Page 33 - Democracy and the Public Sphere

28 Jürgen Habermas

or individuals are marginalised. It is, of course, in keeping with the
norms and expectations of a democratic society that associations
and organisations exist which comprise people of similar interests,
opinions and backgrounds. But membership of and participation
in such groups should not be conditional on ascriptive markers of
status, such as wealth or ethnicity. Even then, it’s only when their
internal procedures are available for scrutiny by a broadly conceived,
pluralistic public domain that they make a positive contribution to
a reconstructed public sphere:

The public sphere commandeered by societal organisations and that under
the pressure of collective private interests has been drawn into the purview
of power can perform functions of political critique and control, beyond
mere participation in political compromises, only to the extent that it is
itself radically subjected to the requirements of publicity, that is to say, that
it again becomes a public sphere in the strict sense. 105

And critical publicity implies the development of procedural norms
governing internal and external relations, which give due weight to
the principle of open dialogue in which nothing and no one is off
limits. Such straightforward idealism will always exist in tension
with both pragmatic considerations (how to get things done in the
time available) and ethical considerations (the classic dilemma of
balancing openness with the demands of mutual respect and care
for the other incumbent on an egalitarian discourse ethic). That
Habermas does little to refine his model or clarify these dilemmas in

Structural Transformation itself is beyond dispute: they are precisely
the kinds of dilemma that will recur throughout our encounter with
Habermas in this book.

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Goode 01 chaps 28 23/8/05 09:36:22