Educating Democracy

Brian Danoff

Description

Do strong leaders inevitably undermine democracies? Drawing upon the insights of Alexis de Tocqueville, Brian Danoff offers a compelling, revisionist analysis of the role of leadership in democratic societies. Rather than focusing on effectiveness or character to assess the quality of leaders in democracies, Tocqueville suggests that great democratic leaders are those who educate, elevate, and empower their fellow citizens; certain types of leadership enhance rather than diminish self-rule. Danoff then enriches and expands Tocqueville's perspective through the ideas of American theorists and statesmen such as Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln, and the Antifederalists. Timely and necessary, this book sheds new light on both Tocqueville and on the role of leadership in American democracy.
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Tocqueville on Leadership and the Education of Democracy

2. The Antifederalists and Tocqueville on Democratic Leadership and Democratic Authority

3. Lincoln and Tocqueville on Democratic Leadership and Self-Interest Properly Understood

4. Wilson and Tocqueville on Leadership and the“Character Foundations of American Democracy”

5. The Vocation of the Democratic Moralist: Putnam, Tocqueville, and the Education of Democracy Today

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• USA
• United States of America
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 04 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438429632
• Langue: English

Extrait

Educating Democracy
Alexis de Tocqueville and Leadership in America

Brian Danoff

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2010 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Danoff, Brian.
     Educating democracy : Alexis de Tocqueville and leadership in America / Brian Danoff.
                p. cm.
     Includes bibliographical references and index.
     ISBN 978-1-4384-2961-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
     1. Citizenship—Study and teaching—United States. 2. Democracy—Study and teaching—United States. 3. Civics—Study and teaching—United States. 4. Education—Aims and objectives—United States. 5. Political leadership—United States—History. 6. Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805–1859—Influence. I. Title.
 
     LC1091.D26 2010
     320.973—dc22                                                                         2009012996
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acknowledgments

I am greatly indebted to the late Wilson Carey McWilliams, who served as advisor for the dissertation that grew into this book. Carey once wrote that W.E.B. Du Bois “was always an ‘elitist,’ even at his most radically democratic … because he was convinced of the need for exceptional individuals … who see beyond the practical and the possible, exerting the pull of high culture and theory.” A modest man, Carey was, nevertheless, precisely one of these exceptional individuals, and I am so grateful to have known—and to have learned from—this exemplary scholar, teacher, citizen and friend. I miss him dearly.
I am also grateful to the other members of my dissertation committee. Dennis Bathory, Dan Tichenor, and Bruce Miroff each provided stimulating comments, criticisms, and suggestions that were crucial for the development of my ideas on Tocqueville, leadership, and American political thought. While earning my PhD at Rutgers, I also learned a great deal about political theory in seminars with Benjamin Barber, Gordon Schochet, and Stephen Bronner. Thanks also to Clayton Sinyai, my fellow graduate student, for being a formidable intellectual sparring partner as well as a source of moral support.
My passion for political theory was first inspired and nurtured by three outstanding teachers—Peter Euben, Jack Schaar, and David Thomas—at U.C. Santa Cruz, where I was an undergraduate. I am indebted to them and also to Jim Miller, who was a wonderful mentor when I was an MA student in the liberal studies program at the New School for Social Research. As an MA student, I was also fortunate to learn from Nancy Fraser and George Shulman.
Portions of this manuscript have been previously published as journal articles. I am grateful to the journals’ editors and anonymous reviewers for spurring me to think through my ideas in a more thoroughgoing manner. I also owe a major debt to Cheryl Welch and Bob Putnam for offering comments and encouragement after reading some of the material that has been incorporated into this book. Thanks are due as well to all of the discussants who provided feedback on my research at professional meetings. In addition to making presentations at the annual meetings of various political science associations, I also presented some of the ideas in this book at a conference on Tocqueville convened by the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. I am grateful to Aurelian Craiutu and Elinor Ostrom for providing me with this opportunity. I also received valuable comments when I presented some of my research on Tocqueville at a faculty research seminar held by the political science department at Miami University. I thank all of my colleagues in the political science department for providing a supportive environment for my research and teaching in political theory.
I am very grateful to Michael Gibbons, Marc Landy, and another anonymous reviewer at State University of New York Press for providing enormously helpful comments that pushed me to improve the book manuscript in a number of ways. For all of their support and assistance with the publication process, I also thank Michael Rinella, Cathleen Collins, Anne Valentine, Andrew Kenyon, Amanda Lanne, and Gary Dunham, the executive director of State University of New York Press.
Miami University provided me with a research leave for one semester, which gave me the time to finish the book. Miami also provided me with material support in the form of a summer research grant for work on the manuscript. At Rutgers, a Louis Bevier Fellowship facilitated the completion of the dissertation stage of the work.
I am truly blessed to have such supportive and loving parents, and I owe them each so much. My mother helped spark my interest in politics at a young age; I am grateful to her for that, and also for being a careful reader of much of my work. My father helped hone my critical thinking skills throughout my childhood by doing such things as requiring family members to write reviews of the movies we watched on cable. (The rule wasn't followed for long.) Other beloved family members—Sharon, Jim, Taffy, Jo, Orna, Sam, Ronny, and my grandparents—have also been a great source of every kind of support. A very special thanks goes to my son, Julian. Since he was born two years ago, he has brought me immeasurable joy, every single day.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to my wife, Donna. Without her love, grace, patience, humor, wisdom, and unflagging encouragement, I could never have completed this book. I cannot thank her enough for her support, and for reminding me of all that is important in life. With great love, I dedicate this book to her.

Significant portions of chapter 1 and chapter 5 appeared in Brian Danoff, “Asking of Freedom Something Other than Itself: Tocqueville, Putnam, and the Vocation of the Democratic Moralist,” Politics and Policy XXXV:2 (June 2007): 165–90. I thank the editors of Politics and Policy for permission to reprint this material.
Significant portions of chapter 1 and chapter 3 appeared in Brian Danoff, “Lincoln and Tocqueville on Democratic Leadership and Self-Interest Properly Understood,” The Review of Politics LXVII:4 (Fall 2005): 687–719. I thank the editors of The Review for permission to reprint this material.
A brief portion of chapter 3 appeared in Brian Danoff, “Lincoln, Machiavelli, and American Political Thought,” Presidential Studies Quarterly XXX:2 (June 2000): 290–311. I thank the editors of Presidential Studies Quarterly for permission to reprint this material.
Significant portions of chapter 2 appeared in Brian Danoff, “Political Thought in the Early Republic: The Federalist-Antifederalist Debate,” in A History of the U.S. Political System: Ideas, Interests, and Institutions, ed. Richard A. Harris and Daniel J. Tichenor (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009). I thank ABC-CLIO for permission to reprint this material.
Introduction

Alexis de Tocqueville is widely considered to be one of the greatest analysts of American political life, and his writings on America have been endlessly interpreted and reinterpreted. But, remarkably, there have been few, if any, sustained analyses of Tocqueville's ideas on leadership, and the relevance of these ideas for American political theory and practice.
The argument of this book is that the best way to approach the problem of democratic leadership in America is through Tocqueville. This is not to say that Tocqueville provides us with a definitive and final account of democratic leadership. Indeed, while I use Tocqueville to set the theoretical terms for this book, I also show how certain American thinkers have built on, contested, and sometimes even improved upon these terms. Although I do not always embrace Tocqueville's understanding of democratic leadership, I focus on Tocqueville because no one else so brilliantly analyzes the American character, and no one else so effectively raises the important questions that we need to ask regarding the role of leadership in America. My analysis of Tocqueville centers on Democracy in America, but at times I turn to Tocqueville's other writings in order to gain a more complete understanding of his ideas on leadership.
In recent years, “democratic theory” has been one of the dominant areas of inquiry for political theorists. The role of leadership within democratic theory, however, has been somewhat neglected. Of course, there have been some important exceptions to this general neglect. Although he believes that strong leadership has a tendency “to undermine civic vigor,” Benjamin Barber has sought to fin