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When we imagine the mythic origins of democracy, we often picture a gathering of diverse people, with diverse interests, collectively deciding how to live together. Ultimately, as the word’s etymology […]

The gauntlet has been thrown down. An angry Édouard Philippe appeared on TV tonight to attempt to explain why the violence in Paris had gotten so out of hand on […]

Ewa Atanassow teaches political theory at Bard College Berlin. Her latest book, co-edited with Tocqueville Review Editorial Board member Alan Kahan, is Liberal Moments: Reading Liberal Texts (Bloomsbury, 2018). Ewa […]

Joël Charbit est docteur en sociologie de l’université Lille 1 et chercheur associé au CLERSE (UMR 8019). Ses travaux portent sur la participation des personnes détenues au gouvernement des prisons […]

Place Publique, the brainchild of essayist Raphaël Glucksmann, was originally intended to unify the fissiparous left. Having failed in that mission impossible, it will now take its place among the […]

Review of Le Retour des populismes : L’État du monde 2019, edited by Bertrand Badie and Dominique Vidal (La Découverte, 2018).   The populism industry is booming. According to numbers assembled […]

Yesterday, former French president François Hollande addressed a student conference at Harvard’s Kennedy School and then met with faculty and students to discuss European and trans-Atlantic politics (in the picture […]

Review of Matthew Pressman, On Press: The Liberal Values That Shaped the News (Harvard University Press, 2018)     Readers imagining the history of the American news media might think of […]

This is the second article in Tocqueville 21’s series on prisons, police, and democracy.   When Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave Beaumont arrived in America in 1831, they did so […]

As France’s political parties wither away, French civil society may be organizing itself to fill the void. Perhaps that is too optimistic a read of what those perennial civil-society reformers, […]

Bernard E. Harcourt is a critical theorist, professor of law and political science at Columbia University, and practicing death penalty attorney. He has written extensively on the relationship between neoliberal […]

There’s something strange, almost perverse, in the idea that prisons and police have anything to do with democracy at all. Of course, every country that calls itself a democracy patrols […]

Emmanuel Macron has stolen the thunder of the Gilets Jaunes by embarking on a Magical Mystery Tour. Calling the traveling Macron show a Grand Débat National is an ingenious camouflage. […]

David Runciman s’est rendu à l’Université de Chicago en février 2019 pour y donner une conférence sur la notion d’ « artificialité » chez Hobbes et présenter son dernier livre, How Democracy Ends. […]

Danielle Charette and Robert Stone sat down this week with Josiah Ober, the Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Professor of classics and political science at Stanford University. They discussed Professor Ober’s latest book, Demopolis (Cambridge, […]

Fini la comédie! Il faut savoir terminer un fiasco. For more than three months now, all the thinking and (especially) talking heads of France and Navarre have been trying hard […]

Jacob Hamburger and Danielle Charette sat down with David Runciman at the University of Chicago, just after his Political Theory Workshop presentation, where he connected ideas of artificiality and corporatism […]

Stephen Sawyer’s post in January on the democratic paradoxes of the administrative state got me thinking, somewhat tangentially, about the Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein. Like many non-lawyers, I first came […]

At first I minimized l’Affaire Benalla. When the story of his video-recorded misdeeds first hit the news, I appeared on France24 and expressed my firm opinion that what happened on […]

It’s back to the Renaissance: France and Italy are at war. Will we witness a new Battle of Marignano, where the French were victorious, or a Battle of Pavia, where […]

After what Le Monde has called “Eight months of hostilities” between France and Italy, the Quai d’Orsay recalled its ambassador from Rome. The stated reason was a meeting this week held between Luigi Di […]

  After a number of comments and conversations since my last post on the so-called “nationalist” left in Europe, I have two quick thoughts I want to add. First, some people […]

This article is adapted from Demos Assembled: Democracy and the International Origins of the Modern State, 1840-1880, by Stephen W. Sawyer (University of Chicago Press, 2018).   Perhaps no one in […]

The Gilets Jaunes, contemners of a political system they regard as rotten to the core, are in the process of discovering that the anti-political invariably leads to the political. Two […]

The IPP has released a new report on the cumulative effect of Macron’s budgets since taking office (h/t Ashoka Mody). Here is the executive summary: Cette note étudie les réformes […]

Una Blagojević, Cody James Inglis, et Ivana Mihaela Žimbrek ont été ou sont actuellement doctorants à la Central European University. Cet article a paru en anglais le 9 décembre 2018. Traduction […]

I try not to be cynical–well, not too cynical–about politics. Too many people already are. But when the president formerly known as Jupiter takes up pen and paper and asks […]

Detest her politics as one must, one also has to admire the way Marine Le Pen has played her cards. After her disastrous performance in the final presidential debate, she […]

In the attempt to hold myself to my new year’s resolution of posting here rather than in long Twitter threads, I want to flesh out my reaction to a provocative […]

I look beyond French borders to consider the evolving political situation in Europe’s four largest economies in the winter issue of The American Prospect.

To hear the Gilets Jaunes tell it, you’d think the government has nothing on its mind but how to squeeze the last centime out of the harried taxpayer. But every […]

I have a short piece out in Dissent exploring the implications of the gilets jaunes movement for La France insoumise and left populism in general. Part of my motivation to write this was an observation that […]

In his New Year’s vœux to the nation, Emmanuel Macron listed the reforms that would be at the top of his agenda for 2019. In particular: “Le gouvernement dans les prochains mois […]

Last month, Samuel Moyn declared in The Chronicle of Higher Education that law schools might be bad for democracy. He seems to have struck a nerve. Moyn, a prominent human […]

If I thought my opinion carried any weight in the world, I would be more circumspect in expressing it. I would worry that my exasperation with Emmanuel Macron would push […]

Médiapart has given all of us France-watchers a fantastic New Year’s gift, revealing today in an interview with Alexandre Benalla that the disgraced former security consultant for Emmanuel Macron claims […]

My latest on the state of France in The New Republic.

As we’ve been hearing for more than a month now, the French are upset about a supposed decrease in their pouvoir d’achat owing to Macron’s reforms. On Mediapolis this morning the political scientist […]

My post yesterday outlining my disappointment with Emmanuel Macron was prompted by a question from Hugo Drochon, the author of Nietzsche’s Great Politics, with whom I have discussed French politics […]

A good friend wrote today saying that he sensed I had become disappointed with Macron and wondered why. Here is my answer: Yes, you’re right that I’m disappointed in Macron. […]

The fundamental problem of the French presidency has been unexpectedly highlighted by Emmanuel Macron’s response to the Gilets Jaunes. Florence Aubenas, writing in Le Monde, noted that in her visits […]

Review of Kamel Daoud, Chroniques: Selected Columns, 2010-2016 (Other Press, 2018) Translated by Elisabeth Zerofsky I’m a latecomer to the Affaire Daoud. I overlooked the fawning coverage that Kamel Daoud’s novel, […]

Tocqueville 21 is very excited to announce that Danielle Charette will be joining us as co-editor of the blog, focusing on books, culture, and the arts. Danielle is a doctoral […]

I have an article on the Gilets Jaunes and Macron’s response on the Foreign Affairs Web site. Free, but registration required.

One stray observation that I think has been lost in some of the discussion of the gilets jaunes movement. Now that the fuel tax increases have been cancelled and Macron […]

Last night Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation. Did he save his skin? My first reaction was negative, based more on a visceral response to his presentation–poor–than on the substance of […]

  Je n’ai pas une âme de manifestante. Bien qu’ayant grandi entre Bastille et République, sur la trajectoire de toutes les grandes manif parisiennes, je n’ai pas été éduquée sous […]

I did an interview with France24 on Saturday, which I post here for those interested in an interim take while awaiting President Macron’s statement this evening. I’ve also written an […]

  The authors of this post, Una Blagojević, Cody James Inglis, and Ivana Mihaela Žimbrek, are current and former graduate students at Central European University. Lire cet article en français.   The […]

Les gilets jaunes sont souvent réduits dans la sphère médiatique à leurs actions spectaculaires ou aux coups de sang de ceux qui veulent passer à l’écran. Il y a derrière […]

Here are some data relevant to the French riots. What are the effects of Macron’s tax reforms on disposable income? If one looks only at active households, the middle-class gains […]

Half a century ago, Raymond Aron wrote of the French that “ce peuple, apparemment tranquille, est encore dangereux.” His observation has once again been borne out. Yesterday’s violent demonstrations, not […]

Over the last several years I’ve tried to resist comparisons between Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Bernie Sanders, mostly because these comparisons tend to posit a simplistic notion of “left-wing populism” that […]

When I was learning to ride a bicycle at around age 5, I was stung by a yellow jacket, lost my balance, and fell to the ground. I have been […]

France is finally on the verge of a national mobilization capable of bringing the country to its knees: the gilets jaunes movement, which began primarily as a revolt against diesel taxes […]

It has become commonplace to diagnose European politics with a populist disease, even as the meaning of populism is often left vague and contested. Evidence to this effect is drawn […]

The Point Magazine was kind enough to invite me to participate in a series of reflections on the 2018 midterms. My thoughts on voting after moving from Paris to Chicago […]

The evolution of photography seems to correspond with our modern capacity for sympathy. Someone in a Facetime conversation feels more present than a news clip from a month ago, while […]

Hearing the news of the raids on the offices of La France insoumise and the home of Jean-Luc Mélenchon last week, one might have had some sympathy for the left-wing party […]

France finally has its remaniement. Tonight President Macron came not to explain what he had done but to insist that it was meaningless and of no importance: the direction had not […]

President of the rich? The label has now stuck fast to the once-Teflon Macron, but does it reflect reality? Le Monde today published figures from the Institut de Politiques Publiques showing the […]

I got it wrong yesterday. I assumed that Macron’s refusal of Collomb’s resignation was meant to humiliate Collomb. It was, but I failed to reckon with Collomb’s orneriness. He resubmitted […]

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, a common narrative to explain the state of American democracy has been the story of “norm erosion.” The premise of this narrative is […]

Emmanuel Macron claims that he has heard the complaints about his arrogance and is prepared to change his style in order to govern more effectively. No change is discernible, however, […]

Review of Elie Baranets, Comment perdre une guerre : Une théorie du contournement démocratique (CNRS Editions, 2017)   In November 1968, Daniel Ellsberg wrote a review of a book-length debate with multiple […]

Two years is an eternity in politics. Two years ago, Macron’s En Marche! was not a party but a movement, full of youthful vigor and enthusiasm, in the image of […]

To mark the sixtieth birthday of France’s Fifth Republic, I recently went and flipped through a chapter I had been meaning to come back to in Raymond Aron’s Démocratie et totalitarisme […]

Maneuvering has begun in advance of the 2019 European elections. Alain Juppé summoned his troops to the Vendanges de Bordeaux, a private meeting intended to consider possible electoral strategies for […]

Emmanuel Macron’s second rentrée resembles the first. The president is trying to get the ship of state back on an even keel after a rough summer in heavy seas. The Benalla Affair […]

Is a republican politics—in the sense of the French République—possible in the United States? Much has been said about Mark Lilla’s The Once and Future Liberal and the November 2016 New York […]

First, let me express my gratitude to Tocqueville 21 and The Tocqueville Review/La Revue Tocqueville for hosting this symposium and for the sharp and constructive remarks of the respondents. My […]

What is there left to say about Mark Lilla’s The Once and Future Liberal? Few serious books about American politics in recent years have prompted such an impressive volume of […]

After the 2016 election Democrats were left to ponder: what went wrong and what was to be done? Of the many interventions that followed, perhaps none generated as much debate […]

Lilla swings hard. On almost every page of this essay we learn that as far as American politics goes, someone has done or is doing something they shouldn’t; someone is […]

Until watching Morgan Neville’s documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, it had been a long while since I’d given Mister Rogers much thought. If he came up at all in […]

One of the most frequent criticisms on the French left of La France insoumise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (a criticism I have addressed in other writing) is that the “populist” movement and […]

The two years since Trump’s election have seen calls for a return to the activist ethos of the Civil Rights movement. The shock victory of “the first white president” and […]

Nicolas Hulot resigned this morning. The announcement came suddenly, without warning to either the prime minister or the president. “I don’t want to go on lying to myself,” the former […]

There have been rumors that François Hollande is contemplating a return to politics reported in French media over the last several weeks. Perhaps the stalling of the rise of his Wünderkind successor […]

What better time to launch a few trial balloons than the August doldrums. A Le Monde interview with former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is rich in instruction as to thinking of this […]

This post is based on a series of three articles written by Levent Yilmaz for the online magazine AOC (Analyse, Opinion Critique).   I was in Naples on 15 July […]

For those of us who came of age in the ’60s, 1968 was an annus mirabilis. I look back at those tumultuous times in an article for The Nation.

American democracy is in crisis, and if the latest headlines are to be believed, the cause of this crisis is a breakdown of civility, which can refer to anything from […]

In politics you never know what’s going to trip you up. Slow growth and sticky unemployment stats would have spoiled Macron’s summer in any case, but who could have predicted […]

I haven’t had much time to post lately, and so I’m sharing a review I wrote of last year’s winners of the Goncourt and Renaudot prizes that I’ve had in […]

Editor’s note: this post is based on a paper given at the American University of Paris’s conference on the fiftieth anniversary of Mai ’68 this past June. To see all […]

A roundtable exchange on Samuel Moyn, Not Enough (Harvard University Press, 2018)   Donald Trump is President of the United States, and when he has not been threatening immigrants and ethnic minorities […]

This article is Samuel Moyn’s response to the roundtable exchange on his new book, Not Enough (Harvard University Press, 2018).   In our interesting moment, Not Enough offers nothing like a definitive […]

This review is the third in our roundtable exchange on Samuel Moyn, Not Enough (Harvard University Press, 2018).   Samuel Moyn’s Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World provides an engaged, […]

This review is the fourth in our roundtable exchange on Samuel Moyn, Not Enough (Harvard University Press, 2018).   No one has done more than Samuel Moyn to reinvigorate the historical analysis […]

This review is the second in our roundtable exchange on Samuel Moyn, Not Enough (Harvard University Press, 2018).   To appreciate Samuel Moyn’s new book Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal […]

Cet article est le premier dans notre échange sur Samuel Moyn, Not Enough (Harvard University Press, 2018).    Les droits humains nous obligent-ils à « bénir » un capitalisme dérégulé et inégalitaire, selon la […]

Since Jacques Chirac reduced the term of the French presidency from 7 years to 5, no one has won a second term. The approval ratings of both Sarkozy and Hollande […]

I have a long article in the new issue of Dissent examining the potential future of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and La France insoumise. When I first thought to do a piece on LFI, not […]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this week became the Democratic nominee and presumptive winner in the NY14 congressional race. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America—a left-wing organization whose membership […]

(Read in English) Lecture de Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism (Verso, 2018)   La philosophe belge Chantal Mouffe demeure paradoxalement plus familière au monde anglo-américain qu’à un public français. Espérons que […]

(Lire en français) Review of Chantal Mouffe, For a Left Populism (Verso, 2018)   Though the Belgian philosopher Chantal Mouffe remains far better known in the Anglo-American world than in France, this […]

Emmanuel Macron has won a Pyrrhic victory. From the beginning of his presidency he has made winning Germany’s assent to a “Eurozone budget” a strategic goal. Conventional wisdom, which despite […]

When French and American scholars and journalists attempt to discuss the role of religion in their respective democracies, it is often apparent that in more senses than one, they are […]

This is Joan Wallach Scott’s reply to her four reviewers in our critical exchange on her book Sex and Secularism. To see the four reviews, follow the link here.   I […]