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** This is the second in a series of four reviews of Sarah Shortall’s new book Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and Twentieth-Century French Politics. Each […]

** This is the first in a series of four reviews of Sarah Shortall’s new book Soldiers of God in a Secular World: Catholic Theology and Twentieth-Century French Politics. Each […]

In a wonderful contribution to the newest issue of The Tocqueville Review / La Revue Tocqueville (Vol. 42, No. 2, 2021), David A. Bell writes about Alexis de Tocqueville’s reflections […]

Published in the Fall of 2021, the latest edition of The Tocqueville Review is now available online. (Vol. 42, No. 2) L’édition la plus récente de La Revue Tocqueville, publiée en […]

The Netanyahus : A Reading and Talk with Joshua Cohen Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at 19:30 10, rue du Général Camou, 75007 Paris Please RSVP for in-person attendance (limited) or […]

The jaws of French talking heads have been flapping wildly since Emmanuel Macron vented his sentiments about the unvaccinated: “J’ai très envie de les emmerder.” The English-speaking media have chosen […]

January 19, 18ho0 (CET) Paola Monachesi  Mediating Sustainable Cities Remote REGISTER HERE   What is the relation between digital and environmental sustainability? How can data contribute to a more sustainable […]

A book review of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (Norton, 2020)    In late November of this year, the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) […]

Valérie Pécresse reportedly intends to devote the beginning of her campaign to “le régalien“: “Il ne faut pas lâcher cette thématique, au moins jusqu’à fin janvier, insiste le député Eric Pauget. Son […]

The CCDS events program commenced with a lecture entitled, “How Should Republicans Conceive of Transnational Solidarity?” given by Dr. Miriam Ronzoni in conjunction with the Contemporary European Democratic Theory lecture […]

A new poll sheds light on the Pécresse electorate. It is essentially the Fillon electorate–older, more likely to be retired, more Catholic, and wealthier than the average voter–augmented by a […]

Just what the left needs: another presidential candidate. “Squabble among yourselves; leave me out of it,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon. One can understand his frustration. Meanwhile, the Macroniste camp called attention […]

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 […]

  Revue de presse du 16 décembre 2021. « Oui ! suivez-moi, suivez-moi. Je suis le dieu du jour. » L’homme qui prononça ses paroles est en réalité devenu dieu d’un mois. Décembre, […]

Emmanuel Macron’s second presidential campaign will be nothing like his first. In 2016-17 he enjoyed the advantage of enigma: no one knew who he was or what he represented (though […]

Listen to Tocqueville 21’s Director Prof. Stephen Sawyer on France Culture’s Les Chemins de la Philosophie as he discusses Tocqueville, public opinion, and democracy.   LISTEN HERE    

As I predicted in my previous post, Valérie Pécresse has obtained a significant “post-convention bounce,” while Éric Zemmour has slumped. A new IFOP poll has Macron at 25% and Pécresse […]

A book review of James Wyllie’s Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler’s Germany (St Martin’s Press, 2019). Within the proliferation of literature on seemingly every aspect of […]

On Thursday (look it up!) I predicted that Pécresse would win the LR runoff 60-40. It was just announced that she got 60.95% of the final vote. You heard it […]

In an interview with Le Monde, historian Robert Paxton refutes Éric Zemmour’s contention that Vichy sacrificed “foreign” Jews to save “French” Jews. One hopes that this admirably concise statement of […]

Ciotti 25.59% and Pécresse 25%, a perfect picture of the LR today. Ciotti is of course the most Zemmour-compatible of Les Républicains, while Pécresse, like Bertrand, was for a while […]

Today, Josephine Baker entered the Pantheon, and Éric Zemmour declared his candidacy for the presidency. The contrast between the two events could not have been greater. The Baker pantheonization was […]

December 8, 17h30 (CET) Marc Hecker (IFRI) and Élie Tenenbaum (IFRI) The End of the War on Terror?  Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE   It has already been […]

Anyone who follows French presidential elections knows that there is a regular pattern to insurgent candidacies. The first movement is triumphal and allegro. The crescendos build as the novel candidate […]

December 7, 18h30 (CET) Jennifer Anne Boittin (Penn State University) Undesirable: Passionate Mobility and Women’s Defiance of French Colonial Policing 1919-1952 Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE This presentation […]

The new German government will be announced in a few minutes. There will be no surprises: Olaf Scholz of the SPD will be chancellor, Robert Habeck of the Greens will […]

Renaud Muselier, the president of PACA, has quit Les Républicains. The reason: he believes that the party he helped to found has erased the line that used to divide it […]

December 8, 17h30 (CET) Marc Hecker (IFRI) and Élie Tenenbaum (IFRI) The End of the War on Terror?  Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE   It has already been […]

The aim of the lecture series is to both explore the current state of the start of contemporary European democratic theory and explore its future. Rather than starting from a […]

The Center for Critical Democracy Studies is hosting Chiara Cordelli for a talk entitled “The Privatized State.” Prof. Cordelli will be discussing a chapter of her recent book with the […]

Raphaëlle Bacqué and Ariane Chemin, Le Monde‘s indefatigable political profilers, published today a profile of Billionaire Vincent Bolloré, whom they credit with having established “un pôle réactionnaire” in the media, which […]

Tocqueville 21 · Alexander Kliment on Political Satire We’re happy to present the ninth episode of the Tocqueville 21 podcast! Today, we begin a new series of episodes exploring political […]

As it does every year, the Institut des Politiques Publiques has published an assessment of the distributive consequences of the government’s economic and social policies. Macron haters will be disappointed […]

France and Germany are headed for a major clash over the development of nuclear power. On Tuesday, President Macron announced that France would begin building new nuclear power plants for […]

Anyone watching the debate among the five LR candidates for the party’s presidential nomination must be wondering whatever happened to Europe. The first questions asked of each candidate were 1) […]

A book review of Noah Feldman’s The Arab Winter: A Tragedy (Princeton University Press, 2020). 2011 was the year of the upheaval known as the ‘Arab Spring,’ a time when […]

  RESCHEDULED: NOVEMBER 22, 18h30 (CET) Carlo Burelli (University of Genova) and Enrico Biale (University of Piemonte Orientale) SHOULD THE PEOPLE CONTROL PUBLIC SPENDING? A NORMATIVE ASSESSMENT OF BALANCED BUDGET […]

  French politics   French politics has been unusually present in the US media of late: in Jacobin, Harrison Stetler reports on Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s presidential candidacy, which so […]

The Polish supreme court has raised a direct challenge to the supremacy of the Treaty of the European Union over the laws of member states. The Polish court grants the […]

In a poll conducted in February 2021, Fondapol asked voters in France, Germany, Italy, and the UK to place themselves on a left-right spectrum. In all four countries, self-described right-wing […]

The aim of the lecture series is to both explore the current state of the start of contemporary European democratic theory and explore its future. Rather than starting from a […]

The Financial Times has an article today on the replacement of Hervé Gattegno as editor of the Journal du Dimanche and Paris Match, allegedly at the behest of the owner of both […]

  To start off this week, two columns in The Week by Samuel Goldman.  First, Goldman urges those following developments in American higher education to reflect on the “institutional distinctives” […]

Ipsos, CEVIPOF, the Fondation Jean Jaurès, and Le Monde have combined to produce the clearest snapshot to date of the state of the French electorate in advance of the 2022 […]

  À découvrir dans la presse : Trois hommages à des individus remarquables La semaine passée, un chapitre de l’Histoire s’est clos avec la mort d’Hubert Germain, dernier Compagnon de […]

The title, with its nod to Sartre’s L’Être et le Néant, is probably all that one needs to read, but Davet and Lhomme, the duo who put the final nails […]

In the Times Literary Supplement, Michael Sonenscher has reviewed the final volume of Tocqueville’s Œuvres Complètes: Quite a few people, setting out for their first visit to, say, China from […]

A book review of Ann Heberlein’s On Love and Tyranny: The Life and Politics of Hannah Arendt. Translated from Swedish by Alice Menzies (Pushkin Press, 2021). Before she became a celebrated New […]

Le Samedi 9 Octobre, la France a fêté  le 40e anniversaire de l’abolition de la peine de mort. Parmi les événements commémorés par la presse, on compte le discours de […]

Tocqueville 21 · Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman on Immigration Hi everyone, for this week’s episode of the Tocqueville 21 Podcast, I spoke with Deepak Bhargava and Ruth Milkman about […]

Yesterday the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released the “Pandora Papers,” the organization’s most recent and expansive disclosure of financial secrecy and malfeasance to date. The revelations of the investigation […]

Tocqueville 21 · Digital Human Rights and Cybersecurity with Susan Perry We’re happy to present the sixth episode of the Tocqueville 21 podcast! This week, we continue our short series […]

The French party system, already fractured beyond recognition, has disintegrated even more in recent weeks. True, the Greens now have a candidate, Yannick Jadot, behind whom they have nominally united […]

Tocqueville 21 · The Great Divergence with Gagan Sood Our discussion with Professor Gagan Sood of the London School of Economics continues this week in the fifth episode of the […]

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 […]

Sur les deux rives de l’Atlantique, les statues font partie du débat actuel sur la mémoire collective. Pour la Vie des idées, Arnaud Exbalin commente Les statues de la discorde, […]

James Shapiro, Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Our Future (Penguin Press, 2020)   In June 2017, New York City’s Public Theater […]

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 […]

France is angry. She has recalled her ambassadors from the US and Australia. Yesterday, not one but two major news organizations contacted me for comment. “I can’t help you,” I […]

Tocqueville 21 · The End of History with Gagan Sood Back from the summer hiatus, we’re happy to present the fourth episode of the Tocqueville 21 podcast! This week, we […]

** Last week, Tocqueville 21 published a book forum consisting of four reviews of Samuel Moyn’s new book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War followed by […]

After nearly four years with Tocqueville 21, I am stepping down from my role editing the blog. Already for much of this past year, my role has been a bit […]

** This response from Samuel Moyn completes the Tocqueville 21 forum on his new book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. Four reviews of Humane, by […]

** This is the fourth in a series of four reviews of Samuel Moyn’s new book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. Each day this week […]

** This is the third in a series of four reviews of Samuel Moyn’s new book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. Each day this week […]

** This is the second in a series of four reviews of Samuel Moyn’s new book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. Each day this week […]

** This is the first in a series of four reviews of Samuel Moyn’s new book Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War. Each day this week […]

The Republican presidential field took on a new complexion today. Michel Barnier announced that he is in, as did Eric Ciotti, but Laurent Wauquiez took himself out of the running. […]

  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 […]

It seems that Éric Zemmour may be on the verge of throwing his hat in the ring for 2022 and that a fair number of ex-Lepenist politicians may be prepared […]

Kathryn Sikkink, The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilities (Yale University Press, 2020) Kathryn Sikkink, Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is one of the […]

  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 […]

  Chantal Mouffe is a democratic theorist whose work as been cited as an inspiration for radical political movements across the globe, and who has elicited controversy for her advoacy […]

  Review of Eric Rauchway, Why the New Deal Matters (Yale, 2021).   The ongoing pandemic is the worst crisis the United States has endured since World War II. Over […]

Greg Conti offers a response to his reviewers in our “Parliamentary Thinking” book forum.    It was a pleasure for me to read the commentaries by David Ragazzoni and Arthur […]

This is the fourth and final review in our “Parliamentary Thinking” book forum.   Review of Parliament the Mirror of the Nation: Representation, Deliberation and Democracy in Victorian Britain by […]

This is the third review in our “Parliamentary Thinking” book forum.   Review of Parliament the Mirror of the Nation: Representation, Deliberation and Democracy in Victorian Britain by Gregory Conti (Cambridge […]

At the end of Volume I of Democracy in America, in a section entitled “On Republican Institutions in the United States: What Are the Chances of Their Survival,” Alexis de […]

Robert Zaretsky, The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021) Simone Weil is considered today among the foremost twentieth-century French intellectuals, on par […]

 Tocqueville 21 · Human Rights with Kerstin Carlson We’re happy to announce the release of the third episode of the Tocqueville 21 podcast! This week, we continue our short […]

Tocqueville 21 · American Foreign Policy with Peter Zeihan We’re proud to announce that the second episode of the Tocqueville 21 podcast is available today! This week, we begin a […]

    Review of J.H. Elliot, Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion (Yale University Press).   Are the United Kingdom and Scotland barreling toward a crisis over Scottish independence of […]

The 2021 regionals are history. What to make of the results? First, the vast majority of voters continued to abstain. Second, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National suffered a severe setback. […]

Tocqueville 21 · French Politics with Art Goldhammer We are proud to launch the Tocqueville 21 Podcast! Our goal is for this podcast to be a forum to explore in-depth […]

The Guardian asked me to comment on last Sunday’s election. You can read the article here. Of course, the RN could still take PACA next Sunday, but the idea that […]

  Review essay on Antoine Vauchez and Pierre France, The Neoliberal Republic: Corporate Lawyers, Statecraft, and the Making of Public-Private France (Cornell University Press, 2021)   En 1976, dans un […]

  James McAuley, until recently the Paris correspondent for the Washington Post, has received glowing coverage of his book “The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall […]

The headline that emerges from the first round of this year’s regional elections is that, once again, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National did not achieve the gains anticipated by many […]

  Review of Bruno Amable & Stefano Palombarini, The Last Neoliberal: Macron and the origins of France’s Political Crisis  (Verso, 2021)   Depending on one’s perspective, social democracy’s divorce with […]

On June 3, 2021, Gallimard published volumes 1, 2, and 3 of Tome XVII of the Complete Works of Tocqueville.   With the addition of these three volumes of Tocqueville’s […]

The authors of this essay are members of the “DeRadicalisation in Europe and Beyond: Detect, Resolve, Reintegrate” research project funded by the European Research Council.   Recent mass shootings in […]

The warning signs have been present for some time. Les Républicains are on the verge of a crackup. Caught between Macron’s LRM and Le Pen’s RN, the party’s electoral space […]

For the first time in its history, the European Union will arm foreign governments in the name of fighting terrorism, protecting civilians, and stabilizing fragile states, using a €5 billion […]

La laïcité–the distinctive French approach to the separation of church and state–has been a matter of contentious debate for decades. That debate has become even more heated in the past […]

On May 19, the forces de l’ordre, as the French like to say, demonstrated throughout France. The demonstration had three purposes, two clearly legitimate, the third more questionable. The first purpose […]

Thomas Piketty a connu un succès fulgurant  aux États-Unis avec son ouvrage Le Capital au XXIe siècle qui a lancé une conversation nationale sur l’inégalité, son livre le plus récent, […]

Critique du livre Les statues de la discorde de Jacqueline Lalouette, Paris, Passés / Composés, 2021. Aux États-Unis, le vandalisme de statues évoquant l’esclavage s’est développé depuis la mort de […]

I assess her chances in Persuasion. The short answer: yes.

James Baldwin’s paternal grandmother was born into slavery. The preceding generations had lived and died in it. Chronology is not causation, but the writer’s attraction to the radical current can […]