Page 137 - Democracy and the Public Sphere

132 Jürgen Habermas

unions, protest groups, subcultural groups and business, nor is it to
undermine the specialisation of expert knowledge. Rather, the point
is to radicalise the idea of a ‘separation of powers’ and a decentred,
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differential politics, facilitating more dialogue and instituting fair
negotiation across the various sub-political arenas. Beck’s politics of
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reflexive modernity aspires to enrich ‘specialisation in the context’,
and to empower sub-political groupings such as protest movements,
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trade unions and the like.
Beck’s notion of ‘sub-politics’ is especially important here because it
immediately connects with dilemmas of the public sphere which have
raised themselves in different ways throughout this study. It speaks
to Nancy Fraser’s claim that any model of radical democracy must

accommodate both official and subaltern public spheres (Chapter
1), and it speaks to Habermas’s colonisation of the lifeworld thesis
(Chapter 3). Beck’s model of sub-politics is driven by his desire to

see significant interest groups of every hue brought into the formal
political process. Today, there are special-interest groups that benefi t
greatly from lobbying and interacting with political representatives
away from the gaze of publicity. Others, including pressure groups,
can be disadvantaged by this separation of political form and content
as they are forced to plough scarce resources into tactical battles for
visibility. Bringing interest groups into the purview of a restructured
formal democracy, premised on a greater separation of powers, would
enhance both the accountability and the enfranchisement of the
various interest groups and public spheres. But this sub-political
model, if it is to be of value to the democratic imagination, must
also be attuned to the dangers of co-option. In order to protect the
autonomy and integrity of sub-politics, in all its diversity, the formal

democratic process would not only need to find ways of ensuring
that the agenda is set bottom-up, rather than top-down. It would also
need to find ways of cultivating, respecting and drawing upon diverse

ways of doing things: codes, conventions, rules, rituals and traditions.
In our discussion of constitutional patriotism (Chapter 3), we noted
that procedural common ground – the constitution, in the broadest
sense – could be conceived as potentially cross-cultural only insofar
as it is built and renewed in the light of diverse cultural specifi cities:
it must aspire towards the translocal, rather than the global, in other
words. We must also take seriously the dangers of simply multiplying
strategic opportunism through a vertical and horizontal separation
of powers: why would sub-political groups favour a communicative

and cooperative orientation when finally granted the offi cial voice

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