This paper discusses “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville, which focuses on America’s socio-political landscape during the early 19th century.
This paper explains that the most essential discussion in de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” establishes that the country’s culture determines the practical philosophy of American politics, as well as the establishment of a more egalitarian than libertarian society. The author points out that the social conditions of governing American politics are based on gender, religion, and even the dichotomy and differences that de Tocqueville raises between the Americans and Europeans. The paper relates that de Tocqueville’s thesis posits that people or Americans govern the country, and this socio-political order has both advantages and disadvantages that result in the development of a government that is called “the tyranny of the majority”.
“Social institutions are also an important force that forms the core of American politics. With stronger power and influence in politics, social institutions and groups in America have the authority to determine whose power will become dominant in the country. By studying the role that the mass media, particularly the press institution, plays in enforcing the authority of the majority in American politics, Tocqueville argues that in a country where mass media is a powerful institution affecting public opinion, Means must then be found to converse every day without seeing one another, and to take steps in common without having met. Thus hardly any democratic association can do without newspapers.? These, in general, are the forces that determine the nature of American politics as determined by Tocqueville in “Democracy in America”.”