The Tocqueville effect (also known as the Tocqueville paradox) [1] is the phenomenon in which, as social conditions and opportunities improve, social frustration grows more quickly. [2] [3] The effect is based on Alexis de Tocqueville's observations on the French Revolution and later reforms in Europe and the United States. Another way to describe the effect is the aphorism "the appetite grows by what it feeds on". [4] For instance, after greater social justice is achieved, there may be more fervent opposition to even smaller social injustices than before.
The effect suggests a link between social equality or concessions by the regime and unintended consequences, as social reforms can raise expectations that can't be matched. [5] According to the Tocqueville effect, a revolution is likely to occur after an improvement in social conditions, in contrast to Marx's theory of revolution as a result of progressive immiseration of the proletariat (deterioration of conditions). [6]
In 1949, Harlan Cleveland introduced the concept of a revolution of rising expectations, which in his Cold War context he considered particularly relevant to the Third World. Relatedly, political scientist James Chowning Davies has proposed a J curve of revolutions which contends that periods of wealth and advancement are followed by periods of worsening conditions, leading to a revolution. Ted Robert Gurr also used the term relative deprivation to put forth that revolutions happen when there is an expectation of improvement, and a harsh reality in contrast. [7]
There is an increased chance of the Tocqueville paradox happening in centrally planned but locally implemented reforms, when local implementation falls short of the higher reference point. [7]
Alexis de Tocqueville first described the phenomenon in his book Democracy in America (1840):
"The hatred that men bear to privilege increases in proportion as privileges become fewer and less considerable, so that democratic passions would seem to burn most fiercely just when they have least fuel. I have already given the reason for this phenomenon. When all conditions are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye, whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of general uniformity; the more complete this uniformity is, the more insupportable the sight of such a difference becomes. Hence it is natural that the love of equality should constantly increase together with equality itself, and that it should grow by what it feeds on." [8]
The reform and revolution paradox was explained in his next book, The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856): [7]
"The regime that a revolution destroys is almost always better than the one that immediately preceded it, and experience teaches that the most dangerous time for a bad government is usually when it begins to reform."
The French Revolution was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while the values and institutions it created remain central to French political discourse.
In political science, a revolution is an attempt to achieve fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization. It typically involves a revolt against the government due to perceived oppression or political incompetence.
Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, often referred to as Malesherbes or Lamoignon-Malesherbes, was a French statesman and minister in the Ancien Régime, and later counsel for the defense of Louis XVI. He is known for his vigorous criticism of royal abuses as President of the Cour des aides and his role, as director of censorship, in helping with the publication of the Encyclopédie. Despite his committed monarchism, his writings contributed to the development of liberalism during the French Age of Enlightenment.
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, usually known as just Tocqueville, was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analyzed the living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.
De La Démocratie en Amérique is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. Its title literally translates to Democracy in America. In the book, Tocqueville examines the democratic revolution that he believed had been occurring over the previous several hundred years.
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may involve individuals, organizations, or both. Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They represent a method of social change from the bottom within nations.
In the case of uncertainty, expectation is what is considered the most likely to happen. An expectation, which is a belief that is centered on the future, may or may not be realistic. A less advantageous result gives rise to the emotion of disappointment. If something happens that is not at all expected, it is a surprise. An expectation about the behavior or performance of another person, expressed to that person, may have the nature of a strong request, or an order; this kind of expectation is called a social norm. The degree to which something is expected to be true can be expressed using fuzzy logic. Anticipation is the emotion corresponding to expectation.
The tyranny of the majority is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions. This results in oppression of minority groups comparable to that of a tyrant or despot, argued John Stuart Mill in his 1859 book On Liberty.
The historiography of the French Revolution stretches back over two hundred years, as commentators and historians have used a vast array of primary sources to explain the origins of the Revolution, and its meaning and its impact. By the year 2000, many historians were saying that the field of the French Revolution was in intellectual disarray. The old model or paradigm focusing on class conflict has been largely abandoned, but no new explanatory model had gained widespread support. Nevertheless, there persists a very widespread agreement that the French Revolution was the watershed between the premodern and modern eras of Western history.
Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority.
L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1856) is a work by the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville translated in English as either The Old Regime and the Revolution or The Old Regime and the French Revolution.
Relative deprivation is the lack of resources to sustain the diet, lifestyle, activities and amenities that an individual or group are accustomed to or that are widely encouraged or approved in the society to which they belong. Measuring relative deprivation allows an objective comparison between the situation of the individual or group compared to the rest of society. Relative deprivation may also emphasise the individual experience of discontent when being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled, however emphasizing the perspective of the individual makes objective measurement problematic.
Jon Elster is a Norwegian philosopher and political theorist who holds the Robert K. Merton professorship of Social Science at Columbia University.
A democratic revolution is a political science term denoting a revolution in which a democracy is instituted, replacing a previous non-democratic government, or in which revolutionary change is brought about through democratic means.
Comte Gustave Auguste Bonnin de la Bonninière de Beaumont was a French magistrate, prison reformer, and travel companion to the famed philosopher and politician Alexis de Tocqueville. While he was very successful in his lifetime, he is often overlooked and his name is synonymous with Tocqueville's achievements.
Soft tyranny is an idea first developed by Alexis de Tocqueville in his 1835 work titled Democracy in America. It is described as the individualist preference for equality and its pleasures, requiring the state – as a tyrant majority or a benevolent authority – to step in and adjudicate. In this regime, political leaders operate under a blanket of restrictions and, while it retains the practical virtues of democracy, citizens influence policymaking through bureaucrats and non-governmental organizations. This is distinguished from despotism or tyranny in the sense that state of government in such democratic society is composed of guardians who hold immense and tutelary (protective) power.
Social inequality occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons. It poses and creates a gender gap between individuals that limits the accessibility that women have within society. The differentiation preference of access to social goods in the society is brought about by power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class. Social inequality usually implies the lack of equality of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized in terms of the lack of equality in access to opportunity. This accompanies the way that inequality is presented throughout social economies and the rights that are skilled within this basis. The social rights include labor market, the source of income, health care, and freedom of speech, education, political representation, and participation.
Terms such as separate spheres and domestic–public dichotomy refer to a social phenomenon within modern societies that feature, to some degree, an empirical separation between a domestic or private sphere and a public or social sphere. This observation may be controversial and is often also seen as supporting patriarchal ideologies that seek to create or strengthen any such separation between spheres and to confine women to the domestic/private sphere.
Christian privilege is a social advantage bestowed upon Christians in any historically Christian society. This arises out of the presumption that Christian belief is a social norm, that leads to the marginalization of the nonreligious and members of other religions through institutional religious discrimination or religious persecution. Christian privilege can also lead to the neglect of outsiders' cultural heritage and religious practices.
Shadow profile describes the situation when users' or non-users' information is collected without their consent. One of the most discussed cases of shadow profiling is on Facebook, which is reported to collect information on people that they did not provide.
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