ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE’IN NEDEN CUMHURIYETÇİ DEĞİL DE LİBERAL OLDUĞU HAKKINDA

Authors : Funda GENÇOĞLU

Pages : 357-374

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Publication Date : 2018-12-29

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The search for the ideal form of the relation between the individual human being and the community surrounding her has always been the question at the center of political thought. This article is interested in two of these alternatives: the liberal and the republican. What is interesting about these two is that while they traditionally have been rivals to each other, there have always been attempts to bring them together. An analysis of the complex relation between them provides fertile ground for those who are eager to hunt their own answers. This is what this article hopes to do with an eye on one of the most influential political theorists, de Tocqueville. In this article, I aim to show why it is more appropriate to cite him as a classical representative of liberalism rather than republicanism. Hence, the contribution of this article is threefold: It will present a comparative overview of the main tenets of liberalism and republicanism; by highlighting the points of conjuncture and disjuncture between them, it will illustrate the background of the notion of liberal-republicanism; third, mainly through quotations from Democracy in America, it will reveal that de Tocqueville, because of his ideas on state-society-individual relations, is the founding father of modern liberal-individualist-pluralist hegemonic concept of civil society.
Keywords : Liberalism, republicanism, Alexis de Tocqueville, civil society, liberal republicanism, state society individual relationship