Republican Foundations of Liberal Democracy: Tocqueville, Historical Time, and Institutional Continuity (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798199106535)

A bold reinterpretation of Tocqueville - and of how democracies actually endure. For two centuries, political thought has been captivated by rupture. From the great revolutions to the founding constitutions, we have learned to locate the meaning of history in a handful of decisive, dramatic moments. Republican Foundations of Liberal Democracy sets out to overturn that habit of mind. In this ambitious work of political theory, Renato Almeida de Moraes recovers and radicalizes Alexis de Tocqueville's inaugural insight: that democratic government depends on the prior existence of a republican structure that precedes it both logically and historically. Before the nation, there were the townships of New England; before the federal Constitution, the settled customs of self-government; before the abstract citizen of contract theory, the flesh-and-blood inhabitant, accustomed for generations to deliberating on the common affairs of his community. American liberty, the author shows, was decreed by no legislator - it was inherited, exercised, and practiced long before it was ever theorized. To explain how such structures survive across generations, the book introduces an original theoretical concept: temporal plurality. Setting Tocqueville in dialogue with Norbert Elias's sociology of time, and taking on the major paradigms of historical sociology and intellectual history - Theda Skocpol on revolution, Quentin Skinner on liberty as non-domination, J. G. A. Pocock on the Machiavellian moment - Moraes argues that societies do not inhabit a single, homogeneous time but a multiplicity of interwoven temporalities, each with its own rhythm. It is in the tense coexistence of these times that liberty is preserved or lost. The result is a work at once rigorous and elegant, polemical and generous toward its adversaries - a study for everyone who suspects that the deepest questions about democracy are, in the end, questions about time. Ideal for readers of political theory, intellectual history, and the history of democratic thought. Back Cover Copy

Author: Renato Almeida de Moraes
ISBN-13: 9798199106535
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 05/29/2026
Pages: 82
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.27lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.20d