The contemporary proliferation of “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” seems to render obsolete the notion of a public sphere in the singular. In my article, I would like to argue against this view: Following Jürgen Habermas, “the public sphere” can be understood as the concomitant horizon of communicative action, while the latter permeates society as a whole. On the basis of this socio-philosophical approach, the omnipresent tendencies toward fragmentation appear as reactive attempts to ward off this (...) socially established and context-transcending context of discussion. Habermas himself, however, has never adopted this perspective. Instead, he interprets the various symptoms of the decline of the public sphere—including its fragmentation—as the result of a “colonization of the lifeworld” by economic, bureaucratic, and technological system logics. However, on the basis of the concept of “systematically distorted communication,” which was still crucial for Habermas’s early work, it is possible to reconstruct how the lifeworld context of communicative action, out of which the public sphere emerges, is not only corroded and cut through from the outside by system logics but also exhibits its own dialectic of the refusal of discourse and the overcoming of this refusal. The fragmentation of the public sphere that we are confronted with today can be theoretically interpreted and politically addressed as a precarious standstill of this dialectic. (shrink)

The article critically analyses the gaps and the analytical potential in Jürgen Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere concerning corporate discourses and debates. It is shown that Habermas only analyses the field of work in abstract terms, neglecting in particular corporate public spheres. In contrast, corporate public spheres are developed as an analytical concept, expressed by companies in the form of institutionalized co-determination, situationally granted opportunities for participation and self-willed public spheres of workers. (...) These three fields are discussed using empirical examples. It is shown that corporate public spheres are eroded by precarization and instrumentalized by management. Furthermore, digitalization is working towards a comprehensive algorithmic control of corporate public spheres by companies, but also towards new autonomous communication networks that establish proletarian public spheres, so that both refeudalization and revitalization of corporate public spheres can be observed. (shrink)

All the aspects and dimensions that can be rightfully identified as playing essential parts within the current tragedy of democracy do share a common reference point: the public sphere. In the absence of a public sphere, no political change can take place democratically. This introduction to the special issue, which continues the debate about the public sphere from a broadly understood critical theory perspective, tries to substantiate the two initial claims and briefly presents the (...) line of argument inherent to this special issue and its contributions. The collected contributions intervene or elaborate on the following conceptional or practical problems within the nexus of democracy and the public sphere, such as the critical relations between cultural industry and post-truth democracy; the contested relationship between the public sphere and labour; epistemological challenges predating normative questions; the relevance and transformation of concrete constellations between speakers and listeners, fragmentation and polarization within the public sphere; communicative pathologies; the digitalization of communication; altered and threatened media system services to functioning democracies; displacement and commodification of communication; the need for new forms of techno-politics; problems and challenges of Open Access; and the potential transnationalization of the public sphere. (shrink)

This paper is about the effects of the absence and the possibility of the emergence of a normatively meaningful political public sphere. The effects of the lack of a global public sphere are far-reaching. Namely, the current crisis of global governance and the global political system can be traced back to the absence of a normatively meaningful public sphere that can mediate between global society and the authoritative institutions of global governance. At the same (...) time, I argue that the absence of the public sphere is not primarily due to the population’s attitudes trapped in national horizons but must be primarily attributed to the deficient institutional structure of the global political system. (shrink)

The pathologies of the democratic public sphere, first articulated by Plato in his attack on rhetoric, have pushed much of deliberative theory out of the mass public and into the study and design of small scale deliberative venues. The move away from the mass public can be seen in a growing split in deliberative theory between theories of democratic deliberation (on the ascendancy) which focus on discrete deliberative initiatives within democracies and theories of deliberative democracy (on (...) the decline) that attempt to tackle the large questions of how the public, or civil society in general, relates to the state. Using rhetoric as the lens through which to view mass democracy, this essay argues that the key to understanding the deliberative potential of the mass public is in the distinction between deliberative and plebiscitary rhetoric. (shrink)

In his "Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere," Habermas is notoriously and selectively blind to gender subordination – most centrally, the ways in which the bourgeois public sphere was founded upon the exclusion of women. Nancy Fraser articulated four specific assumptions involving the bourgeois public sphere that need to be recast in order to make the concept of the public sphere serviceable for feminist critical theory. However, subsequent historical, political and theoretical developments (...) – specifically relating to globalization – have raised new questions about the constitutive exclusions and ideological distortions that inform the normative underpinnings of even this reformulated version of public sphere theory. Even if the concept of the public sphere is ideological, though, is it merely ideology? (shrink)

This introduction contextualizes a set of papers, which originated from the Theory, Culture & Society Summer School, that explore the connections between the public sphere, the post-university and the scholarly apparatus. The impetus was the consideration of Habermas’s recent writings on the structural changes in the public sphere, along with his concerns about the mediating role of the university and its capacity to act as a specialized internal public sphere. Yet, with digitalization, metrics have (...) become increasingly important in administration and evaluation of faculty. This has been accompanied by significant shifts in the digitalization of the scholarly apparatus and the way of conducting research and publishing. A consequence has been calls to rethink the public function of the university and related knowledge institutions, and to explore new forms of educational practice in relation to media and computer literacy. (shrink)

The Public Sphere from Outside the West brings together established and emerging new voices from philosophy, literature, anthropology, history, migration studies and information technology to address the present reality of the public sphere. In the age where everyone is in the public and everything is visible, this volume creates a delay in which the internet of things, mass surveillance and social media are asked "What is/not the Public?†? The essays bring to attention the formation (...) of geo-politically and historically distinct public spheres from South Africa, India, America and Europe. Such formations are found not only in the postcolonial histories of print, photography, cinema and caricature but also those underway in the digital era, such as the Arab Spring, Occupy movements and Anonymous. Through critical engagement with philosophers such as Kant, Heidegger, Benjamin, Habermas and Arendt, the determining concepts of the Public Sphere-privacy, secrecy, reason, the people-are shown to be undergoing epistemological and practical ruptures. Demonstrating the necessity of these considerations to understand the world public that is rapidly transforming this concept in radical ways through technologies today, this is the first collection on the subject to feature an impressive range of international thinkers. Global and timely in outlook, it breaks new ground and changes our way of looking at politics in the 21st century. (shrink)

v. 1. Discovering the public sphere -- v. 2. The political public sphere -- v. 3. The cultural public sphere -- v. 4. The future of the public sphere.

In this article I analyze Rawls' and Habermas' accounts of the role of religion in political deliberations in the public sphere. After pointing at some difficulties involved in the unequal distribution of deliberative rights and duties among religious and secular citizens that follow from their proposals, I argue for a way to structure political deliberation in the public sphere that imposes the same deliberative obligations on all democratic citizens, whether religious or secular. These obligations derive from (...) the ideal of mutual accountability that is supposed to guide political deliberation in a deliberative democracy. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply. (shrink)

This article challenges the false opposition between public and private spheres that is often imposed upon our historical understanding in the Old Regime in France. An analysis of the work of Jürgen Habermas, Reinhart Koselleck, Philippe Ariès, and Roger Chartier shows that the "authentic public sphere" articulated by Habermas was constructed in the private realm, and the "new culture" of private life identified by Ariès was constitutive of Habermas's new public sphere. Institutions of sociability were (...) the common ground upon which public and private met in the unstable world of eighteenth-century France. Having superimposed the "maps" of public and private spheres drawn by Habermas and Ariès upon one another, the article then goes on to examine recent studies by Joan Landes and Roger Chartier to show the implications of drawing or avoiding the false opposition between public and private spheres for our understanding of the political culture of the Old Regime and Revolution. (shrink)

In this conversation, Berkeley-based philosopher Judith Butler offers insights into her understanding of the public sphere and its current transformations as a core dimension of political subjectivity. Beginning with her own understanding of Habermas’ classic, the interview centers around its connection to other classical texts (e.g. of Hannah Arendt) and timely political debates.

The internet could be an efficient political instrument if it were seen as part of a democracy where free and open discourse within a vital public sphere plays a decisive role. The model of deliberative democracy, as developed by Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib, serves this concept of democracy best. The paper explores first the model of deliberative democracy as a ‘two-track model’ in which representative democracy is backed by the public sphere and a developing civil (...) society. Secondly, it outlines the normative concept of the public sphere and its basic ideas, namely the uncoerced communication of equal participants with equal access and equal rights to intervene or propose themes. The third part for discussion shows how the internet could fit into this concept of public sphere and influence the quality of political debates, and emphasizes the important role it can play in the political process. (shrink)

In the public sphere and especially in the media, the discourse on the Church and about the Church on faith and religion is often tainted by the confusion of meaning due, among other things, to the mutual borrowing less rigorous – epistemologically and methodologically – of the concepts which engage various disciplines (theology, sociology, anthropology, political science, information and communication science, and so on) who take possession of problematic centered on the relation between mankind and divinity. This article (...) presents some basic benchmarks for analyzing and understanding the construction of meaning as well as the rationality or irrationality of these issues by convening the disciplinary distinction between the content of the concepts of organization and that of the institution. (shrink)

Habermas claims that an inclusive public sphere is the only deliberative forum for generating public opinion that satisfies the epistemic and normative conditions underlying legitimate decision-making. He adds that digital technologies and other mass media need not undermine – but can extend – rational deliberation when properly instituted. This paper draws from social epistemology and technology studies to demonstrate the epistemic and normative limitations of this extension. We argue that current online communication structures fall short of satisfying (...) the required epistemic and normative conditions. Furthermore, the extent to which Internet-based communications contribute to legitimate democratic opinion and will formation depends on the design of the technologies in question. (shrink)

RESUMO:O artigo discute a noção de esfera pública tematizada nos trabalhos habermasianos, defendendo que a íntima associação entre esfera pública e democracia permite pensar um modelo de política radical, no qual a aproximação entre Estado burocrático e partidos políticos profissionais com os movimentos sociais e as iniciativas cidadãs poderia superar a redução da práxis política a política partidária, concedendo a devida importância aos impulsos normativos e aos interesses generalizáveis advindos da sociedade civil rumo ao político, recuperando também uma concepção de (...) esfera pública não desvirtuada por formas de comunicação ideológicas ou distorcidas, inclusiva e crítica do poder. Para isso, entretanto, a práxis política necessitaria, correlatamente àquela aproximação, dar um passo além da própria esfera pública concentrada na mídia corporativa, adentrando nas esferas públicas informais desenvolvidas pelos movimentos sociais e pelas iniciativas cidadãs. Com efeito, as acusações, por Habermas, de subversão da esfera pública das democracias de massa contemporâneas somente poderiam ser superadas a partir de uma maior ênfase em tais esferas públicas informais, que também poderiam dinamizar uma organização administrativo-partidária atualmente marcada pelo distanciamento e pela sobreposição em relação à sociedade civil – situação possibilitada, em grande medida, pela mídia corporativa e pela burocracia e elitismo partidários. ABSTRACT:This paper discusses the Habermasian notion of public sphere. It is argued that the intrinsic association between the public sphere and democracy allows for the development of a model of radical politics in which the approximation between the bureaucratic state and professional political parties, along with social movements and citizen initiatives, could overcome the reduction of political praxis to partisan politics. This would include giving basic importance to normative impulses and universalistic claims coming from civil society. It would also involve regenerating a conception of the public sphere that is not undermined by ideological or distorted forms of communication, including the critique of power. For this, however, political praxis needs, along with such that approximation, to take a step beyond the public sphere concentrated in corporate media, focusing instead on the informal public spheres developed by social movements and citizen initiatives. In fact, Habermas’ claimed degeneration of the public sphere of contemporary mass democracies can only be overcome by a major emphasis on informal public spheres. This could energize administrative-party organizations, currently characterized by detachment and overlap in relation to civil society – a situation largely enabled by corporate media, the bureaucracy, and party elitism. (shrink)

The article situates the issue of the public sphere as a phenomenon that is historically bound and culturally specific. According to this point of view, the Western practices and the Western way of thinking about the public sphere appear as a historically particular way of dealing with the more general phenomenon which is the creation of a social bond beyond the family. Looking at the self-contradictory effects of the ‘modern’ Western public sphere, the question (...) is asked whether the public association of self-interested or self-governing individuals might have to be theorized as a partial and insufficient solution to the social bond. A comparative perspective shows that it is not individuals but cultural forms that link people in the public sphere. They do so by providing a narrative basis of discourses and/or markets that in the self-understanding of modernity shape social life. (shrink)

The open society together with a pluralistic public sphere is a cornerstone of modernity and a necessary element of democracy. However, it has been maintained that the possibility of such a society depends on liberal convictions that are not applicable to non-Western cultures and also contradict the Confucian value orientation. The article argues that such an assumption is based on a number of problematic premises. There is no one-sided dependence of the socio-political system on culture, and the contemporary (...) Chinese society is much too diverse to be dominated by Confucian values. Moreover, China’s cultural history and also Confucianism can be brought into the debate in yet another way than as a negative factor inhibiting and restricting an open society. There is textual evidence that forms of open society existed already in ancient China. Though they were not always supported by the elite, China’s intellectual heritage offers enough points of reference in order to refute the claim that the open society is an alien element in Chinese culture. (shrink)

This article reflects on the dynamics of the public sphere in the early modern period by analyzing the figure of the peasant and the notion of the common(s) in dialogue pamphlets. Beginning with a discussion of what it means to speak of a public sphere in relation to the early modern period, it examines one of the most famous Reformation dialogues, _Karst-hans_, published anonymously in 1521 in Strasbourg. Just before the German Peasants’ War (1524–26), the Lutheran (...) dialogue, polemically directed against the theologian and satirist Thomas Murner, positions the peasant as a critically mature citizen, with the hoe (_Karst_) symbolizing his potential militancy. This article specifically draws on the notion of publicity that the dialogue articulates. Using it as an example, this article analyzes the transitions and mutual projections between fiction, urban culture, and peasant protest, the structures of which are significant for the literary representation of agrarian protest far beyond the Reformation. In its final section, this article closely examines the media genre of the dialogue pamphlet and outlines some horizons of its historical development up to the Enlightenment concerning its political use and its relation to the ideal of a dialogic and socially leveled public sphere. By arguing that there existed an implicit ideal of the public sphere as a common good in the early modern period, the aim is also to clarify what distinguishes this early modern understanding of the public sphere from its conceptualization as a marketplace that has dominated our understanding of it since the Enlightenment. The prehistory presented here should provide resources for reimagining the future of the public sphere at a time when its actual structure is once again very much at stake. (shrink)

The Lautsi case in Italy attracted widespread attention in Europe and beyond. Though the issue under contention was a Christian symbol, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgements showed changes in assessment both about religion (in contrast with former cases regarding Muslim veils) and secularism (which did not have the same meaning for everyone). In light of those rulings, this paper reflects on the concepts of neutrality and secularism and their normative implications for European citizens in terms of belonging, (...) solidarity and cohesion. An open and plural public sphere, in which intercultural exchange can flourish, is crucial if Europe is serious about the integration of its immigrants, many of whom possess a Muslim background. A ‘post-secular’ Europe may have to reconsider long-held stereotypes about religion and nuance its self-understanding as ‘secular’, in a way that religious citizens can identify with Europe too. The discussion will draw on the ideas of Taylor, Casanova, Habermas, Weiler and Beck to illustrate some of the political, ethical and theoretical complexities of the Lautsi case, specifically issues to do with neutrality, secularism and the role of religion in the public sphere. (shrink)

I propose a method of assessing the degree of enlightenment of a society based on its discourses. My hypothesis is that the more objectivity prevails in a society’s spheres of discourse, the more enlightened it is; the more subjectivity dominates, the more unenlightened. This relationship can be made evident through the reconstruction of Kant’s Theory of Prejudice by taking into account the handwritten notes and fragments and the lectures on logic. First, I will discuss some key aspects of Kant’s concept (...) of prejudice. Secondly, I will address the epistemological function of the public sphere in order to show what conditions it must satisfy to fulfil its function. Thirdly, I will argue that not only Selbstdenken but also participatory reason, and therefore the public sphere itself, are both fundamental elements of enlightenment in that they function as counter-maxims against prejudice. (shrink)

이 논문은 하버마스의 예술 공론장과 단토의 이론을 발전시킨 디키의 예술계 개념과 관련된 문제를 비판적으로 비교분석하는 데 있다. 예술 공론장과 예술계는 사적 영역과 공적영역, 주체적 공중과 상대적으로 수동적인 예술대중, 예술의 안과 밖과 ‘안’에 한정이라는 차이를 보여준다. 예술 공론장의 자율성은 하버마스가 말하는 바와 달리 제한적이다. 예술공론장의 붕괴는 예술 민주주의의 시발점으로 다르게 해석 가능하다. ‘하버마스의 논의는 근대적 예술계의 총체적 행위주체에 대한 분석이 요구된다. 예술계는 새로운 전문화된 다른 형식의 예술 공론장의 성립으로 평가된다. 디키의 사회학적 시각이 배제된 ‘예술계’ 개념은 일면적인 분석에 빠지기 쉽다. 새로운 형식의 (...) 온오프 예술 공론장은 하버마스, 단토, 디키의 이론의 수정이 필요하다는 것을 시사한다. 오늘날의 예술 공론장과 예술계에 대한 논의는 하버마스와 단토 및 디키의 관점과 방법론을 유기적으로 결합할 때 좀 더 이론 생산적이 될 것이다. (shrink)

Democracy depends on a vivid public sphere, where ideas disseminate into the public and can be discussed – and challenged - by everyone. Journalism has contributed significantly to this social mediation by reducing complexity, providing information on salient topics and (planned) political solutions. The digital transformation of the public sphere leads to new forms of media provision, distribution, and use. Journalism has struggled to adapt to the new conditions. Journalistic news values, relevant to democracy, are (...) being replaced by ones relevant to social media platforms’ attention seeking business model. We plead for a broad public debate about the ongoing platformization and about possible policies to ensure a media system that serves and strengthens democracy. (shrink)

This article contains reflections on the further structural transformation of the public sphere, building on the author’s widely-discussed social-historical study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, which originally appeared in German in 1962 (English translation 1989). The first three sections contain preliminary theoretical reflections on the relationship between normative and empirical theory, the deliberative understanding of democracy, and the demanding preconditions of the stability of democratic societies under conditions of capitalism. The fourth section turns to (...) the implications of digitalisation for the account of the role of the media in the public sphere developed in the original work, specifically to how it is leading to the expansion and fragmentation of the public sphere and is turning all participants into potential authors. The following section presents empirical data from German studies which shows that the rapid expansion of digital media is leading to a marked diminution of the role of the classical print media. The article concludes with observations on the threats that these developments pose for the traditional role of the public sphere in discursive opinion and will formation in democracies. (shrink)

In this article we propose to return to the notions of public and universality in the so-called Critical Theory, in order to rethink the relation between politics, affects and women. For these purposes, we will analyze the famous The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere of J. Habermas, the first systematization of the notion of public sphere, understood as the scope of rational and universal debate which excludes the private-affective. Later, we will focus on the (...) criticism of this study made by the feminist revisionism of the eighties. These authors found a connection between the theoretical exclusion of the affects and the political expulsion of women. We will see that Habermas’ own Theory of Communicative Action opens the possibility of thinking the rationality present in the expression of affections, desires and feelings. The main aim of this work is to start a tradition of reflections for a truly universal public sphere theory. (shrink)

The political public sphere is important for democracy, and it is changing – this is how the quintessence of Jürgen Habermas’s monumental study on The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989) could be summarized in simple words. In the fields of political sociology and social theory, history, but also research on social movements, cultural studies, and media and communication studies, his conception of the public sphere as a sphere mediating between the state (...) and civil society has had a decisive influence on the debate about the potential of collective reason for modern democracy. In this introduction we give a short overview of Habermas’s arguments on the rise and fall of the bourgeois public sphere, demonstrate the necessary link between the public sphere and democracy and, referring to the contributions to this special issue, sketch current transformations of the public sphere along three basic processes – digitalization, commodification, and globalization. (shrink)

Although the question of religion did not feature prominently in Jürgen Habermas’s early political theory, his more recent work has continuously addressed the topic. This later interest in religion is grounded in what one commentator in a volume on The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere, cited as the urgent need to integrate religious voices in the workings of public reason in order to avoid social disharmony and to thwart potential violence. However, the following paper argues (...) that the hermeneutic procedures Habermas develops for the public sphere cannot bear the weight that his later understanding of religion demands of them. Such an insight validates Paul Ricoeur’s earlier argument that Habermas’s “depth hermeneutics,” were themselves utopic in nature. It is from this vantage point that a return to Ricoeur's thought is justified, through which a more productive understanding of the public potential of religious discourse can be understood. (shrink)

This article critically addresses current debates on the digital transformation of the public sphere. It responds to two contrasting responses to this transformation: the school of destruction, which expresses pessimism about the design of social media, and the school of restoration, which advocates for the redesign of social media to align with normative conceptions of the public sphere. However, so far these responses have omitted an explicit philosophical reflection on the relationship between politics, technology and design. (...) After tracing back the current discourse on politics and technology to the Platonic tradition of political thought, I propose to re-arrange the relationship between poiesis, praxis and theoria assumed in this tradition. By connecting Arendt’s phenomenology of the political to postphenomenology and Derrida’s notion of ‘artifactuality’, this article proposes a renewed approach to think the political implications of technological change consistent with the ‘empirical turn’ in philosophy of technology. This approach unfolds in two moves: first, it examines how the design (poiesis) of new technological conditions makes space and time for certain kinds of events to become public; second, it takes the praxis emerging in response to these new conditions as a starting point for re-theorizing the political in specific mediated contexts. The article concludes by advocating for a ‘practical turn’ in political theory of technology, emphasizing the importance of engaging with design practices and artistic practices to refine foundational concepts in political theory. (shrink)

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is a key contribution to political philosophy, media history, democratic theory and political economy – published almost 60 years ago – that left a deep imprint on the process of democratic consolidation of the Federal Republic of Germany. At the same time, the Habermasian model of the public sphere was used to test out the possibilities of democratisation beyond the nation-state. The theory of the public sphere was, (...) however, mainly discussed as a contribution to normative political theory and, as such, the applicability of its normative standards remained contested. In this article, I focus instead on a second sociological reading of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere as an exploration of the cognitive foundations of modern society. The relevance of this approach can be shown in an exemplary way by discussing the functioning of publicity, which, by creating social visibility and facilitating public opinion formation, on the one hand, provides the knowledge base of a shared social world and, on the other hand, becomes the main driver of social change through critical self-reflection. The article goes on to take a look at recent public sphere transformations in the context of digitalisation and globalisation, and argues that public sphere principles are both undermined and gain new relevance when facing the challenges of new and digital media. (shrink)

The article introduces to the issue of religion, rights and the public sphere. It analyzes 4 challenges that the conception of the public sphere currently faces: Does there exists a trade-off between the public sphere and a legal regime of civil rights? Does the public sphere really require us to keep the good and religious questions outside of it? To what extent is the public sphere neutral and not rather itself (...) the outcome of a particular and contingent conception of the good? Whatever might be our answers to the questions 1 to 3, does not Islam constitute a special challenge for any conception of the public sphere? The article draws following prudent conclusions: First, rights are somewhat fundamental for a democratic public sphere. Second, a democratic public sphere cannot exclude religion. Third, little indicates that the public sphere is only a western concept. On the contrary, the public sphere has a universal character. Fourth, Islam does not pose any specific challenge to the public sphere, at least no more than the other religions. (shrink)

In this contribution, we argue that critical theories of the public sphere (in Habermas, but also in Negt and Kluge as well as Fraser) leave out the socially central field of labour and labour-political disputes, and that a reactualization and refocusing becomes necessary: We define the dynamics of globalization, commodification and digitalization as sequences of a renewed structural transformation of both social self-understanding and gainful employment. With the help of a multi-level model of labour-political publics and counter-publics, class (...) mobilizations can be examined with a public-theoretical lens and important moments of labour-political disputes can also be reflected on their communicative conditions. This is exemplified by two vignettes. (shrink)

In response to the attractive moral and politicalmodel of cosmopolitanism, this paper offers anoverview of some of the conceptual limitations to thatmodel arising from computer-mediated, interest-basedsocial interaction. I discuss James Bohman''sdefinition of the global and cosmopolitan spheres andhow computer-mediated communication might impact thedevelopment of those spheres. Additionally, I questionthe commitment to purely rational models of socialcooperation when theorizing a computer-mediated globalpublic sphere, exploring recent alternatives. Andfinally, I discuss a few of the political andepistemic constraints on participation in thecomputer-mediated (...) class='Hi'>public sphere that threaten thecosmopolitan ideal.``Nature should be thanked for fostering socialincompatibility, enviously competitive vanity, andinsatiable desires for possessions and even power.Without these desires, all man''s excellent naturalcapacities would never be roused to develop.'''' Theultimate destiny for mankind, according to Kant whowrote these words in 1784, is to achieve through theuse of reason a `cosmopolitan existence'' or ``thematrix within which all the original capacities of thehuman race may develop.'''' Ironically, however, as Habermas andothers have realized, Kant''s carefully developedvision for `perpetual peace'' among nations and `worldcitizenship'' is now murky even as the electronicallymediated infrastructure of that matrix is rapidlydeveloping. Globalization as a process has intensifiedto the point where a new social, political, andeconomic condition has taken hold in the global arena.Recently this condition has been termed ``globality'''' –a term denoting a networked world characterized byspeed, mobility, risk, insecurity, andflexibility. And a debate is forming around thequestion of whether we are still in late modernity andexperiencing the culmination of modernity''s inherentlyglobalizing tendency or instead we have entered thenetworked age, in which the tension between collectiveand transformative identities and the networking logicof dominant institutions and organizations heralds theend of civil society. Inthis paper assume the latter but wish to explorefurther the political and epistemic constraints onparticipation in the computer-mediated public sphere.These constraints seem certain to impact the viabilityof a cosmopolitan public sphere. In the first sectionI shall discuss James Bohman''s definition of theglobal and cosmopolitan spheres and howcomputer-mediated communication (hereafter CMC) mightimpact the development of those spheres. In the secondsection, I question the commitment to purely rationalmodels of social cooperation when theorizing a globalpublic sphere. I explore recently proposed alternativeways of thinking about this issue in section three.And finally, I discuss a few of the political andepistemic constraints on participation in thecomputer-mediated public sphere that threaten thecosmopolitan ideal. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} In order to see whether there is a common European model that gives a place to religion in the public sphere two issues have to be taken into account: first, if there is a theory of secularization that accurately describes the current situation of European societies (...) and second if, there is a European model on Church – State relationship. The first part is dedicated to the different accounts on secularization that may be applied to European countries: the classical Weber theory that view secularization as an “iron law” of any society, the institutional secularization, secularization as the decline and adequacy of religious practice, the continuation of the classical theory in the 60’s and beyond, the criticism of this theory and the particular argument of the increase of fundamentalist religious movements. The attempts to formulate new theories on secularization based on other assumptions than the classical one are also presented. The increased presence of religion in private life does not mean a decrease of religion in the public space but rather a new definition of it. Despite the different intensity of belief in national terms, some trends like “believing without belonging” are common, meaning that secularization could have a single meaning in Europe, apart from other continents. The second part starts with presenting the three types of Church - State relationship at the national level. All these have in common the fact that the state is neutral towards religious subjects, a religious subsection is singled out within the public sphere and the state has the right to intervene in this area only as an arbiter. There is already a European law on religion and this statement is supported by examples from the Lisbon Treaty, The Charter of Fundamental Rights, different Directives and decisions of the European Court of Justice. Common rules on religion agreed at the European level helps better to understand why there is a common European model on religions, different from the national models. After taking into account the two aspects described above, a common European model on religion in the public sphere emerges as a necessary conclusion. (shrink)

In this paper, we give an account of some of the necessary conditions for an effectively functioning public sphere, and then explore the question of whether these conditions allow for the expression of ideas and values that are fundamentally incompatible with those of liberalism. We argue that speakers who advocate or glorify violence against democratic institutions fall outside the parameters of what constitutes legitimate public debate and may in fact undermine the conditions necessary for the flourishing of (...) free speech and public dialogue more generally. (shrink)

Democratic conceptions of politics are tacitly or explicitly predicated upon a functioning arena for the formation of public opinion in an associated media-space. Policy-making thus requires a reliable connection to processes of ‘public’ will formation. These processes formed the focus for Habermas’s influential study on the public sphere. This contribution presents a look at more recent ‘structural transformation’, the causes of which are by no means limited to social media communication, and examines its consequences. It proceeds (...) in three steps: 1) in some proximity to Habermas, but also by means of the theory of resonance, it seeks to determine the kind of public sphere that a democratic polity requires; 2) an analysis of problems within the contemporary public sphere will feed into 3) a discussion of the conditions for the restoration of a ‘functioning political public sphere’. These include changes in the realms of participation, representation and spaces of encounter. (shrink)

This article explores the question of how to understand social media following the Habermasian theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere. We argue for a return to political-economic fundamentals as the basis for analysing the public sphere and seek to establish a characteristic connection between digital-behavioural control and singularised audiences in the context of proprietary markets. In the digital constellation, it is less a matter of immobilising the citizen as a consumer but rather of (...) their political activation – albeit in conditions under which commercial interests have primacy: privatisation without privatism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe political public sphere is at one and the same time both public, and private and religion operates in both the public and the private spheres in the modern way of life. This article approaches the dynamics between the cultural and the political public sphere from the point of view of religion; how the cultural intelligentsia developed its worldview fuelled with attitudes towards religion in times of political turmoil. The case study, based on the (...) empirical analysis of cultural periodicals and societies around them, concerns the Finnish liberal intelligentsia in the early twentieth century. The first decade of the 1900s was a particularly important period of formation for the Finnish public sphere; the societal turmoil highlighted the importance of cultural periodicals in defining what was important for the national public sphere. The case of religion is an illustrative example of it, particularly from the point of view of the liberal intelligentsia of the era. (shrink)

This article connects the previously isolated literatures on corporate citizenship and corporate political activity to explain how firms construct political influence in the public sphere. The public engagement of firms as political actors is explored empirically through a discursive analysis of a public debate between the mining industry and the Australian government over a proposed tax. The findings show how the mining industry acted as a corporate citizen concerned about the common good. This, in turn, legitimized (...) corporate political activity, which undermined deliberation about the common good. The findings explain how the public sphere is refeudalized through corporate manipulation of deliberative processes via what we term corporate citizenspeak—simultaneously speaking as corporate citizens and for individual citizens. Corporate citizenspeak illustrates the duplicitous engagement of firms as political actors, claiming political legitimacy while subverting deliberative norms. This contributes to the theoretical development of corporations as political actors by explaining how corporate interests are aggregated to represent the common good and how corporate political activity is employed to dominate the public sphere. This has important implications for understanding how corporations undermine democratic principles. (shrink)

Recent disclosures suggest that many governments apply indiscriminate mass surveillance technologies that allow them to capture and store a massive amount of communications data belonging to citizens and non-citizens alike. This article argues that traditional liberal critiques of government surveillance that center on an individual right to privacy cannot completely capture the harm that is caused by such surveillance because they ignore its distinctive political dimension. As a complement to standard liberal approaches to privacy, the article develops a critique of (...) surveillance that focuses on the question of political power in the public sphere. (shrink)

An outsider to argument theory, should she look through the rich outpouring of our recent work, might be amused to find us theorists not following our own prescriptions. We propound our ideas, but we don't always interact with each other--we don't argue. The essays by William Rehg and Robert Asen make promising start on rectifying this difficulty. I want to discuss them, first, to show how they acknowledge in exemplary fashion a pair of challenges I think we should all be (...) addressing; and next to consider their specific responses. (shrink)

A fil rouge goes through Habermas’s decade long research. It is the idea that Reason and rationality permeate human societies and may lead human action towards emancipation, if aptly elaborated through the filter of theoretical reflection. Theory must pick up on this rational core and turn the intrinsic rational potential inherent to modern societies into a self-consciously pursued ‘project of enlightenment’. This introduction to the special issue ‘Habermas, Democracy, and the Public Sphere: Theory and Practice’ shows how Habermas’s (...) work in different scientific domains contributes to the construction of the ‘project of modernity’ from the many angles that such a complex project requires. The public sphere is, in Habermas’s theory, the societal domain in which communicative interactions have a chance to make Reason come to bear on human societies and lead them on the path to social and political emancipation. The contributions to this special issue focus therefore on the public sphere and illustrate the evolution of the concept in Habermas’s work and its relation to democracy at national and supranational level. (shrink)

The public sphere has been seen by conservatives as an arena for safeguarding private relations. Private power relations could be threatened by newly recognized social groups that make claims on the state for justice and equality. Therefore, conservatives have been concerned about who can speak and exist in public and who can thereby make demands on the state. In the debates over transgender rights in Canada, social conservatives and neoliberal forces have merged in complex and impactful ways. (...) Analyzing House of Commons and Senate debates and committee proceedings for Bill C-279 and Bill C-16, I examine three conservative arguments that illustrate attempts to maintain private power relations and hierarchal gendered divisions by ensuring that transgender and gender nonconforming people are not allowed to exist, speak or make claims in public: first, the assertion that gender identity and gender expression are not definable identity categories for claims-making because transgender people are deceptive and can change their gender based on their feelings; second, the targeting of public facilities, and particularly public bathrooms, as sites of contention, danger and necessary gender segregation; and third, the attempt to delegitimize rights claims by criminalizing transgender people in relation to cisgender women and children. (shrink)

The liberal democratic regimes rest on a well-developed public sphere accessible to all citizens that favors free discussions based on reason and critical debate and serves as a space where public opinion is formed through reasoned dialogue. The new digital technologies disrupted many parts of contemporary democratic societies and transformed their public sphere. Digital transformation alters industries and markets, changing the perceived subjective value, satisfaction, and usefulness of goods or services and displacing established companies and (...) products. Within the political realm, digital transformation creates a cleavage between the vulnerable populations who are ill-informed and lack digital fluency and politicians who tend to learn about peoples‟ problems not to deal with them but to weaponize new technologies to engineer elections and win power. The rise of misinformation and disinformation undermines public trust in democratic institutions and discourages or incapacitates citizens from engaging in debates within the public sphere. On the other hand, the digital transformation of the public sphere empowers ordinary people to aggregate in various publics and counteract the domination of the mainstream parties. Our paper aims to answer whether new technologies provide citizens with ways to counter the undemocratic tendencies caused by digital transformation and engage actively in the public sphere. (shrink)

The quest for a decent political order in many societies is imperative today because of the heterogeneous nature of our social existence and the complexity of our ever increasing socio-economic and political experiences. Since the public sphere is a domain of freedom exemplified by dialogical engagements, the outcome of such encounter must involve the intelligible thoughts of all discussants with the sole aim of dealing with the concerns and commanding the commitment of all to the decisions reached. In (...) this study, it is argued that Deweyan democracy as an alternative theory of rational inquiry is relevant for engaging the present sordid condition of many Africans democratic practice and policy outcomes. As a rational procedure, it is averred that John Dewey’s emphasis on epistemic properties of democratic discourse makes the proceduralist account of democracy superfluous and exposes the weakness of the content of democratic discourse in political actions and decisions. The study also contend that given the consensual state of Dewey’s epistemic thought, Jürgen Habermas theory rather than expanding the space of epistemic democracy stifled it because of his insistence on the force of a better argument in the resolution of conflicting concerns of dialoguers. The study therefore, argues for Dewey’s democracy as an alternative mode of political order since it does not undermine the views of the citizens but gives room for the activation a certain set of attitude that can challenge prevailing opinions and accepts the views that do not embrace conventional wisdom—a procedure that is necessary for the growth and development of our democratic space. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on a theory of the ideological public sphere in the age of digital media. It describes the public sphere as an initially ascending and then descending communication process that includes both polarising and integrating publics, which are organised by antagonistic media and compromise-building mass media. This framework allows us to distinguish between hegemonic, populist, and popular-oriented flows of communication, as well as register changes in the interplay of different publics driven by digital media (...) platforms. Digital transformations of the public sphere give rise to antagonistic and networked-individualistic flows of populist communication that put public hegemony under constant pressure. The challenge is to find ways to strengthen popular communications that enable democratic learning processes and the flourishing of communicative competences of all citizens. (shrink)

Changing human behavior is critical to mitigating the increasingly severe environmental harm. Although numerous studies focus on private-sphere or generalized pro-environmental behavior, relatively little research examines explicitly public-sphere PEB from a collective action perspective. This study incorporates trust and identity into the Attitude-Behavior-Context theory to investigate Chinese residents’ participation in public-sphere PEB. Primary data collected from 648 residents in China tested the model empirically. The results indicate that social trust, environmentalist self-identity, and politicized identity positively (...) predict public-sphere PEB and that institutional trust positively impacts non-activist behaviors but negatively relates to environmental activism. There is also evidence that trust and identity are moderators of attitude and public-sphere PEB. Specifically, social trust and environmentalist self-identity strengthen the effect of attitude on public-sphere PEB. Politicized identity increases the impact of attitude on environmental activism but not on non-activist behaviors, and there is no significant moderating effect of institutional trust. The findings deepen the understanding of public-sphere PEB and make more targeted policies accordingly. (shrink)