Social inclusion, a challenge for deliberative democracy? Some reflections on Habermas’s political theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 136843102098378
Author(s):  
Isabelle Aubert
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
Alexander Kluge ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Nancy Fraser ◽  
Theory Of Democracy

This article explains how the issue of inclusion is central to Habermas’s theory of democracy and how it is deeply rooted in his conception of a political public sphere. After recalling Habermas’s views on the public sphere, I present and discuss various objections raised by other critical theorists: Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Nancy Fraser, Axel Honneth and Iris Marion Young. These criticisms insist on the paradoxically excluding effects of a conception of democracy that promotes civic participation in the public debate. Negt, Kluge and Fraser develop a Marxist line of analysis that question who can participate in the public sphere. Honneth and Young criticize in various ways the excluding effect of argumentation: are unargumentative speeches excluded from the public debate? I show how Habermas’s model can provide some responses to these various objections by drawing inspiration from his treatment of the gap between religious and post-metaphysical world views.

scholarly journals Informacijos hierarchija vėlyvuoju sovietmečiu: bibliotekų atvejis

2012 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 116-134
Author(s):  
Tomas Vaiseta
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Theory Of Democracy ◽  
Normative Political Theory

Straipsnyje siūlomas būdas, kaip viešosios erdvės sampratą pritaikyti sovietinės Lietuvos laikotarpiui ir kaip jos funkcionavimą rekonstruoti per vieną iš dėmenų – bibliotekas. Teigiama, kad nors viešoji komunikacija neatitiko laisvo žodžio, atvirumo ir polilogiškumo kriterijų, tačiau analizei galima pasitelkti viešąją erdvę ne normatyvine prasme, o tik kaip komunikacinę struktūrą, taip pat įvertinti ją per „pasaulio atvėrimo“ koncepciją. Šiai komunikacinei struktūrai priklaususių bibliotekų veikla analizuojama trimis lygmenimis – politiniu, ideologiniu ir administraciniu, kurie leidžia į bibliotekas pažiūrėti kaip į tam tikras informacines piramides, kuriose informacija (spaudiniai) pateikiama pagal hierarchijos principus. Kiekvienu iš šių lygmenų atsiveria skirtingi informacinės hierarchijos aspektai: politiniu lygmeniu reikia kalbėti apie atkirtimą nuo konteksto ir tradicijos; administraciniu lygmeniu išryškėja infrastruktūrinės reformos reikšmė; ideologiniu lygmeniu iškyla dirbtinis prioritetų sudarymas pagal ideologinius principus.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: viešoji erdvė, komunikacinė struktūra, biblioteka, sovietų Lietuva, vėlyvasis sovietmetis, ideologija. The Hierarchy of Information in the Late Soviet Period: the Case of LibraryTomas Vaiseta SummaryThe article deals with the situation of libraries in the late soviet period (1964–1988) as an element of soviet public sphere. The soviet public sphere is interpreted not in a normative sense (as a contribution to a normative political theory of democracy), but only as a structure of communication, and it is compared with the concept of the public sphere as a place of “world-disclosing”, proposed by Craig Calhoun. It is suggested that a typical metaphor of pyramid is valid to understand the hierarchy of information in libraries, but it is necessary to analyse this pyramid on three levels – political, administrative, and ideological. Each of these levels shows that we should approach the soviet libraries not as a place of “world-disclosing”, but as a place of “world-closing”., sans-serif;"> 

Epistemic Justice and Democratic Legitimacy

Hypatia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 794-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Dieleman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Nancy Fraser

The deliberative turn in political philosophy sees theorists attempting to ground democratic legitimacy in free, rational, and public deliberation among citizens. However, feminist theorists have criticized prominent accounts of deliberative democracy, and of the public sphere that is its site, for being too exclusionary. Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser, and Seyla Benhabib show that deliberative democrats generally fail to attend to substantive inclusion in their conceptions of deliberative space, even though they endorse formal inclusion. If we take these criticisms seriously, we are tasked with articulating a substantively inclusive account of deliberation. I argue in this article that enriching existing theories of deliberative democracy with Fricker's conception of epistemic in/justice yields two specific benefits. First, it enables us to detect instances of epistemic injustice, and therefore failures of inclusion, within deliberative spaces. Second, it can act as a model for constructing deliberative spaces that are more inclusive and therefore better able to ground democratic legitimacy.

scholarly journals The University as Public Sphere

1998 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Ambrozas
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Women's Studies ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Compte Rendu ◽  
Elite Institution ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The University ◽  
Nancy Fraser

Abstract: There is a certain parallel between arguments about the decline of the public sphere and the decline of the university today. Both institutions are said to be increasingly fragmented and politicized. In this paper, I mobilize Nancy Fraser's alternative account of the public in order to defend contemporary political changes in the university, such as affirmative action or women's studies programs. Such changes are necessary to transform an elite institution into a more democratic one and, in addition, they broaden the scope of our knowledge. Résumé: On peut établir un certain parallèle entre les arguments concernant le déclin de la sphère publique et le déclin de l'université aujourd'hui. On dit que les deux institutions deviennent de plus en plus fragmentées et politisées. Dans cet article, j'utilise le compte-rendu alternatif de la sphère publique donné par Nancy Fraser pour défendre les changements politiques contemporains dans l'université, comme l'action affirmative ou les programmes d'études des femmes. Ces changements sont nécessaires pour transformer une institution élite en institution plus démocratique et ils contribuent en outre à élargir l'éventail de nos connaissances.

Secularism, Feminism, and the Public Sphere

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niamh Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Feminist Scholarship ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Principle ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter outlines major developments shaping contemporary debates about religion and secularism in public and political life and the role of women and feminism therein. It considers, from a gender perspective, debates in normative political theory about religion, secularism, and the Habermasian public sphere. These themes are explored as they are dealt with in feminist scholarship on the critical edges of Enlightenment thinking. The phenomena of the separation of church and state, the progressive “secularization” of modern societies and relegation of religious practice to private domains, and the growing acceptance of gender equality, are no longer presumed to be inevitable and interrelated. This chapter considers what is involved in rethinking secularism as a feminist political principle, in a context of globalization and in contemporary multicultural societies.

Approaching the Hellenistic Polis through Modern Political Theory: The Public Sphere, Pluralism and Prosperity

2018 ◽  
pp. 68-98
Author(s):  
Benjamin Gray
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civic Values ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy

This chapter discusses methods and problems in reconstructing an inclusive, dynamic picture of the political thought and debates of the Hellenistic cities (c. 323– 31 BC), drawing on theories and models from modern political and social theory. It shows the benefits of integrating together the widest range of possible evidence, from Hellenistic philosophy to the most everyday inscriptions, in order to reconstruct for the Hellenistic world the kind of complex, wide-ranging picture of political thought advocated by P. Rosanvallon and others in the study of modern political thinking. When studied in this way, the political thinking and rhetoric of Hellenistic philosophers, intellectuals and citizens reveal attempts to reconcile the Greek polis with ideals of cosmopolitanism and social inclusion, without diluting political vitality. As evidence for this political vitality, the paper demonstrates is the fruitful interlocking and mutual counterbalancing within the Hellenistic public sphere of the three types of political discourse studied in turn in Ober’s trilogy on Classical Athens: political lobbying and negotiation, including rival attempts to shape civic values; philosophical and critical reflection about the foundations of politics; and rationalistic consideration of efficiency, especially the devising and advertisement of incentives.

Digital Humour, Gag Laws, and the Liberal Security State

2017 ◽  
pp. 204-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Bessant
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
The Public ◽  
On Line ◽  
Artistic Work ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter presents a case study of Facu Diaz, a Spanish satirist whose on-line ridicule of the Spanish government created a political furor that brought him before the courts. The chapter engages the problem of the criminalization of political dissent by liberal states in the digital age. The case highlights how digital media is now being used to create content for satire, as well as to replicate and infiltrate more traditional political and media forums, changing many traditional forms of political practice. The case [points to some of the central problems inherent in liberalism which may give reason to curb the enthusiasm of those who think that new digital media creates fresh opportunities for augmenting the ‘public sphere'. It is argued that liberalism as a political theory and ethos, tends to be blind to non-traditional political expressions like satire and other artistic work. In addition, the expansion of security laws in many countries suggests, liberalism's ostensible commitment to freedom needs to be reframed by recalling its historical preoccupation with security.

Collective Voices Online

2021 ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Vittoria Bernardini
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Sexual Misconduct ◽  
Private Sphere ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Nancy Fraser

The chapter investigates how women use the practice of speaking out in their activism to bring issues that are significant to them from the private sphere into the public sphere. Specifically, it focuses on analyzing how this was achieved in the case of the #MeToo movement, taken as the most prominent example of activism against sexual harassment in recent years. Using the conceptual tool of counter public sphere developed by Nancy Fraser, the chapter examines two relevant events from #MeToo: the sexual misconduct allegations against actor Aziz Ansari and the circulation of the so-called “Shitty Media Men” list.

Political Theory and the Bourgeois Public Sphere

Beyond Reason ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 175-206
Author(s):  
Sanjay Seth
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Rational Argument ◽  
Comparative Political Theory ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political View ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Common World

Arguing that political theory is an irremediably Western and liberal enterprise, this chapter shows that it is a discipline that does not seek to accurately represent and explain an object, but is rather knowledge “for,” performance rather than representation. The discipline is directed toward the public sphere, imagined as a realm of individuals possessed of their own “values” who, however, inhabit a common world and engage in rational, critical debate about that which they hold in common. It thus “performs” the liberal conviction that differing moral and political viewpoints being ineliminable, they must contend with each other in rational argument in a public sphere not itself marked by a commitment to any moral or political view. Recognizing the parochialism and Eurocentrism of these presumptions, some scholars have recently attempted to “deprovincialize” political theory by extending its geographical and cultural remit through “comparative political theory.” The chapter evaluates the success and shortcomings of these endeavors.

scholarly journals Questioning the Ideal of the Public Sphere: The Emotional Turn

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630511985217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Wahl-Jorgensen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Letters To The Editor ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media System ◽  
Essential Resource ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Ideal

This article discusses the usefulness and limitations of Habermas concept of the public sphere, on the basis of the trajectory of the author’s work. It starts from the observation that the concept has generated a rich scholarly debate on tensions between the normative ideals and the nitty-gritty lived experience of mediated publics. While fundamental norms of interaction associated with the ideal of the public sphere remain essential to the creation of meaningful debate, it also relies on a series of unhelpful binary distinctions that may be neither normatively desirable nor attainable. Key assumptions of the public sphere model include the idea that public debate should be rational, impartial, dispassionate, and objective. This, in turn, implies the undesirability of emotionality, partiality, passion, and subjectivity. In recent years, particularly in response to the rise of digital and social media, scholars have begun to question the rigid delineation of such norms. The article draws on the author’s work to illuminate how an “emotional turn” in media studies has opened up for a more nuanced appraisal of the role of subjectivity and personal stories in the articulation of the common good, challenging Habermasian understandings of rational-critical debate. This “emotional turn” constitutes an essential resource for theorizing public debate as it unfolds within a hybrid media system, for better and for worse. The article shows how the “emotional turn” has shaped the author’s work on mediated public debate, ranging from letters to the editor and user-generated content to Twitter hashtags and the “emotional architecture” of Facebook.

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