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Out of Africa: Tocqueville’s Imperial Voyages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Cheryl B. Welch
Cheryl B. Welch*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

As Tocqueville’s writings on empire have become more available in translation, and as both Anglophone and Francophone political theorists have begun to grapple with the transnational aspects of democratic theory, scholars have increasingly puzzled over the apparent dissonance between Tocqueville’s liberal and imperial voices. How can his dedication to human freedom co-exist with his embrace of permanent colonial domination in Algeria? This essay attempts to contextualize this paradox in Tocqueville’s thought without turning historical context into an apologia.

Type
Special Section: Tocqueville in Algeria Revisited
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , Summer 2011 , pp. 53 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 2011

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References

1 See Boesche, Roger, “The Dark Side of Tocqueville: On War and Empire,” Review of Politics 67 (2005), pp. 737–752 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Richter, Melvin initiated the discussion of Tocqueville’s imperialism in “Tocqueville on Algeria,” Review of Politics 25 (July 1963), pp. 362–399 Google Scholar. In the growing literature that addresses this tension, see especially the works of Pitts, Jennifer, “Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question,” Thejournal of Political Philosophy 8:3 (2000), pp. 295–318 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Introduction,” Writings on Empire and Slavery, ix–xxxviii Google Scholar; A Turn to Empire: the Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), pp.189–239 Google Scholar; “Liberalism, Democracy and Empire: Tocqueville on Algeria,” Reading Tocqueville, pp. 12–30 Google Scholar; and “Liberalism and Colonialism in Early Nineteenth-Century France,” (forthcoming). See also Hereth, Michael, Alexis de Tocqueville: Threats to Freedom in Democracy, trans. Bogardus, George. (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1986), pp. 145–165 Google Scholar, Boyd, Richard, “Tocqueville’s Algeria,” Society (September/October 2001), pp. 65–70 Google Scholar; Welch, Cheryl B., “Colonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Evasion: Tocqueville on Algeria,” Political Theory 31:2 (April 2003), pp. 235–264 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “ Tocqueville on Fraternity and Fratricide,” The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville, ed. Welch, Cheryl B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 303–336 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kohn, Margaret, «Empire’s Law: Alexis de Tocqueville on Colonialism and the State of Exception,» Canadian Journal of Political Science 42:2 (June 2008), pp. 255–278 Google Scholar. The literature is scarcer among French scholars, but see Jardin, André, Tocqueville: A Biography (1805–5) trans. Davis, Lydia with Hemenway, Robert (London: Peter Halban, 1988), pp. 316–342 Google Scholar, Mélonio, Françoise, «Nations et nationalismes,» La revue Tocqueville/The Tocqueville Review 19:1 (1997), pp. 61–75 Google Scholar; Boulbina, Seloua Luste, “Présentation,” Tocqueville Sur l’Algérie (Paris: Flammarion, 2003), pp. 7–41 Google Scholar; and Benoît, Jean-Louis, Tocqueville: un destin paradoxal (Paris: Bayard 2005), pp. 264–279.Google Scholar

2 For a discussion of Tocqueville’s ways of avoiding full recognition of the atrocities committed by the French in Algeria, see Welch, “Colonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Evasion.”

3 ”Essay on Algeria,” Alexis de Tocqueville: Writings on Empire and Slavery, ed. and trans. Pitts, Jennifer (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 59 Google Scholar. [Unless otherwise indicated, future references to Tocqueville’s writings on Algeria are to the Pitts translation.]

4 Brogan, Hugh, Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 399.Google Scholar

5 See the discussion by Clinton, David, Tocqueville, Lieber, and Bagehot: Liberalism Confronts the World (London: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 24–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Tocqueville to Edouard and Alexandrine, 6 April 1830, Œuvres complètes, ed. Mayer, J. D., Jardin, André, and Mélonio, Françoise (Paris: Gallimard, 1951) 14:65 Google Scholar. [Hereafter cited as OC with volume and page.] cf. Tocqueville to Edouard and Alexandrine, 24 March 1830, OC 14:60.Google Scholar

7 “Essay on Algeria,” p. 59.Google Scholar

8 “Introduction,” Alexis de Tocqueville, Œuvres, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Vol. 1: xxxiv. [Hereafter cited as Œuvres (P).]

9 On the different levels of civilization among Europeans see De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, Eduardo, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 257–258 Google Scholar, note 19. Tocqueville speculates that Swiss federalism is difficult because of the differing levels of civilization of the cantons. See ibid., p. 282 note t, and “Voyage en Suisse (1836),” Œuvres (P) 1, p. 631.

10 See his letter to Reeve, Henry, 12 April 1840, OC 6:1, p. 58 Google Scholar. Cf. a much later letter to Gobineau, , 13 November 1855, OC 9, p. 243 Google Scholar: “[The Europeans] will be in another hundred years the transformers of the globe that they inhabit and the masters of their species. Nothing is more clearly announced in advance by Providence. If they are often, I admit it, great knaves, they are at any rate knaves to whom God has given force and power, and whom He has manifestly put for a time at the head of the human race.”

11 ”L’Inde,” OC 3: 505, p. 480.Google Scholar

12 After the Sepoy Rebellion, Tocqueville becomes more critical of British colonial policy. See Tocqueville to Hatherton, Lord, 27 November 1857, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Beaumont, Gustave de (Paris: Michel Lévy-frères, 1864-6) 6: pp. 423–424.Google Scholar

13 Tocqueville to Louis de Lamoricière, 5 Aprii 1846, Lettres choisies; Souvenirs, ed. Mélonio, Françoise and Guellec, Laurence (Paris: Gallimard, 2003), pp. 561–567.Google Scholar

14 “I returned from Africa with the distressing notion that we are now fighting far more barbarously than the Arabs themselves. For the present, it is on their side that one meets with civilization.” “Essay on Algeria,” p. 70. Cf. “First Report on Algeria,” p. 141 and a letter of Tocqueville to his father, 23 May 1841, OC 14, pp. 218–219.

15 In a letter to Corcelles, Tocqueville acknowledges that the goal is to achieve domination analogous to the Turks: “cette domination à des conditions analogues à celle des Turcs est très praticable et qu’elle aurait lieu si, ce qui est possible, nous arrivons enfin à détruire Abd-el-Kader.” 26 September 1840, OC 15:1, p. 151. See also “Essay on Algeria,” pp. 62, 65.

16 “Notes Diverses sur la Colonisation de l’Algérie,” OC 3:1, 289 Google Scholar. Cf. “Essay on Algeria,” p. 65.Google Scholar

17 See Tocqueville to Corcelle, December 1846, OC 15:1, 224 Google Scholar and Tocqueville to Laromicière, Lettres choisies, pp. 565–566.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 142. See also Jardin, , Tocqueville: A Biography, p. 335.Google Scholar

19 “First Report on Algeria,” p. 145.Google Scholar

20 “First Report on Algeria,” p. 146.Google Scholar