REPUBLICS OF BENIN AND TOGO’S LEVEL OF ADHERENCE TO TOCQUEVILLE POLITICAL LIBERTY

Abstract

Alexis de Tocqueville, the nineteenth century French thinker of liberal democracy, claimed that political liberty expressed in the freedom of the press, freedom of association, the rule of law and decentralisation are the bulwarks against despotism, individualism and the tyranny of the majority which are obstacles to democratic growth in any country. This paper discusses Tocqueville’s psychology by surveying the level of adherence of citizens of Francophone West African countries of Benin and Togo to hisgeneralisation. Two emerging multiparty liberal democracies which are practicing the semi- presidential systems and the French bureaucratic model in francophone West Africa, Republic of Benin, Republic of Togo and Niger Republic, were purposively selected for the survey. In each country five hundred copies of the questionnaire were administered to purposively selected members of the civil society in order to seek their opinion n on the rule of law, press freedom, freedom of association and decentralization in their respective countries. Data were content analysed and simple percentage used for the questionnaire administered.