Democracy, religion and pluralism: from Tocqueville to Gauchet and back

This article makes use of the reading of de Tocqueville put forward by Agnes Antoine in order to think through the link that unites modem democracy and Christianity. Antoine turns to Toqueville to show that democracy arose on the basis of Christian resources and that it must be able to lean on a religious consciousness in order to respond to the existential questioning of citizens. The much more recent analyses by Gauchet of the disenchantment of the world make it possible to render this double thesis more precise and more refined. However, the confrontation of Gauchet with the reading of Tocqueville developed by Antoine leads us above all to realise that the link uniting democracy with a specific religion incites us to inquire into the capacity of democracy to integrate authentic religious pluralism within itself (transl. by J. Dudley).