ABSTRACT
The eminent political theorist Sheldon Wolin recently argued that Alexis de Tocqueville was 'perhaps the last influential theorist who can be said to have truly cared about political life'. In the United States, the charitable organization United Way created the Tocqueville Society in 1984 'because of Alexis de Tocqueville's admiration for the spirit of voluntary association and voluntary effort for the common good'. The Tocqueville of Democracy in America has been appropriated chiefly by the political scientists, who have become major contributors to public discourse of late with Tocquevillean analyses of the decline of 'social capital' and of 'voluntary associations' in contemporary American life. Durkheim's 'progressive' position relative to Tocqueville has been reinforced by more recent appropriations of Tocqueville in France. Tocqueville shared with Weber a stoic sensibility concerning the changes occurring in modern life and a sense of the profound importance of politics for human beings, combined with a regard for the details of political life.
