About

The Tocqueville Forum for Political Understanding is an independently funded organization housed in the Department of Government at Georgetown University.  The Forum is named for Alexis de Tocqueville who, as a sensitive and probing observer and critic of the transition to the democratic age, serves as a model for what the Forum hopes to accomplish: the creation of a much-needed appreciation of the foundations on which the American republic stands, and an earnest engagement with the ideas and self-understandings of other civilizational traditions currently wrestling with the meaning of the democratic age.

The Forum’s programs are broadly divided into three main areas: the sponsorship of public events, such as lectures, colloquia, and conferences; a Student Fellows program which sponsors faculty/student symposia, a reading group, and retreats which are designed specifically for undergraduate students to examine a variety of texts and ideas; the bi-annual publication of the journal, Utraque Unum, which provides Georgetown University students with the opportunity to publish essays on topics encompassing such diverse areas as political philosophy, law, history, and the arts.