Associations are groups of people who have a common interest. According to Dekker (2014), an association is formed so as to accomplish a common goal. Associations could be political, social, religious or civil depending on the driving force that formed the association. The focus is on the nature of associations formed in America and their strength against the tyranny of the majority according to Alexis de Tocqueville.
In Tocqueville’s book Democracy in America (2017), he pointed out the impacts liberty to association has on America’s democracy rule. According to Tocqueville, the right of any American to form associations was a threat to the government. He points out that these associations tend to speak up against the tyranny of the majority hence the meaning of democracy is lost. He compares the situation to Europe where if there was liberty to form associations, then they would end up standing against the government. However, this is not the case in America where political differences are minor and people believe in competing on fairgrounds. It is voluntarily and out of a general will that people decide to form these associations unlike in Europe where disagreement has to arise for people to start forming associations that will not stand against the tyranny of the majority but will rise against the government (Dekker, 2014). Tocqueville realized that the whole idea of forming associations was not to fight each other or rise against the American government but was to express the idea in one voice.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
A voluntary organization such as the Democracy Matters in America is a political non-profit organization that was formed by young students to support and embrace democracy regardless of the religious differences, race, gender or social status (De Toqueville 2017). Its goal is to train people especially the youth on how to be better future leaders and advocates. It also campaigns for fair elections by encouraging public funding for electoral campaigns. It fights against any form of big funding that is meant to influence the elections outcomes in a democratic country.
The expectation college students have is that they should make a lot of money during election campaigns. This organization was formed to fight this form of trading democracy for money. For a college student to be permanently a member of this organization, they are offered an opportunity for an internship during which they are given training on the finance campaign reform. After the training, the students are expected to join or start a Democracy Matters Chapter in their institution of learning and examine any student associations that support finance campaign.
Instead of electoral candidates spending time making calls on how to get donors for their campaigns or private fundraising from their close associates, they should use that time to tell all voters on a neutral ground why they should be elected. The issue of funding should be done by a public body where all candidates get equal funding not to influence the decision of the voters but to facilitate any other activity during the campaign period. This was the major reason this organization was started and has spread its wings to many regions of America with many people feeling the impact and adopting the ideas. This association speaks up against the tyranny of the majority in that the notion that for a campaign to be successful then voters have to be paid is scrapped off. Candidates who give out a lot of money get much of the support from the voters, but Democracy Matters stands against that idea.
With this in place, Tocqueville’s argument that the familiarity of the citizens of America with the principle of liberty to the association is what makes it different from the case of Europe. In America, this right has been used to strengthen people and to stand against the tyranny of the majority and promote justice, morality, and democracy. The minority groups end up with no option but to tap out.
References
De Toqueville, A. (2017). On Democracy in America (Vol. 1). Sheba Blake Publishing.
Dekker, P. (2014). Tocqueville did not write about soccer clubs: Participation in voluntary associations and political involvement. In Modernizing democracy (pp. 45-57). Springer, New York, NY.
