Page 87 - Democracy and the Public Sphere

82 Jürgen Habermas

patriotism’, then, suggests the need to build a political culture that’s
oriented towards unconditional respect for the ‘Others’ with whom our
fate is unavoidably linked; and it also suggests that such a political
culture must open itself up to new and diverse cultural infl uences
– to invoke Latour again, it must not make the disingenuous demand
that citizens leave their cultural coats on cloakroom hooks before
they enter the public sphere. The intrinsic tensions of this public
ethic (to respect others regardless of their cultural identity without
disregarding or demanding that they disregard that cultural identity)
may simply invite us to throw it into the ‘too hard’ basket. But it
may also vouch for its relevance to a complex problem: we would
do well to discard simpler remedies.
But there is a troubling bias in Habermas’s recent theorising around
the public sphere that places limitations on its relevance and value.
The emphasis is on (re)connecting citizens with the political culture
of an official republican polity. I want to suggest that whilst this is

undoubtedly an important and urgent area of analysis, it puts the
conceptual if not the historical cart before the horse. Also in urgent
need of interrogation is the role and scope of communicative action
in the array of ‘micro-publics’ that populate contemporary society,

and which, for the most part, entertain rather finite or piecemeal
aspirations, but which often prove more effective in drawing citizens
out into the public arena than the grandiose concerns of the offi cial
polity and its satellite fora, such as mass political parties or large
scale non-governmental organisations. I think Habermas ends up by
underestimating the extent of disconnection between most citizens in

Western liberal democracies and the official political and legislative
processes. General allusions to ‘social movements’ notwithstanding,
Habermas’s recent writings tend to gloss over the chaotic assemblages
of alternative, grass roots networks, alliances, single-issue campaigns,
online forums, community and self-help groups and so forth, that
demand our critical attention. His recent work, given its emphasis,
lacks the modicum of political and sociological realism required to
make critical theory relevant to the concrete concerns and aspirations
of many, many ordinary citizens who have long since given up on
the hope of changing mainstream political culture and have scattered
elsewhere to pursue more tangible projects. Greenpeace and Amnesty
International are not necessarily the most relevant kinds of civil
society initiative: in their fine grasp of administrative rationality

and public relations, they rival their governmental and corporate
counterparts. What is needed is not more analysis of the tensions and

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