Published 2019-12-11
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Abstract
The objective of this paper is to provide some elements of the Habermasian theory of the public sphere that could help in the understanding of contemporary phenomena such as the role of civil society and social movements, and in particular the conceptual framework of the so-called popular culture. I focus on what I call "the revised public sphere", which represents Habermas' mature thinking about the notion of the public sphere, reconceptualized and rearticulated within the framework of his theory of communicative action and his theory of democracy. In doing so, I focus on explaining this revised notion as dependent on some central ideas of the theory of communicative action – especially the idea of presuppositions implicit in the practice –, and applied to some topics of the theory of deliberative democracy, such as conceiving the Constitution and the State as fallible and in need of revision.
In particular, in relation to the so-called «plebeian public sphere», I present Habermas’s redefinition of the notion of the public sphere, including the concept of multiple public spheres, and emphasize the potential for the openness of the public sphere as a defining feature. I present the important role of the notion of civil society in this revised public sphere – including Habermas precisions regarding the self-limitation of civil society, and I dwell on two conceptual tools that I consider particularly useful: the double circulation of power, and the “dual politics” of social movements. I propose to reformulate these two concepts, respectively, as “communicative and non-communicative circulation of power”, and “double action politics” of social movements. Towards the end of the article I expose some recent ideas of Habermas (2015, 2016, 2018) about what he has called democratic polarization, as a proposal to counteract the advance of right-wing populism. In this way I try to provide some theoretical tools that I believe can be especially useful for a historical moment – the present – and a place – our region – that is going through processes of polarization that rather distance themselves from this “democratic polarization” proposed by Habermas.
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References
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