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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 […]

The results of the People’s Primary were announced yesterday on a platform full of young activists, none of whom seemed to be more than 30 years old: “Never trust anyone […]

February 10, 17h00 (CET) Jessica Feldman (AUP) Technology, Activism and the Social Good Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE     The American University of Paris invites you to […]

The French party system is in deep distress. This was already apparent in 2017, when the arrival of “neither right nor left” candidate Emmanuel Macron destructured the opposition that had […]

Our director Stephen Sawyer will be giving a talk entitled “The Birth of the Democratic Social Contract, 1800-1850” at the SPOT seminar on Political Theory at Sciences Po on February […]

Voting begins today in the so-called Primaire Populaire, or People’s Primary. The impulse behind this “election” (which should more properly be classified as a poll, an Internet survey conducted without […]

January 28, 18h00 (CET) Ambassador Muriel Domenach  Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE   In conjunction with the D.Rad comparative research project on radicalization trends and deradicalization policies in Europe […]

February 9, 17h00 (CET) Peter Stone (Trinity College Dublin) Why Open Democracy?  Hybrid: Remote/American University of Paris REGISTER HERE   ABSTRACT This paper examines open democracy, the conception of democracy […]

This year’s French presidential campaign has all the dynamism of an equestrian statue. Instead of the (misleadingly) dramatic duel between Macron and Le Pen expected initially, we have instead a […]

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

Almost two years ago, on a February day in 2020, three men chased Ahmaud Arbery through a coastal Georgia suburb with pick-up trucks and guns and killed him. Arbery was […]

** This is the fourth and last 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 […]

A book review of James McAuley’s The House of Fragile Things: Jewish Art Collectors and the Fall of France (Yale University Press, 2021). In The House of Fragile Things, Washington […]

** This is the third 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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]