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Alexis De Tocqueville, The Modern Democratic Nation-State, and Its Competitors
- The Tocqueville Review/La revue Tocqueville
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume 39, Number 1, 2018
- pp. 11-24
- Article
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Abstract:
This paper draws on Tocqueville's Democracy in America to distinguish three different types of modern democracy—(i) the democratic nation-state, (ii) the post sovereign, multinational democracy, and (iii) the populist national democracy. The paper argues that all three have characteristic deficits—respectively, a security deficit, a democratic deficit, and a liberal deficit. The paper discusses the likely impact of Brexit and Trump on these forms of democracy in modern Europe. The paper concludes that while Trump—and more especially, "Trumpism"—poses a challenge to the European Union, Brexit presents an opportunity to demonstrate to its own citizens the benefits of this type of polity.