The Democracy of the Spectacle

Tocqueville envisioned any number of ways in which democracy might succumb to tyranny and sought to imagine social processes and institutions that might mitigate this threat. Among these was participation in local government, which he saw as a way of teaching humility and moderating political passions with the potential to undermine democracy. But the importance of local government has diminished as the scale of democratic polities has increased and as changes in the media landscape have given rise to a “democracy of the spectacle” in which identification with the executive who incarnates the central government has supplanted engagement with local issues. What do these changes imply for Tocqueville’s view of democratic stability?