Keywords
democracy
individualism
local associations
freedom Tocqueville
democracia
individualismo
asociaciones locales
libertad
How to Cite
Abstract
Following Alexis de Tocqueville, many contemporary authors have seen in the vitality of local associations an essential element for the health of democracies. However, many of them forget that associations are for Tocqueville a response to a concrete social phenomenon: democratic individualism that he lucidly captured in his observation of 19th century American society. This paper seeks to delve into the notion of democratic individualism exposed by Tocqueville in Democracy in America and its potential effects on freedom, and analyzes the scope of his proposal for associations in the face of this phenomenon. Unlike what contemporary authors postulate that only seem to attend to criteria of decentralization and efficiency and ignore the phenomenon of individualism, the article suggests that mere local association is not enough to save democracy from its pathologies.
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