Three major claims advanced by Elster are subjected to critical review. First, the strict Elsterian type of methodological individualism seems absent from Tocqueville's writings. Second, Elster's separation between Tocqueville's formal structures of reasoning and the substantive content of his sociohistorical explanations look artificial and strained. Third, Elster misreads Tocqueville as a simple defender of democracy, while he rather provides a more detached and more topically relevant account of the contradictoriness or duality of democracy.
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