Between Sovereignty and Freedom: Tocqueville and the Project of French Liberalism

Tocqueville's understanding of freedom has been notoriously difficult to determine. His contribution becomes more apparent when he is seen as attempting to solve problems that emerge from the tradition of French political thought and practice. French liberalism after Rousseau sought to empower popular sovereignty so as to enable political freedom, while also restraining political power so as to ensure individual freedom. Indeed, the French Revolution revealed that the constituent power that made political freedom possible also endangered individual liberty. Simultaneously, French liberals such as Benjamin Constant and FranÌÄå¤ois Guizot also feared that if the people were overly concerned with their individual liberty they would become prey to a strong state. While paying heed to the numerous variants of freedom within his thought, I argue that Tocqueville's philosophy of freedom solves the dilemma of French liberalism by developing the idea of non-sovereign freedom. This is the notion that participatory political freedom occurs primarily when the people do not exercise their constituent power as a sovereign body. This shifts the meaning of political freedom away from a model of strong autonomy found in Rousseau, or exercising final control over one's life and actions, towards participation in la chose publique more broadly, which includes, but is not exhausted by, the institutions of government. Non-sovereign freedom sees individual and political freedom as mutually reinforcing rather than mutually corrosive. It also enables a higher form of individual freedom that Tocqueville calls individuality, or the development of an independent and original personality. Tocqueville's account of non-sovereign freedom, I argue, is an alternative source of inspiration for those working within democratic theory and who are attempting to combine democratic dynamism and institutional stability. Instead of looking to figures who largely shunned the institutions of liberal democracy, democratic theory should return to the tradition of French liberalism.