In a speech delivered in 1852 as president of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, Tocqueville explicitly sets out his understanding of politics. In it, he distinguishes between politics as the art of government, which “deals with everyday difficulties” and “follows the diversity of events”, and a broader understanding of the état politique (OC XIV, 230). While the former is designed to deal with everyday problems, the understanding of the political state is concerned with long-term social and political developments. It is the social dynamics and the interplay between the état social and the état politique that are decisive, not fleeting circumstances or the reduction of politics to the state.