Tocqueville’s Critique of the U.S. Constitution

Abstract

ABSTRACTFew studies of Democracy in America give substantial weight to Tocqueville’s analysis of the United States Constitution in volume 1, part 1, chapter 8. In this article, I argue that Tocqueville’s analysis deserves closer study. Tocqueville provides a nuanced critique of the institutional design of the federal government lauded in The Federalist, expressing grave concerns about the legislative and executive branches, in particular. While Tocqueville praises the judicial branch, he is more concerned than Publius is about the potential vulnerabilities of this branch. Moreover, these faults that Tocqueville finds with the Constitution’s institutional design are rooted in his belief that it is the social state and not the system of checks and balances that should be credited for the success of American democracy. He predicts that if there is a significant change in the social state, then institutional checks and balances will not fill in the gaps as the Framers of the Constitution intended. These insights about the limits of institutional design provide important lessons for contemporary scholars, especially in a moment when political scientists are sounding alarm bells about the waning attachment to fundamental democratic values in democracies around the globe.