Tribunes

(Note: Originally published on the Tocqueville 21 Substack) Dear Readers, We are now over one hundred days into the second Trump administration. At this (early!) point, the structural impact on […]

Bernard Manin (1951-2024) Political theory has just lost one of its towering figures: Bernard Manin passed away on Friday November 1, 2024. Director of Studies at the École des Hautes […]

Western governments grappling with extreme right-wing drifts, particularly the Biden government in the United States and Macron’s in France, welcomed Lula’s electoral victory in Brazil. Over the course of the […]

Translated by Cross Lawrence An Accursed Era In 1999, J.M. Coetzee wrote: “Robert Musil would call the times in which he lived an ‘accursed era’ ; his best energies were […]

Professor George Ross is ad personam Jean Monet Chair at the University of Montreal, Moris Hillquit Professor Emeritus of Labor and Social Thought at Brandeis University, and a past chair […]

  L’ère Maudite. En 1999, J.M Coetzee écrit : « Robert Musil qualifiait l’époque à laquelle il vivait d’ ‘ère maudite’ ; ses meilleures énergies étaient consacrées à essayer de […]

Tocqueville 21 was born of the belief that history, and historical insight, can and must contribute to our understanding of the contemporary political and moral landscape. As the American political […]

Vincent Duclert, historien, chercheur titulaire et ancien directeur du Centre Raymond Aron (CESPRA, EHESS-CNRS)   Raymond Aron est décédé le 17 octobre 1983 à 16h30, dans la voiture de l’Express […]

Mythes et miracles. Le 16 octobre, quelques jours avant le premier tour des élections présidentielles argentines, l’ancien président de l’Uruguay – une icône de la gauche sud-américaine – a résumé […]

The French school year began with a surprise announcement: schoolgirls could no longer wear a popular style of dress originating in the Islamic world, the abaya. Not longer after, the […]

  In the incubatory dark of social media, nonsense is propagating. In March 2022, shortly after Vladimir Putin’s renewed assault on Ukraine, noted IR theorist John Mearsheimer benefited from a […]

President Biden is hoping to cajole Ursula von der Leyen into her succeeding Jens Stoltenberg as the next Nato Secretary General in the wake of Ben Wallace’s candidacy being occluded […]

From the Social and Political Psychology Lab Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece — The recent Greek election results exhibited an almost unprecedented – and quite unforeseen […]

  By Hasret Dikici Bilgin   The Turkish voters went to the polls twice in the last month, first for the parliamentary elections and the first round of the presidential […]

Translated by Cross Lawrence The Anticipations Donald Trump seems to be surfing on his troubles with the American courts and Jair Bolsonaro has just returned to Brazil after three months […]

Michael Goldfarb, born 1950, in New York City is an American journalist and former London correspondent for NPR (National Public Radio). He’s the singular host of the podcast FRDH (First […]

Historians will not judge Biden kindly.  For the decision to exit Afghanistan and ensuing debacle he will rue the day. But the decision to run for office for a second […]

  Les anticipations   Donald Trump semble surfer sur ses déboires avec la justice américaine et Jair Bolsonaro vient de rentrer au Brésil depuis trois mois passés en Floride. Les […]

Around midday on June 7, 1962, residents of Algeria’s capital city watched smoke rise above the buildings in Alger-Centre, near the port. Nearly three months after the signing of a […]

Après avoir fait face à des menaces de toutes sortes culminant avec l’invasion des palais de la « Place des trois pouvoirs » conçu par Oscar Niemeyer, le gouvernement Lula […]

« Perdeu mané … »* « Un fascisme sans tradition est inconcevable» —Pier Paolo Pasolini, Petrolio Le 15 novembre 2022, un ministre de la Cour suprême brésilienne, harcelé dans les […]

After all the drama and derision of the UK’s political shenanigans over the last few months, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may well be measured on terms determined by a former […]

Four years ago, the founder of Tocqueville 21, Editor Emeritus Jacob Hamburger, mused on the 2018 midterm elections and the evaporation of a much-anticipated blue wave.    It would seem […]

In tomorrow’s midterm elections, I will vote in person for the first time since 2008. For the past decade and a half, I lived abroad in several countries in Africa […]

Elon Musk’s newfound sympathy with Putin’s war aims and his alleged contact with the Russian dictator; Kanye West’s antisemitic outburst; Musk’s warm welcome of West back to Twitter.—All of these […]

There are few genealogies of “property-owning democracy.”[1] This is a remarkable fact. In Britain and the United States competing visions of the idea have exerted a profound influence over both […]

Robespierre and Democracy: Four Perspectives It is just over two hundred and twenty eight years since Maximilien Robespierre fell from power. And yet Robespierre still has the capacity to incite […]

At Notre Dame, where I teach history and serve as provost, students use Pell grants to offset tuition payments. Biologists pay for microscopes through Indirect costs from National Institute of […]

  Of all the great political thinkers, few were as attentive to means of communication as Alexis de Tocqueville. One of the many things that amazed the young French diplomat […]

Elon Musk loves twitter. He is a committed twitter user. He loves it so much that he is trying to own it.   What he is not, I would contend, […]

Biopolitics! At the “Monument aux Mères Françaises” Some reflections on a natalist installation   Wandering through Paris a couple of weeks ago, I came across a small park just off […]

  Tribune « La Révolution a fondé une société, elle cherche encore son gouvernement. » Le journaliste Prévost-Paradol composa cette phrase en 1868, et dans l’attente des prochaines élections législatives, celle-ci n’a guère […]

A word with a long history in leftist movements has recently resurfaced in French political discourse: “hegemony.” It has been primarily used in connection with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who, thanks to […]

On Easter Sunday one hundred years ago, on the margins of a major international economic conference in Genoa, the foreign ministers of Bolshevik Russia and the new German “Weimar” Republic […]

There can be no doubt that February 24, 2022 will enter into the annals of caesura-creating dates alongside such perennials as September 1, 1939, December 7, 1941, November 9, 1989 […]

To debrief the second round of the French presidential elections, Tocqueville 21 has invited a distinguished set of academics, journalists, and commentators on French politics to provide their thoughts on […]

To debrief the second round of the French presidential elections, Tocqueville 21 has invited a distinguished set of academics, journalists, and commentators on French politics to provide their thoughts on […]

To debrief the first round of the French presidential elections, Tocqueville 21 has invited a distinguished set of academics, journalists, and commentators on French politics to provide their thoughts on […]

Polls suggest that President Emmanuel Macron enjoys a prohibitive lead in the elections to be held in France on April 10 and 24. While they seem unlikely to defeat him, […]

  The writing is on the wall for the 2022 French elections, and the word on everyone’s lips is perlimpinpin. With The Economist estimating a 90% chance of reelection for […]

“Never Put Yourself in a Position from Which You Cannot Retreat Without Losing Face and from Which You Cannot Advance Without Grave Risks” – Hans Morgenthau   This is the […]

This is part II of a four-part series on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, focusing on the economic ramifications of the Ukraine invasion. Part I can be found here. Part […]

This essay is the first in a series of analyses on the historical, geopolitical, and economic underpinnings of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Part I establishes a parallel between Russia […]

French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour has neither hidden nor made much of his being Jewish. When questioned—and almost exclusively when questioned; he seldom volunteers the information—he describes his Berber Jewish […]

“Two horses put before the same carriage, made to pull in opposing directions…” Over recent months, there have been rumblings of discontent on the American left about the United States […]

The 2022 presidential campaign launch of polemicist Eric Zemmour on the 30th of November caused a stir in the national French commentariat. In a video as (politically) flamboyant as a […]

Macron’s recalling of France’s ambassadors isn’t so much sound and fury as it is a shrewd move to shape the future of European security, and ensure France’s position at its […]

The surprise announcement on Wednesday, September 15, of a new naval defense partnership between Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom blindsided French President Emmanuel Macron. In 2016, Australia […]

  L’époque accélérée où nous vivons nous fait perdre la notion du temps. Cela fait déjà un peu plus de dix ans que Jean-Luc Mélenchon s’est rapproché du populisme de […]

  « Quand une société court irrésistiblement vers le mensonge, la seule consolation d’un cœur pur est d’en refuser les privilèges … Mais elle portait fièrement sa folie de vérité. » Ainsi […]

  Much has been written about President Emmanuel Macron’s introduction of the passe sanitaire in restaurants, shopping centres and cultural venues in France. This controversial move has put the spotlight […]

Albert Wu is assistant professor of history at the American University of Paris. He specializes in the global history of health and religion, and his latest book is From Christ to […]