We welcome independent posts of reasonable quality and topicality; if you’d like to submit a comment, please email your query or draft to info@alexisdetocqueville.com.
Some guidelines and suggestions, which, by the way, apply to making comments on existing articles as well:
1. Please submit your own material which is not previously copyrighted or published by someone else. You can quote briefly from published works if you’re citing a reasonbly brief section (generally, less than 200 words from books) for the purposes of critical discussion or debate, but if doing so, please give us a pinpoint citation of the original source. (“The Bible” is not a pinpoint citation. Jerusalem Bible, Matthew, Chapter 4, verse 12 is a pinpoint citation, as is, Joe Smith, The New York Times, “How to cite an article,” February 30, 2012.)
2. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution studies the extension and perfection of democracy, and the works of Alexis de Tocqueville himself, and that’s what we’re interested in commenting about. This doesn’t mean you can’t mention current policy debates or world events. But generally, we’re not interested in debating the merits of particular policy debates as such.
This doesn’t mean you couldn’t make a post that happens to mention a current controversy. For example, you will find an article on our pages about the Obamacare health proposal. But you’ll notice it focused on how Tocqueville’s thought will be used (as of this writing, was used) by partisans in that debate.
3. Please practice decorum. We’re not interested in, for example, attacking people because they get funding from leading Democratic Party donors (or Republican ones, or the Tea Party). To paraphrase Sidney Hook, “before you question my integrity, answer my argument.”
4. We’re especially interested in undiscovered or under-reported, under-appreciated facts. So, for example, if you are frustrated because U.S. Republicans favor the rich, or Democrats are anti-American, well, there are plenty off places much more prominent than our little spot where you can have at it. Bring something new, or not much mentioned, to the table.
5. We’re especially interested also in posts by people with a passion for democracy and the open society itself, the advance and perfection of popular rule, as opposed to the debate over tax rates, socialism vs. capitalism, and so on. This doesn’t mean we won’t take comments on any of these topics as they relate to democracy. But if a particular democratic movement is doing something new, or a given country or political subdivision is experimenting with a different way of implementing rule by the people, we’re keen to know about it, publicize it, analyze it.
These guidelines are an attempt to capture a certain spirit, rather than define a bright line. We may well publish some posts that land on the wrong side of “the line,” and decline some that fall on the right side. In short, we’re attempting to describe a set of standards.
