Analysis On Tocqueville’s Thought Of Democracy

With the deepening of modern, Democracy has become one of the mostimportant yardsticks of the measure of China ’s political modernization. However, inthe tide of democratization, China ’s democratic political construction is facing thechallenge in different aspects. Face the reality of the democratic problem, we need tolearn from the traditional idea of democracy. Tocqueville became the focus of ourattention, because he is the first modern theorist who did the comprehensive study onthe principles of modern democracy. He had predicted the democratic potential crisisin the early modern democracy, the crisis are being or will form on the challenge toChina ’s democratic political construction. We need to deal with Tocquevilleseriously, analyzing his democratic ideas, so as to form a correct understanding ofhim. At the same time, we should take the essence and reject the dross onTocqueville’s democratic thought to finally provide theory and practice value forChina ’s democratic political construction.This article had completed the above objectives through six steps. First of all, inthe formal theory discussion, the author analyzed the current domestic andinternational research status about Tocqueville’s democratic thought, and expoundedthe theoretical goals and research methods. Second, based on Tocqueville’s text, theauthor explained the connotation of his democratic thought. in this process, theauthor revealed the contradiction of Tocqueville’s democratic thought, namelydemocracy is an unity of freedom, revolution and absolute. Third, further toTocqueville’s text, the author found the dilemmas of Tocqueville’s democraticthought that democracy contains liberty and tyranny, revolution andcounter-revolution. Fourth, the author diagnosed Tocqueville’s democratic thoughtdilemma, found Tocqueville’s democratic human pathologies is a kind of selfpsychological portrayal. Because it concealed two figure of Marx and Rousseau inTocqueville’s mind. Their confrontation caused anxiety that posed the commonpsychological disorders of democratic people. Fifth, based on the social scene, theauthor found the ideological limitation and their intrinsic value in the deeper ofTocqueville’s democratic thought. Finally, the author analyzed challenges of China’sdemocratic political construction in the current situation, namely the communitylevel, political system level and government policy level are already producingconsensus crisis. Theory of the association system,local autonomy system and thejury system that included in Tocqueville’s democratic thought can promote systeminnovation for China’s democratic political construction in the current situation.