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  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 […]

The president finally reacted to the results of Sunday’s election. His speech was short and largely devoid of content. Although the posture was confident, the prescriptions were vague: “Ma seule […]

I’ve published an article in The American Prospect on the legislative elections.

Historien, spécialiste de l’histoire politique et intellectuelle de la France contemporaine, professeur émérite des universités à l’Institut d’études politique de Paris, Michel Winock a écrit une quarantaine d’ouvrages. Il est […]

Although the definitive results are not yet in, one thing is already clear: President Macron has suffered a major defeat, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon has fallen considerably short of the goal […]

Yesterday I wrote that a) la NUPES would not win a majority in the legislature but b) would win enough votes to deprive Macron of an absolute majority, and that […]

Raymond Geuss Does Not Think Like a Liberal.   Reading Raymond Geuss’s Philosophy and Real Politics a couple years ago was like a breath of fresh air. Geuss was writing […]

The rise of la NUPES has sharpened the generational divide in French politics.  Le Monde reports that an IPSOS-Sopra Steria poll conducted before the first round shows Macron’s Ensemble! taking […]

The first round of the legislative elections yielded inconclusive results. The so-called “presidential” party, now named Ensemble!, could end up with a slim majority, but then again it may not. […]

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, […]

No, I’m not referring to the Boston Celtics. By “green machine” I mean the coalition of forces responsible for several important votes in the European Parliament today. MEPs rejected several […]

A book review of Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton University Press, 2019.) As World War II ended, European colonial empires of the 19th […]

This year’s legislative campaign, which will culminate on Sunday in the first of two electoral rounds, is perhaps the strangest I have witnessed in more than half a century of […]

When you’re wrong, it’s best to fess up. I said that la NUPES would be lucky to get 100 seats. Current projections have the Mélenchonistas gaining 195-230 seats! Macron’s Ensemble […]

A chaque nouveau quinquennat, on observe la même tendance : entrés à l’Elysée avec une cote de popularité élevée, les présidents subissent tous des périodes de forte désaffection. Le taux […]

Rawls’s A Theory of Justice at Fifty, a special edition Published in the spring of 2022, the latest edition of The Tocqueville Review is now available online. (Vol. 43, No. 1) L’édition la […]

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 […]

I’m in France for the first time in 2 1/2 years. I’ve spoken to many people in the past week who have tried to convince me that I’m underestimating the […]

Last week marked 100 days of all-out war in Ukraine. As markets fluctuate and inflation looms large, academics, journalists and thought leaders are slowly beginning to realize: we have reached […]

  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 […]

Emmanuel Macron is firmly at the controls of the aircraft, but its destination remains unclear. After three weeks of flying in circles, the pilot-in-chief settled on a new government but […]

Par Danielle Charette et Atman Mehta. Traduction par Justin Saint-Loubert Bie.   Nous nous sommes entretenus avec Aaron Tugendhaft à propos de son livre, La destruction des idoles : D’Abraham […]

I’ve been on an island with poor Internet since last Friday, so I’ve had to catch up on all the hot takes about Emmanuel Macron’s nomination of Elisabeth Borne to […]

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 […]

Despite the failure of the French left to advance a candidate to the second round of the presidential election for the second consecutive time, the political figure dominating the press […]

A book review of Paul Sabin’s Public Citizens: The Attack on Big Government and the Remaking of American Liberalism (W.W. Norton & Co., 2021)   1965 marked the highpoint for […]

Tocqueville 21: First of all, congratulations on the launch of Le Monde in English! The editors, contributors, and readers at Tocqueville 21 all know Le Monde well. In my own […]

  Justin Saint-Loubert-Bie, a former intern for Tocqueville 21, sat down with Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass to discuss their new book, Half-Earth Socialism (Verso: April 2022). In the publication, […]

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 […]

  The French Left’s “Historic” Unity The deal has been made. Days after Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Olivier Faure embraced one another at the May Day march in Paris, their parties […]

Elsewhere on this site you’ll find an excellent set of reviews of Martin Conway’s Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968. Of the immediate postwar period Conway writes: But Communism no longer […]

This is the introduction to our forum on Martin Conway’s new book Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968. 1. Embedded Democracy – Chris Bickerton 2. Comprendre les démocraties européennes après la […]

** This post is Martin Conway’s response to our forum on his new book, Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968.  You can read the previous reviews here:  1. Embedded Democracy – […]

** This is the third in a series of three reviews of Martin Conway’s new book Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968. Conway’s response will be published tomorrow. You can read […]

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 […]

** This is the second in a series of three reviews of Martin Conway’s new book Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968. 1. Embedded Democracy – Chris Bickerton 3. The Pre-History […]

L’unité fait la force, as the saying goes. Has Jean-Luc Mélenchon achieved the impossible, unifying the fractious French left as never before? Has he single-handedly revived the hope of a […]

** This is the first in a series of three reviews of Martin Conway’s new book Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968. 2. Comprendre les démocraties européennes après la Seconde Guerre […]

Revue de presse du 2 mai 2022 Suite à la victoire d’Emmanuel Macron à la présidentielle, l’attention se tourne vers les législatives du 12 juin. La question de l’abstentionnisme, qui […]

Review: The Atlantic Realists: Empire and International Thought Between Germany and the United States, by Matthew Specter (Stanford University Press, 2022)   Open any textbook on International Relations today, and […]

The dust has barely settled from the presidential election, but the legislative campaign is in full flood, with rumors swirling everywhere in the accelerating currents. Macron has “put a target […]

May 1, 18h30 (CET) The Case of Ourika Zoom REGISTER HERE The extended CCDS community is invited to the talk “The Case of Ourika: Children, the French Slave Trade and […]

There is no such thing as one-party democracy. Alternation in power must exist as a possibility. While Emmanuel Macron’s decisive victory on Sunday was unequivocally a victory for French democracy, […]

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 […]

Here’s my article on the election results in The New Republic. Here are a few additional thoughts. The republican front, said to have collapsed, still exists and remains fairly robust. […]

The winner of the 2022 French presidential election will soon be known, with many commentators comparing its historic character to the 2016 US election and the Brexit referendum.   From […]

In politics, they say, a week is a long time. Had I written this post a week or two ago, I would likely have entitled it “On the Brink” rather […]

I sum up the debate for The New Republic.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is calling on voters to elect him prime minister by filling the National Assembly with Unbowed deputies. Marion Maréchal, Guillaume Peltier, and Nicolas Bay–all ex-Le Penist turncoats–are calling […]

The much-awaited debate will take place tomorrow. The candidates have haggled over every aspect. By common agreement the studio will be kept at a chilly 19° C. to guard against […]

Une évaluation honnête de n’importe quelle campagne électorale mettrait en avant l’importance des images et des impressions. Pour cette saison en 2022, c’est d’autant plus vrai. Le deuxième représente avant […]

France Insoumise voters were asked to express their preference for the second round on the party Web site. 215,292 did so, and 37.65% said they would cast a blank protest […]

Tocqueville 21 · Post-Covid and Green Economics with Charles Dumas Welcome back to the Tocqueville 21 Podcast!  As the war in Ukraine and the French elections have drawn most media […]

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is entitled to a little crowing. He outran his polls and improved his position slightly compared with 2017. But in negotiations with the Greens and Socialists over a […]

Athens put Socrates to death for leading its youth astray, and ever since some who aspire to the title “philosopher” have sought to demonstrate their worthiness to be Socrates’ successors […]

Most commentary on the election has concentrated on the personalities and policies of the candidates. What little attention has been devoted to deeper structural changes in French society has tended […]

I emerge briefly from behind the blog to discuss the election on Korean television.

Emmanuel Macron has a problem. His largest reservoir of potential voters lies among those who voted for Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round. The endorsements he has received from Nicolas […]

Again in The New Republic.

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 […]

I am slightly more confident now than I was a few hours ago that Marine Le Pen will not be the next president of France. True, she improved her first-round […]

French President Emmanuel Macron has graced the pages of the likes of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal many times in recent weeks, but not for the […]

Lucien Jaume is a philosopher, political scientist and professor at Sciences Po who has contributed to the rediscovery of the French liberal tradition. The author of numerous books on the […]

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, […]

I’m still betting on Macron, but I’m also sweating, for reasons I set forth in this article for The New Republic.

On John Rawls: A special edition of The Tocqueville Review. In the next few days, The Tocqueville Review will be publishing its Spring 2022 Edition. Keep a close look at […]

April 19, 19h30 (CET) Interpreting the French Presidential Election Zoom REGISTER HERE With France heading into a tumultuous presidential contest, the Mile End Institute has brought together a panel of […]

The polls are alarming. First-round polling suggests that the second round will be a repeat of 2017, with Macron facing off against Le Pen, but Le Pen has been closing […]

April 12, 17h00 (CET) Clara Rachel Eybalin Casséus Francophonie Through Decoloniality Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE Clara Rachel Eybalin Casséus will present her latest book, Une Caraïbe décoloniale: […]

In 2016 I traveled around France interviewing participants in the events of May and June 1968 for a book I was preparing, May Made Me, an oral history of the […]

  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 […]

Souverainisme Depuis le déclenchement de la guerre en Ukraine, une question revient en boucle dans l’actualité : celle de l’unité européenne et de son indépendance énergétique, sécuritaire et agroalimentaire. Si […]

A book review of Michael J. Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? (Penguin, Allen Lane, 2021). “Those who work hard and play by the rules […]

Jean-Luc Mélenchon held a rally this weekend and, by common consent, assembled the largest crowd of the campaign. He has risen modestly in the polls as Zemmour and Pécresse have […]

What happened to the candidacy of Anne Hidalgo? Recent polls have put her at around 2-2.5%, about a third of the dismal score that Benoît Hamon made in 2017, which […]

March 23, 17h00 (CET) Julian Culp (AUP) Democratic Citizenship Education in Digitized Societies Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE     In this paper I offer a new conceptualization […]

** This is the author’s response to a series of four reviews of Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanction as a Tool of Modern War. […]

  DATE TBD Delphine Dogot (Law of Université catholique de Lille) Augmented Order: The Ordering Promises Of Blockchain Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE   Blockchain technologies are deployed […]

First off, an exciting conclusion to an exciting series: Samuel Moyn of Yale has been giving the Carlyle Lectures at Oxford on the theme of “The Cold War and the […]

Review of Philippe Le Goff, Auguste Blanqui and the Politics of Popular Empowerment (Bloomsbury, 2020)   In June 1852, the incarcerated radical Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881) wrote a publicised letter describing […]

“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 the fourth in a series of four reviews of Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanction as a Tool of Modern War. 1. […]

** This is the third in a series of four reviews of Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanction as a Tool of Modern War. Each […]

** This is the second in a series of four reviews of Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanction as a Tool of Modern War. The […]

** This is the first in a series of four reviews of Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanction as a Tool of Modern War. Each […]

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 […]

Parties no longer count for much. Elections hinge on personalities, or at any rate personae, and public personae are created by the media. So I thought it would be interesting […]

As threats of a Russian invasion of Ukraine inundate the news cycle, Emmanuel Macron has reasserted crucial diplomatic influence between the White House and the Kremlin in hopes of averting […]

On March 3 at 11AM EST I will be participating in a panel on the French elections.

It looks more and more like the 2022 presidential election will not be about electing the next president–few doubt that the incumbent will be re-elected–but rather about the future complexion […]

Revue de presse du 14 février 2022   La France, L’Energie   Le nucléaire fait son grand retour en France avec l’annonce par le Président Macron de la construction de six […]

Emmanuel Macron has been accused of being the “president of the rich,” but he has his ways of reaching out to “la France qui se lève tôt.” One of them, […]

This year’s presidential campaign has thus far generated little excitement, but behind the scenes a remarkable party realignment seems to be well under way. This was underscored by three events […]

  Liberalism In an intriguing essay for Engelsberg Ideas, Samuel Gregg offers an introduction to the thought of Jacques Rueff – arguably one of France’s most influential liberal thinkers. A […]

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 […]

Tocqueville 21 · East Asian Geopolitics with Leo Howard Welcome back to the Tocqueville 21 Podcast! We’ve got quite an interesting array of episodes planned for the coming weeks on […]

“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 […]