Tocqueville in Mexico

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article assesses the reception of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America in nineteenth-century Mexico. It explores the impact in two political debates at the time: judicial review (or the writ of amparo) and the question whether Mexico ought to be a central or a federal republic. Tocqueville was instrumental for the participants in those debates. The article examines the nature of these Tocquevillian interventions. Did Democracy in America enlighten the political dilemmas that actors faced at the time? Politicians and thinkers gave more importance to the descriptions of the American institutions that the book provided, and very often overlooked the importance of Tocqueville’s remarks on Mexico’s cultural and social inability to sustain democracy.