Alexis de Tocqueville, the modern democratic nation-state, and its competitors

Abstract

This paper draws on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America to distinguish three different types of modern democracy—(i) the democratic nation-state, (ii) the post sovereign, multinational democracy, and (iii) the populist national democracy. The paper argues that all three have characteristic deficits—respectively, a security deficit, a democratic deficit, and a liberal deficit. The paper discusses the likely impact of Brexit and Trump on these forms of democracy in modern Europe. The paper concludes that while Trump—and more especially, “Trumpism”—poses a challenge to the European Union, Brexit presents an opportunity to demonstrate to its own citizens the benefits of this type of polity.