Alexis de Tocqueville and his daguerreotype of the homo democraticus

Abstract

This article is on Tocqueville and his thoughts about the vicissitudes of the democracy which have been given a fresh impetus because of the massive demonstrations driven or generated by the 15^th-May spirit. Such as the texts written by the rest of the classical authors, his writings were right when both approaching the problems and arousing diagnostics and are still capable to drive us to think anew about the rules of the democratic game. Following the paradoxical destiny of his great-grandfather Malesherbes, who defended the rights of the people before Louis 16^th and next the rights of the King before the revolutionary court, the aristocratic Tocqueville became a champion of the unstoppable democratic revolution but without forgetting the potential dangers caused by this revolution. His comparison between both French and American revolutions helped him to define the qualities of the homo democraticus. The text intends to work as a sort of lay-out of the material collected in this issue.