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l’homme et politique” (Lefort 1986) Lefort undertakes the task of defusing
the idea that human rights are either purely a-political or mere
tools of bourgeois domination. Instead, Lefort argues that human
rights have significant political meanings, as they signify specific
political relations among individuals. Democracy and human rights
are inter-dependent in that each of them exists in the political process
conditioned by the other, whereas, in Tocqueville rights are mostly
“political” rights. Tocqueville seldom refers to rights as “natural” in his
writings. For him, rights always exist in a political relationship; thus
they are by “nature” political rights. Needless to say, the liberal rights
that have been “declared” as “natural” by traditional liberalism are
first and foremost instituted by “the political.” Yet still, as we can see,
despite the slight differences, both thinkers draw significant distance
with the liberal discourse of rights in their insistence on the political
meanings of rights.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the difference between liberal freedom and Tocqueville’s
notion of political freedom mainly lies in the fact that the latter indicates
a specific political relationship among people while the former largely
depends on an a-political idea of individual independence. This basic
distinction could inform different models of democracy, with their
varying promise on the openness of society. Fortunately, Tocqueville’s
idea of political freedom survives time and reaches to our contemporary
thinking on politics. In this respect, an ingenious comment by Lefort
on Tocqueville could be used as our conclusive words:
33
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE’S
NOTION OF POLITICAL
FREEDOM
Demin Duan
Tocqueville is addressing himself primarily to men who thought they were
liberals and who, like him, belonged to an enlightened elite, who regarded
the upheaval in property ownership that had been brought about by the
French Revolution and the Rights of Man as a fait accompli; but who were
haunted by the threat of the extension of political freedoms and individual
freedoms, by the fear that the social body would break up, by a fear of
anarchy; who believed that a strong government would protect tranquility,
but who failed to foresee the rise of despotism. (Lefort 1988, 168)