ABSTRACT
Tocqueville has provided an analysis of institutions in combination with a historical analysis of the revolutionary framework. Tocqueville expressed his fear that after the revolution, and especially after the Bonapartist reaction, the French administration actually became an instrument of oppression in the hands of the central power. Tocqueville, as opposed to Marx, gives due consideration to the factor of nationalism. For Marx, the class conflict constitutes the motivating force behind the historical movement. Tocqueville argues that eighteenth-century France had a certain number of feudal institutions in common with other European countries. Tocqueville showed great insight in his analysis of the mechanism that allowed the Royal Council to bring under control a very large country, in which many different legal traditions were extant and in which there was a great deal of recalcitrance.
