La sociologia di Tocqueville : strumenti, funzione, limiti

Nowadays no scholar would deny that Tocqueville is in all respects a founding father of sociology. On the other hand, both the nature of Tocqueville's contribution to the sociological thought, as well as the status and limits he assigns to this branch of knowledge, are still objects of scholarly inquiry. After moving away from this author's 'sociologizing' and sociological interpretations, this work aims to highlight Tocqueville's actual conceptual and methodological contribution to sociological tools and aspects: integrating qualitative and quantitative models, improving the comparative method, constructing a complex causative model, and using ideal types. [Publisher's text].