The problem of democratic transition in works of the French scientist Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) ; Проблема демократичного транзиту у працях французького вченого Алексіса де Токвіля (1805-1859)

The purpose of this article is to description the problem of democratic transition in Alexis de Tocqueville’s works: 1) the philosopher’s general theoretical approaches to democratization as a global civilizational process; 2) the features of democratization of societies with a strong tradition of hyper-centralized public administration; 3) analysis of democratic transition models (American, British, French). According to de Tocqueville, transition to democracy is a global process of the humankind’s development and an indispensable vector of changes in all countries. The scientist believes that in democratization processes, it depends only on people whether a “free” democracy combined with freedom or a “democratic tyranny” based on uravnilovka (enforced uniformity) and absence of freedom and proposed by collectivistic theories of democracy will be elected. The philosopher proposed to liberalize a despotic regime “from top” by gradually, carefully introducing freedoms. At the same time, the philosopher warned reformist governments that the later a freedom appears in the society the more dangerous it becomes. When analyzing the meaning of and the ratio between the “universal” and the “local” in the practice of democratic transformations, de Tocqueville: a) rationalizes the pluralism of democratization models and models of freedom; b) strongly criticizes Westernization as an indispensable direction of transformations for nondemocratic, undeveloped countries that chose the path of reforms. According to de Tocqueville, the reasons for the “defeat” of democracy in France in the 18th – first half of the 19th century were as follows: 1) the society has developed a tradition of hyper-centralized public administration; 2) democratic transition had its specifics: the “masses” acted as the subject of changes, revolution was the instrument of transforming the society, and legitimized violence and terror were the core principle; 3) destructive role of radical ideologies and unprofessional reformist politicians. ; Аналіз ...