasis on appeals and helping youth offenders in his hometown. In his free time, Alex enjoys cooking, attending jazz shows, and reading science fiction novels. 

Born in Queens to migrant workers and then living several years in Asia, Wena’s experiences drive her political and legal advocacy for migration labor and diasporic communities as well as an understanding of the uniqueness of transnational identities. A proud first-generation student, Wena studies race & ethnicity studies and history with a specialization in political economy. She is a Laidlaw Scholar and serves as a university senator. Educated in New York City Public Schools, she has served as a director of the educational equity nonprofit IntegrateNYC and been involved in local elections. Inspired by the immigrant street vendors who nourish the hearts of New Yorkers, she has worked since high school with the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project on policies to accommodate licenses and legal resources for vendors. Her dedication to labor rights has been nourished by experiences as a White House intern, Columbia Law Review DEI director, and a research assistant exploring the legal history of immigration. Wena intends to pursue a JD/MPP to reconcile the gaps in labor law that have historically excluded protections for migrant workers. In her free time, she enjoys writing prose, practicing the Chinese harp, and building intergenerational friendships with street vendors on food crawls around NYC.

Mikayla Tillery

Mikayla majors in urban studies and Black studies and commits her time to housing justice advocacy and racial justice activism. She hopes to pursue a career that makes material differences for those disadvantaged by housing discrimination, neighborhood segregation, and redlining. She has worked to transition Black first-year students to Stanford through New Student Orientation programming, produced policy memos on tenant protections that influence the US Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and other legislators to center frontline, renter communities in the energy transition, and served on the Stanford Board of Trustees to advocate for equitable land use. These experiences teach her that a future where affordable, climate-conscious housing as a human right is within reach. In her free time, she enjoys pottery, reality television, and traveling.

Grace Truslow

Grace is a dedicated honors student majoring in political science and minoring in sustainability. She aspires to earn a JD and to work in the federal government as an environmental lawyer, ensuring equity in land use policy implementation. She is particularly interested in applying lessons from the past to create a future of community-informed infrastructure development during the green energy transition. Originally from Rhode Island, her interest in public service was sparked through environmental work in local advocacy, nonprofit, and research spaces. In Washington, Grace has expanded her policy knowledge in transportation, financial services, energy, and agriculture through a multitude of internship opportunities, including with US Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary Polly Trottenberg, US Senator Jack Reed, and former Representative David Cicilline. During the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, she reviewed grant applications for the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program and assisted in developing a report on the US Transportation Decarbonization Blueprint. Grace is an active member of her academic community as a leader of the University Honors Peer Advising Program, an editor for the Undergraduate Review , and an undergraduate research assistant. 

Lee Waldman

Lee is pursuing a degree in sociology and the study of women, gender, and sexuality to inform his activism in housing justice. He is a founding member of Ithaca’s Youth Action Board, a group of young people working to fight youth homelessness in their community. Lee, along with his team, won the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program grant, a multimillion-dollar grant dedicated to elevating youth voice in service provision. Lee has been a central force in grant execution, helping found a Temporary Living Project and a Permanent Supportive Housing Project for youth in need of assistance in Tompkins County. He focuses on the safety of LGBTQ+ disabled youth, as protecting marginalized populations is the root of equitable policy. Lee is a community advocate and a member of the Ithaca Continuum of Care, a network of organizations and stakeholders working together to end homelessness. In his role, he uplifts the voices of people with lived experience of homelessness, ensuring that people at the heart of policy are not lost in the discussion. Lee plans to pursue an MSW/MPP with the goal of achieving a radically safe future for his community.

Ella, an enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, is from Crookston, Minnesota. She studies public policy. Her community-based advocacy centers around the 15 nuclear missile silos housed on her Tribe’s reservation, which will soon be modernized, generating extensive environmental, public health, and safety concerns. To raise awareness about this injustice, Ella published an investigative podcast series “The Missiles on Our Rez” with Scientific American . She also works for Nuclear Princeton and Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security, where she investigates nuclear assaults against Tribal communities. Ella previously served on the Minnesota Young Women’s Initiative Cabinet and the National Council of Urban Indian Health Youth Council. Outside the classroom, she aims to grow institutional support for Native students. She served as president of Natives at Princeton and led Princeton’s Indigenous Advocacy Coalition, where she worked with the administration, alumni, and students to hire Native faculty and organize events. She intends to pursue a JD with an emphasis on federal Indian law and environmental justice. After graduating, she will pursue community-engaged policy and journalism to empower Tribes to enact legislation that aligns with their wants and needs.

Trenton White

Trent is a driven first-generation Roan Scholar, majoring in political science with a minor in public administration. Fueled by a deep-seated passion for public service and a keen interest in higher education policy, he aspires to build a career in politics and law. Trent envisions pursuing a JD with a focus on public policy, ultimately aiming to empower underserved individuals in the Appalachian region by providing legal counsel, safeguarding the rights of the marginalized, and helping develop legislation to enrich educational opportunities within rural communities. Trent has worked tirelessly to foster a positive campus environment and provide greater opportunities for students. He founded and currently serves as president of his university’s mock trial team, and is also president of the student government association. He interned with the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce, where he gained insights into the intricate workings of local governance, and served as a constituent services intern for US Senator Bill Hagerty – a role that reflects his commitment to understanding and addressing regional needs at the federal level. Beyond his academic and professional pursuits, Trent enjoys spending quality time with friends and indulging in a shared passion for horror movies.

Mielad Ziaee

Mielad is passionate about eliminating health disparities among racially and economically marginalized communities. Coming from an immigrant family in Texas, he aims to leverage research to inform – and reform – health policies and systems. He conducts health equity research as a National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Scholar and collaborates with hospital leadership at the Kennedy Krieger Institute on food insecurity research as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention John R. Lewis Scholar. Noticing gaps in his research on how large institutions respond to community needs, Mielad advocates at a systemic level, currently serving as Governor Greg Abbott’s appointed student regent of the University of Houston System. He is also the first youth member of the board of directors of the American Red Cross, Houston Chapter. Mielad intends to pursue an MD/PhD with a focus on data-driven health policy and management. He hopes to ensure all Americans can access healthcare regardless of their background. In his free time, Mielad enjoys morning runs, baking, and visiting farmers markets.    

Zane studies sociology, political science, and gender, sexuality & women’s studies. Their interdisciplinary background has helped inform their understanding of social justice and equity. Zane intends to pursue a JD/MA in human rights studies, eventually working in public interest law to protect the interests of queer communities and dismantle the inequity inherent in our current systems. They are putting themself through school and are the first of their siblings to attend college. Zane is currently working on a thesis that investigates and subverts recent legislative attacks on the queer community. In 2023, they were awarded the Brennens Summer Research Fellowship from the University of Vermont in order to study how to make queer history more accessible to demographics impacted by recent legislative bans on it being taught in schools. They are currently interning at the Vermont Statehouse for a state senator, and are a Dru Scholar and a Pedro Zamora Scholar. Zane enjoys yoga, gardening, and curating inclusive social settings.

Some entries have been edited for length or clarity.