particular associations as guilty of dividing what should
remain united, modern democracy is pluralistic and lives
on the existence, the multiplicity and the vigour of
intermediate associations. De Tocqueville was struck both
by the equality of conditions and by the tendency of
members of American society to join associations in order
to promote the public good, so that 'independently of the
permanent associations created by law in the name of the
community, the city and the country, there also existed a
host of others which owed their existence and development
to the will of individuals' (1835-40). And associationism
became a new criterion (new compared to the traditional
criteria which focused exclusively on the number of rulers)
for distinguishing between democratic and non-democratic
societies as is shown by this surprisingly incisive passage