As the global community continues to grapple with the coronavirus (COVID-19), the Atlantic Council is open for business. Our business, meetings, and events, however, are occurring virtually. For more information, please read an update from our President and CEO.
The Fondation Tocqueville, Le Figaro, and the Atlantic Council are delighted to invite you to a virtual conversation in lieu of the postponed 2020 Tocqueville Conversations.
Featuring
Andrew A. Michta*
Dean of the College of International and Security Studies
George C. Marshall European Center
Pavel Fischer
President of the Commission for Foreign Affairs
Czech Senate
David Goldman
Essayist and Investor
Asian Times
Author of You will be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-form the World (Bombardier Books).
Moderated by
Ana Palacio
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Spain
*The views presented are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.
About the Tocqueville Conversations
The Tocqueville Conversations were born out of the convergence of four key elements: an acute political understanding of the depth of the crisis Western democracies are facing, both in the US and in Europe a urgent civic need to move beyond the dogmatic comfort governing elites have entertained, to address our problems and look for solutions the renewed awareness of the immediate relevance of Alexis de Tocqueville, the great liberal thinker of the Democratic age, who analyzed masterfully both the conditions, realities and risks inherent to Democratic systems, on both sides of the Atlantic and lastly, the foresight of the Tocqueville Family, who saw in advance the symbolic significance of holding our Conversations at The Tocqueville Château, where the great thinker wrote his Magnus Opus, Democracy in America.
In the fall of 2017 informed by her work on the “Trumpian popular revolt” during the Trump campaign, and then by numerous trips throughout a Europe swept by similar rebellions, Laure Mandeville, Senior reporter with Le Figaro, France’s oldest national daily, envisioned a grand scale conference on the crisis of Democracy in the West. Understanding the significance of the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville in our current crisis, she reaches out to Jean Guillaume de Tocqueville, President of The Tocqueville Foundation, whose mission is to keep alive the work and spirit of his renowned ancestor and to promote civil society initiatives. Concurrently, Le Figaro, which has become a leading force in examining the causes of our democratic crisis, decides to bring its intellectual resources to the project. On the other side of the Atlantic, they join forces with Joshua Mitchell, professor of political theory at Georgetown University and a leading expert on Tocqueville and with Vice President Damon Wilson, Ambassador, Craig Stapleton, and Former minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain Ana Palacio at the Atlantic Council. The region Normandy and the Departement of La Manche, where the Tocqueville Château is situated, also become key partners for the event. The Tocqueville Conversations are born.