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DOI: 10.1177/0191453704043096
2004 30: 331 Philosophy Social Criticism
John S. Brady
Theory of the Public Sphere
No Contest? Assessing the Agonistic Critiques of Jrgen Habermas's

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John S. Brady
No contest? Assessing the
agonistic critiques of Jrgen
Habermass theory of the
public sphere
Abstract Would democratic theory in its empirical and normative guises
be in a better position without the theory of the deliberative public sphere?
In this paper I explore recent theories of agonistic democracy that have
answered this question in the afrmative. I question their assertion that the
theory of the public sphere should be abandoned in favor of a model of
democratic politics based on political contestation. Furthermore, I explore
one of the fundamental assumptions at work in the debate about the theory
of the public spheres status, namely the assumed opposition between
consensus and contestation. Questioning the rigid nature of the opposition,
I go on to argue that the deliberative theory of the public sphere actually
facilitates the development of the agonistic approach to democratic theory
and practice.
Key words agonistic democracy deliberative democracy democratic
theory Habermas theory of the public sphere
But how shall we test whether interests are capable of being generalized if
not through discourse? (Jrgen Habermas
1
)
Has the concept of the public sphere, long considered central to demo-
cratic theory, lost its usefulness as a category of social and political
analysis? Is, in fact, its continued deployment actually counter-produc-
tive? In other words, in continuing to rely on the idea of the public
sphere as part of the empirical analysis of political systems and as a
normative ideal, are political theorists actually impeding the critical
PSC
PHILOSOPHY & SOCIAL CRITICISM

vol 30 no 3

pp. 331354
Copyright 2004 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
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evaluation of modern democracy and the articulation of workable ideals
for the improvement of contemporary democratic societies? Skeptical
questions like these have been a central element of the theoretical dis-
course on public politics. They have shadowed the various attempts to
work out a denition of the public sphere and to specify the norms that
should govern citizens interactions on the public stage. With each new
clarication of the category of the public sphere and each new attempt
to compile a catalog of public virtues, skeptics have wondered whether
such analyses are not simply chasing a phantom and wasting much
time and energy in the process (see, for example, Lippmann, 1993;
Peters, 1994; Robbins, 1993).
One recent version of this skeptical perspective has come from
theorists of agonistic politics who have argued that the theory of the
public sphere, especially as employed by deliberative democrats like
Jrgen Habermas, is seriously awed and actually hampers the develop-
ment of a viable theory of democracy. According to this latest incarna-
tion of the skeptical position, the theory of the public sphere is
hopelessly unrealistic in so far as it continues to rely on a conception
of public politics as the rational exchange of opinions, despite copious
and daily proof of the messy, conict-laden nature of contemporary
political practice. What is perhaps worse, deliberative theorists seem to
exhibit a shocking normative naivety. Wedded as they are to the achieve-
ment of consensus on questions of democratic legitimacy as the ideal
goal of public debate, they fail to see that circumscribing a domain that
would not be subject to the pluralism of values and where a consensus
without exclusion could be established is a hopeless task (Mouffe,
2000: 91). Given such aws, agonistic theorists have recommended
scrapping the theory of the public sphere altogether in favor of a model
of democratic politics that places political contestation, the reality of
exclusion, and the search for the emancipatory potential of alterity at
its center (Coole, 1997: 221).
My rst goal in this essay is to evaluate this latest rejection of the
theory of the public sphere. I am concerned with exploring the logic of
the critiques main claim, that is, the contention that the empirical and
normative aws of theory of the public sphere are so extensive as to
warrant its replacement by alternative models of political practice. If it
can be shown that the agonistic reading of the theory of the public
sphere as fatally awed is based on a misinterpretation of the theory,
one that underestimates the theorys realism and overstates the blink-
ered character of its normative imagination, then the rationale for aban-
doning the public sphere as a category of analysis would be severely
undercut. I undertake such an argument in the rst part of this essay
via an examination of Jodi Deans and Chantal Mouffes respective cri-
tiques of Jrgen Habermass theory of the public sphere. Both theorists
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nd similar aws in Habermass theory and offer similar solutions based
on replacing Habermass model, which they see as rationalistic and
hostile to cultural and value pluralism, with conceptions of public
politics based on political conict and contestation.
My interest in the agonistic critique extends beyond the particular
strengths and weaknesses of its analysis of the Habermasian framework.
The debate about the empirical and normative status of the public
sphere is just one theme in an increasingly lively and wide-ranging
debate within democratic theory between theorists of agonistic and
theorists of deliberative democracy, and I am interested in the funda-
mental assumptions that have been made in the course of this debate.
In particular, I think it worthwhile to focus on the assumptions theorists
make about the relationship between consensus and contestation.
If we were to have learned one thing from postmodernism, it was
to be deeply suspicious of binary oppositions. Although they offer an
often elegant and parsimonious means of theorizing politics, in reality,
so the critique goes, traditional conceptual couplets such as
public/private, universal/particular or self/other constrain political
analysis by hampering the ability of theorists to appreciate the inherent
ux and heterogeneity of political practice. Political reality is simply too
messy to be forced into such either/or categories of analysis. Worse still,
such binaries, with their implication of opposition and independence,
obscure the mutually constitutive nature of most political and social
phenomena. Thus, no identity without difference. Given both the famili-
arity of this critique and the not insignicant inuence of postmodern
philosophical positions, especially within recent political theory, it is
perhaps surprising how stubbornly one particular binary opposition has
managed to shape the discussion between agonistic and deliberative
democrats, namely the purported opposition between contest and con-
sensus. With remarkable regularity, theorists on both sides insist on the
fundamental opposition between a democratic political practice based
on contestation and one based on consensus formation (see, for
example, Benhabib, 1996; Brown, 1995; Connolly, 1993; Mouffe, 1999,
2000; Villa, 1992; Young, 1990).
2
My goal in the second part of this essay is to contribute to the
deconstruction of this particular binary from the perspective of the
theory of the public sphere in a Habermasian vein. In doing so, I will
adopt a strategy different from those that other theorists who are sym-
pathetic to Habermass project have employed in their efforts to nego-
tiate the contestconsensus divide. When faced with the charge that their
focus on rational discussion and their positive valuation of consensus
together lead them to undervalue or even denigrate political dissensus
and the natural spontaneity and anarchy of the political, deliberative
democrats have offered one of two counter-arguments. In the rst
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argument, defenders of the deliberative model claim that while the
theory does not embrace political contestation for its own sake, it can
certainly accommodate it within its theoretical framework. From this
perspective, the theory of the public sphere remains more or less neutral
vis--vis the empirical signicance and normative salience of agonistic
political practice (Chambers, 1996). The second argument adopts a less
neutral stance. It argues that, far from simply accommodating the reality
and desirability of contestation, the theory of the public sphere actually
requires political contestation. From this perspective, the actualization
of a genuinely democratic public sphere and the maintenance of demo-
cratic legitimacy depend on citizens who engage in political practice
marked by contestation (Markell, 1997).
In questioning the stubborn persistence of the contestationconsen-
sus divide, I have chosen a line between these two previous strategies.
As I will argue, the rst accommodationist position is too weak in so
far as it fails to appreciate the ways in which Habermass theory of the
public sphere goes beyond neutrality to forge a positive relationship to
agonism. In other words, it ignores the ways in which the theory
supports agonistic democracy both as a theoretical program and as a
particular type of political practice. Yet this support does not extend so
far so as to validate the second position. Habermass theory does not
require agonistic forms of political action. Instead, I will argue it is best
to interpret Habermas as facilitating an agonistic approach to demo-
cratic theory and practice without, however, offering a judgment regard-
ing the agonistic models ultimate validity. Habermass theory opens up
both the conceptual and political space conducive to a deeper appreci-
ation of and support for the spontaneity, initiation, and difference that
characterize agonistic speech (Villa, 1992: 716).
In reaching this conclusion, I read Habermas in two ways based on
an analogy between the character of democratic public communication
and Habermass own political theory. As Habermas has remarked, com-
munication in the public sphere possesses a self-referential quality.
Those political actors who support democratic public debate tend to
put forward texts that always reveal the same subtext, which refers
to the critical function of the public sphere in general. Whatever the
manifest content of their public utterances, the performative meaning
of such public discourse at the same time actualizes the function of the
undistorted public sphere as such (Habermas, 1998: 369). We can
analyze Habermass theory in a similar way, that is, explore how its
text the concepts it employs, the positions it takes and its sub-text
the manner in which Habermas articulates his theory relate to the
agonistic model. When we do so, we see that Habermass support for
the agonistic approach stems not only from the theoretical positions he
takes, but also from the fact that in the course of articulating his theory
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he contributes to the production and reproduction of a public forum
open to the critical evaluation of the agonistic model of democratic
theory and practice.
Part I: The theory of the public sphere and the skeptics
As an object of political and scholarly debate, Habermass theory of the
public sphere has had an impressively long career. In its original formu-
lation in Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, the theory was
swept up into the politics of the German student movement, where it,
along with other elements of Habermass social philosophy, became a
point of reference in the student activists attempt to mount an effective
critique of West German society (Abendroth et al., 1968; Holub, 1994).
Beyond the realm of movement politics, the study also had an impact
on German academic debate, spurring a number of critical responses
across the academys ideological spectrum (Hohendahl, 1982). The
1989 translation into English was, of course, too late to inuence
American student movement politics, but the work did have a substan-
tial effect on American scholarship, inspiring a variety of historical and
theoretical studies employing the theorys framework along with a
number of important critiques. Like their German predecessors, these
new critics confronted Habermas along a broad front, pointing out the
theoretical inconsistencies in Structural Transformation, questioning
Habermass idealization of the bourgeois public sphere and its achieve-
ments, and disputing the historical validity of his description and
analysis (Holub, 1994). Theorists working in the tradition of agonistic
democracy have recently extended the theorys career as a ashpoint for
intellectual dispute with their criticisms of Habermass concept of the
deliberative public sphere and its emphasis on the desirability of attain-
ing a rational consensus through public debate (Dean, 1996a; Mouffe,
1999, 2000; Villa, 1992).
Agonistic critics of Habermass theory of the public sphere have
taken up earlier themes of Habermass other critics including the
analysis of power and his treatment of subaltern public spheres while
emphasizing one element in particular: his examination of the politics
of difference, including the political contestation that takes place as
groups address issues of group identity and culture in public debate.
Although the intellectual foundations of these criticisms vary some
critics look to French critical theorists such as Foucault, Derrida,
Lyotard, and Deleuze for inspiration, while others seek theoretical
assistance from Arendt they share the common conviction that
Habermass theory presents an under-theorized account of difference:
empirically, it has little to say about how political contestation over
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questions of cultural, sexual, or ethnic difference shapes the contours of
public debate (Calhoun, 1997); and normatively, the theory is unable
to attribute any emancipatory potential to . . . otherness (Coole, 1997:
221). While some have argued that it is possible to correct these
problems within Habermass framework, others have taken a more
radical approach. They have argued that it is only by jettisoning
Habermass theory and its outdated and dangerous attachments to con-
sensus, political transparency, and universal norms, that the analysis of
the public sphere within democratic theory can move forward. The
alternative is to adopt an agonistic or contestatory model of the public
sphere if theorists are to deal effectively with the politics of difference
in the public arena. Scholars working in this vein stress that political
struggles over questions of identity are endemic in the contemporary
public sphere. Indeed, we should not expect anything less, given
humanitys fundamental inability to reconcile recalcitrant differences
through the creation of a common political discourse or in reference to
universally valid norms. In light of this, the appropriate political project
consists of a politics engaged in the endless subversion of codes (Villa,
1992: 719). Here I will argue that this approach does not live up to its
radical promise: it fails to offer a more powerful, difference-sensitive
approach to the public sphere. This failure suggests that abandoning
Habermass framework does not represent the best way to develop a
more powerful critical theory of the public sphere.
As representative examples of this more radical approach, I would
like to examine recent work by Jodi Dean and Chantal Mouffe. Both
theorists, citing the difculties Habermas has in including analyses of
difference, the political contestation over questions of identity, and the
play of political power involved in such contestation, have made similar
calls for abandoning Habermass theory of the public sphere in favor of
frameworks based on contestatory, agonistic conceptions of politics.
Working with the concept of civil society, Dean (1996a) argues that
Habermass continued reliance on the public sphere as his normative
model of democratic politics impedes critical theorys move from totality
to multiplicity. In Deans view unless critical theory jettisons the concept
of the public sphere in favor of a model centered around a conception
of civil society as a series of interconnected discursive spheres (1996b:
91), it will be unable to develop a post-conventional conception of a
multicultural, democratic society (1996a: 222). For Mouffe the theor-
etical and political stakes are equally high. Habermas, she charges,
works under the illusion that political questions, especially those that
address questions of justice and ethics, can be adjudicated rationally. As
a result, Habermas elides the reality of power and antagonism in the
public sphere, and consequently he fails to envision adequately the
nature of a pluralistic democratic public sphere(Mouffe, 1999: 745). In
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Mouffes (2000: 104) view the solution to this problem is to adopt ago-
nistic pluralism as a new model of democratic public politics, a model
that accepts that every consensus exists as a temporary result of a pro-
visional hegemony, as a stabilization of power, and that it always entails
some form of exclusion.
For both commentators, Habermass failure to provide a satis-
factory analysis of the contestatory politics of difference is more than
just an incidental feature of his theory: in fact, it is an unavoidable
product of the foundational assumptions with which Habermas has
worked. Surveying Habermass early work on the public sphere, Dean
(1996a: 228) identies its three fundamental theoretical aws: the
adoption of an homogenous and homogenizing conception of the public
sphere; the denial of the constitutive role played by the exclusion of
marginal groups, especially women, in the public spheres development;
and, nally, the formulation of a concept of political subjectivity that
belies the conicts and multiplicities already present in any subject. As
a result of these aws, Habermas elides the signicant role played by
particular gender, racial, cultural, and ethnic differences in the public
spheres development.
Dean is a careful critic, and thus she acknowledges that Habermas
has rened his concept of the public sphere in works subsequent to
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. She cites Habermass
recognition of the plurality of public spheres and the malleability of the
publicprivate distinction as elements that have allowed him to move
his theory toward a greater appreciation for multiplicity and plurality
in the public sphere. Still, Dean (1996a: 231) feels that Habermas,
because he insists on retaining the public sphere as the anchor for his
conception of deliberative politics, falls far short of providing a theory
that can do justice to the multiplicity and diversity of post-conventional
societies.
She traces this inability to three new aws in Habermass revised
framework. First, he elides the inherent presence of power in public dis-
course. For Habermas, Dean (1996a: 234) evocatively notes, power
inltrates. She continues: [power] comes from outside into areas previ-
ously untouched by its manipulative and regulatory forces as if these
areas were not from the outset already inuenced or even constructed by
a variety of processes and relationships of power (ibid.). Habermas it
seems is a bit of a Pollyanna. Worse still, he leads us astray by implying
that the public sphere, as a sphere devoid of the distortions of power,
can produce rational discourses when in fact such discourses are the
result of struggles for political advantage. Secondly, Habermass focus on
communicative rationality suggests a monolingual conception of the
public sphere in the sense that he privileges a certain conception of ration-
ality at the expense of others. Such privileging misses the essential point
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that if we are truly to conceive of multiple discursive spheres, we must
allow for a variety of types of communication and representation (ibid.).
Finally, Habermass focus on the procedures of public discussion, draws
attention away from the bodily and material inuences on discourses in
civil society, that is, he fails to take into account how discourses and
systems of representation construct our understandings of our bodies,
their boundaries, and their meanings (1996a: 235). These three aws
combine to bring the original problem of homogeneity back with a
vengeance. Indeed, so burdened is Habermass theory, Dean argues, that
it ends up misdirecting attention toward closure, answers, and categoriz-
ation of discourse and away from openness, questioning, and an accept-
ance of the messiness of political styles and engagements (1996a: 233).
Like Dean, Mouffe argues that Habermass theory presents a static,
one-dimensional conception of the public sphere. She faults his model
of deliberative democracy for ignoring the role that power and political
conict play in politics generally and in the formation of collective iden-
tities specically. Mouffe traces this aw to Habermass adamant insist-
ence that political questions can be decided rationally and that a public
exchange of arguments and counter-arguments that takes place under
conditions of equality, impartiality, and openness is the most suitable
means of producing rational political opinion. To maintain such a
position in the face of the ample evidence testifying to the irrational,
power-soaked nature of contemporary politics, underscores the unreal-
istic, idealistic nature of Habermass model, Mouffe believes. What is
more, the impediments to rational public discourse are not, as
Habermas seems naively to believe, only a matter of faulty institutional
design or of the domination of politics by vested interests. Instead, these
impediments belong to the very being of democracy, they are onto-
logical not empirical (Mouffe, 1999: 751). Mouffe incorporates both
Wittgensteins argument that agreement between individuals is estab-
lished not through signications but through a common form of life,
and Slavoj ieks claim that a discursive eld without distortion is
impossible, to bolster her contention that language and communication
are never neutral: they are constituted by relations of power and fraught
with particular ethical commitments that privilege certain forms of
argument and the groups that make them. The very conditions that
make it possible for human beings to communicate the grounding of
communication in specic forms of life, the need for master signiers
authoritatively to order speech simultaneously rule out the possibility
of Habermass model of rational public communication. Difference and
power are part and parcel of democracy.
Given such fundamental theoretical failings, the rescue of
Habermass model seems hardly possible. Indeed, Dean and Mouffe
both advocate its abandonment, although it should be noted that Dean
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is more sympathetic to Habermass overall discourse theory of demo-
cracy. Dean (1996a: 236) suggests abandoning the public sphere in favor
of a theory of civil society as the site of relationships of recognition, a
move she feels will enhance critical theorys ability to acknowledge and
critique the exclusionary practices that undermine contemporary demo-
cratic practice. The focus on civil society and relationships of recog-
nition means a move away from considering discursive rationality as the
primary indicator of the validity of social practices and toward an
interrogation of the forms of degradation and disrespect that threaten
human identity and cause human suffering. This re-mapping of critical
theorys terrain, Dean feels, corrects the aws in Habermass model of
the public sphere. Critical theory can now directly address the bodily,
psychic and emotional harms that Habermas, according to Dean, rele-
gates to secondary importance by assigning them to the domain of
ethics, tradition, and culture. It is also a better position to analyze power
and political contestation. Most importantly a critical theory based on
civil society and relationships of recognition draws attention to the issue
of difference. Resisting the temptation to predene political debate in
terms of a given set of discursive rules, Deans alternative model of
public politics remains open to the variety of ways in which relation-
ships of difference inuence the dynamics of public debate (Dean,
1996a: 238).
Mouffes alternative model, agonistic pluralism, reformulates the
basic question that the theory of the public sphere asks. Instead of
exploring how citizens can remove power from politics, the question
Mouffe feels animates Habermass theory, agonistic pluralism asks how
citizens can constitute forms of power compatible with democratic
values. In Mouffes alternative model, the normative goal of politics is
not freedom from power, but freedom from hostile and violent political
relationships, or what Mouffe (1999: 755) terms antagonism.
Adopting this analytical lens entails a concomitant shift in ones view
of the nature of politics. Unlike with the deliberative model, the task of
democratic politics is no longer the elimination of the passions and their
relegation to the private sphere in order to make rational consensus in
the public sphere possible. Instead, the goal is to mobilize those
passions towards the promotion of democratic designs (ibid.: 7556).
Productively engaging power, conict, and the passionate side of
politics, agonistic democracy, Mouffe concludes, is at once more realis-
tic and more sensitive to the importance of difference in contemporary
politics. It is, as she notes, more receptive than the deliberative demo-
cracy model to the multiplicity of voices that a pluralist society encom-
passes, and to the complexity of the power structure that this network
of differences implies (ibid.: 757).
Dean and Mouffe both offer fundamental critiques of Habermass
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theory of the public sphere and his conception of deliberative demo-
cracy. Identifying what they consider to be fundamental aws in
Habermass framework, they propose making a radical break with his
theory in order to adopt alternative models of the public sphere. But do
Dean and Mouffe succeed? That is, do they really offer viable alterna-
tives to Habermass framework, ones that are, as they claim, more real-
istic in their empirical and sociological estimations of the possibility of
a conict-free, rational democratic politics and that evidence more
nuance in their normative analyses of the contemporary public sphere?
Ultimately, no. Dean and Mouffe do draw attention to some poten-
tially problematic aspects of Habermass framework his analyses of
power, political conict, and the exclusion of minority groups. Yet
shortcomings in their readings of Habermass work lead both critics to
overstate the signicance of the issues they identify and to overlook the
signicant strengths of Habermass theory of the public sphere, strengths
that ultimately recommend it as a more powerful and desirable model
for theorizing the contemporary public sphere. Habermas presents a
more sophisticated empirical and normative analysis of the public
sphere and the politics of difference than either Dean or Mouffe give
him credit for. In so far as this is true, serious doubts exist about the
necessity, and indeed the desirability, of abandoning Habermass ana-
lytical framework.
We can trace the agonistic or contestatory perspectives question-
able interpretations of Habermass work to a number of factors. First,
both Dean and Mouffe fail to provide sufcient readings of Habermass
theory. They overlook the signicant analyses of power, political
conict, and even difference that Habermas has provided over the
course of his career. Similarly, they do not give enough due to the signi-
cant alterations Habermas has introduced into his theoretical frame-
work, changes that have directly contributed to his ability to address
many of the very issues Dean and Mouffe feel he continually neglects.
But beyond these partial readings of Habermas, his interlocutors make
a second, more fundamental mistake: they do not sufciently acknow-
ledge the reconstructive methodology Habermas employs in the study
of politics. As a result, they discuss Habermass theory in terms
idealistic/realistic analysis, normative/empirical theory that do not
really apply to Habermass work. Adopting a frame of reference foreign
to Habermass framework, Dean and Mouffe cannot adequately
evaluate what they seek to transcend.
3
Although in many respects they offer sensitive readings of
Habermass work, Dean and Mouffes readings are not sensitive enough
to acknowledge when Habermas does provide analyses of power,
conict, and political contestation over issues of difference: all phenom-
ena the two commentators feel must be contained in any contemporary
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theory of public politics. Examples of Habermass acknowledgment and
analysis of these aspects of politics can be found throughout his work
on the public sphere and the theory of communicative action (see, for
example, Habermas, 1973, 1982, 1991a). Indeed, even Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere, a work that critics frequently offer
as the quintessential example of Habermass inability adequately to
confront issues of power and conict, contains a sophisticated analysis
of powers role in both the development and the transformation of the
public sphere. As Habermas (1989: 82) points out in his discussion of
the public spheres initial development, this arena of public debate arises
in the political contest between the emerging bourgeoisie and the
ofcials of the absolutist state; the bourgeoisie ultimately wins its auth-
ority to legislate only through a tough struggle with the old guard. In
the books second half when he discusses the transformation of the
public sphere, Habermas re-works Walter Benjamins category of the
aura, adapting it from the realm of aesthetics to that of politics in order
to provide a supple analysis of how organized interests employ their
superior resources of political power to instrumentalize public debate
and conjure up the aura of popular legitimacy for their self-interested
pursuits. In other words, the issues of power and political conict have
had their place in Habermass theory from its earliest stages, even if they
have not always been in the foreground of his analysis.
Yet despite his recognition of the role played by power and domi-
nation in public debate, Habermas, to his credit, does not reduce politics
to the struggle over and use of political power a move Dean and
especially Mouffe often come close to making. Instead, he offers an
analysis that is at once more subtle and more realistic: it acknowledges
the play of power in politics but also the real role that rationality and
non-strategic political communication play in shaping public debate.
Thus what Dean and Mouffe interpret as a preoccupation with idealis-
tic aspects of public debate is actually part of Habermass attempt to
provide a more comprehensive analysis of the public sphere, one that
avoids a one-dimensional, reductionist depiction of politics as simply
power politics.
As Habermas has developed his social theory he has introduced into
his framework innovations that have successfully built upon his original
analysis of the public sphere and increased his ability to analyze power,
conict and difference in the public sphere. To cite some of the more
prominent examples, he has included a much more differentiated
analysis of the public spheres main actors, focused in greater detail on
the mechanisms of exclusion that undermine the democratic potential
of public debate, and placed the constitutive pluralism of modern
societies in the foreground of his analysis of public politics.
4
Thanks to
such changes, Habermas can now, among other things, locate the use
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of illegitimate power in public politics with more precision, acknow-
ledge the importance of cultural membership and collective identity as
important supports of participation in public debate, and also identify
those political actors most likely to show support for the issues raised
by minority groups.
In her criticisms of Habermas, Mouffe completely ignores such
changes to Habermass framework and their signicance for his theorys
ability to analyze the politics of difference. As a result, she provides an
inaccurate evaluation of Habermass framework. Dean, by contrast, is
a more sensitive reader. She notes, for example, Habermass acknow-
ledgment of the valuable role played by subaltern public spheres in
increasing the diversity of political debate and his recognition that the
boundary between public and private spheres is itself an issue to be
democratically determined (Dean, 1996a: 230). Nonetheless, she does
not appreciate the full ramications of these alterations. In integrating
these and other changes, Habermas is now better able to underscore the
complexity and multiplicity of discourses that constitute contemporary
public politics (see, for example, Habermas, 1994). Thus, for instance,
he can acknowledge the important role that political debates between
social groups over their differing interpretation of needs play in the
public sphere (ibid.). Moreover, in his writings on multiculturalism,
Habermas has examined how relationships of mutual recognition facili-
tate the democratic political participation of citizens, and he has also
explored the harms suffered by individuals when such recognition is
denied to them (Habermas, 1994, 1996). He examines, in other words,
the exact phenomena Dean faults him for ignoring.
This interpretation of Habermass work suggests that it provides
tools for the empirical analysis of politics that are more powerful than
either Dean or Mouffe can appreciate. In so far as this is true, it suggests
that the need to abandon the Habermasian framework is not nearly as
acute as his two critics claim. But Dean and Mouffe do not only focus
on Habermass empirical analysis of public politics, they also question
the validity of his theory based on what they see as fundamental aws
in his normative conception of democratic public politics. They are
especially critical of what they see as Habermass advocacy of a public
sphere based on the principles of rationality, consensus, and political
discussions free of power. In Dean and Mouffes view the advocacy of
these principles of public debate necessarily leads Habermas to devalue
the normative signicance of difference and political contestation.
Yet in this respect Dean and Mouffe misconstrue the normative
character of Habermass theory, in large part because they fail to give
sufcient credence to the reconstructive aspects of his theory. As
Habermas himself has noted, he is not a normative theorist in the tra-
ditional sense: he does not design the norms of a well-ordered society
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on the drafting table (in Pensky, 1994: 101). The key distinction here
is between ideals of communicative interaction rational exchange of
viewpoints, the avoidance of force and manipulation, the equal inclu-
sion of perspectives as norms of action that individuals can or should
adopt and these same ideals conceived of as unavoidable conditions of
any interaction in which speaker and hearer raise and discuss validity-
claims. Contrary to the interpretations of Dean and Mouffe, Habermas
does not offer ideals such as the rational exchange of opinions or non-
manipulative dialogue as norms toward which individuals should strive
in their desire to secure the good life. From Habermass perspective, the
articulation of basic norms of law and morality falls outside the domain
of moral theory. Moral theorys charge is, instead, meta-ethical: it is to
develop the principles and criteria of fair procedure that should govern
any process of argumentation through which individuals attempt either
to restore the validity of a norm that has been contested or to arrive at
a valid new norm (Habermas, 1991b; also Heath, 2001). Habermas
derives these principles and criteria from his formal-pragmatic analysis
of language, the goal of which is the reconstruction of those idealizing
suppositions such as the non-coercive exchange of opinions that any
speaker must assume when engaging in rational argumentation. He
takes this empirical turn toward the use of language in order to provide
an account of such principles and criteria without, however, remaining
beholden to culturally or historically specic justications and thus
risking dogmatism in the process. It is upon the basis of this recon-
struction that Habermas derives his theory of discourse ethics.
Two aspects of this reconstruction should be emphasized here in
order to throw the difference between Habermass project and those of
Dean and Mouffe into greater relief. First, the theoretical reconstruc-
tion of the pre-theoretical knowledge that subjects possess regarding
what makes normative argumentation possible is fallible. It itself must
be subject to debate and compete with other ethical approaches to offer
the most convincing account of empirically existing moral and legal
ideas (Habermas, 1991b: 97). Secondly, in reconstructing those ideal-
izing suppositions operative in argumentation, Habermas (1991b) does
not automatically take the position that these ideals should then have
the power to regulate action. Such an argument could indeed be made,
but it would shift the focus of the theory back to that of traditional
philosophical ethics and would also alter the role played by the theorist.
No longer a scientic investigator seeking to determine the context-
transcendent suppositions that make argumentation as such possible,
the theorist would switch roles and become a concerned citizen partici-
pating with others in her particular societys ongoing discussion about
the legitimacy of its social norms. For their part, Dean and Mouffe do
play the role of participants in such a normative debate; they intervene
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in the larger normative discourse about the political values and norms
proper to contemporary societies distinguished by high levels of cultural
pluralism and advocate the adoption of a politics based on contestation
and the recognition of difference. This is, of course, a perfectly legiti-
mate pursuit, but it is not the one that Habermas is engaged in. As he
notes,
[M]y references to idealizations have nothing to do with ideals that the
solitary theorist sets up in opposition to reality; I am referring only to the
normative contents that are encountered in practice, which we cannot do
without, since language, together with the idealizations it demands of
speakers, is simply constitutive for socio-cultural forms of life. (Pensky,
1994: 102)
Keeping the distinction that Habermas draws here in mind is important
if we are to avoid Dean and Mouffes mistake of imposing non-appli-
cable standards of critique to Habermass work. In taking Habermas on
his own terms, we gain a deeper appreciation for his attempt to decon-
struct some of the basic distinctions that social science and political
theory employ, including the distinction between empiricism and pre-
scriptivism.
5
Keeping this distinction in mind is also signicant because
it allows us to understand how Habermass theory can emphasize the
rational and consensual elements operative in everyday speech and
normative discourse and still facilitate an agonistic approach to demo-
cratic theory and practice. Illustrating this capacity of Habermass
theory is the task of the next section.
Part II: Theory, practice, and agonistic politics
Habermass recent contribution to political theory, Between Facts and
Norms, opens with a brief sketch of the shaky edice of practical reason.
The growing complexity of modern societies has rendered the modern
traditions previous attempts to anchor practical reason in the capacity
of individuals, either as private subjects who adopted the role of bour-
geois or citoyen or as members of a society that nds its unity in the
state, deeply problematic. More recent attempts to rehabilitate the
explanatory power of practical reason, such as philosophical anthro-
pology, also fail to provide a sufcient basis of norms for a reasonable
conduct of life (Habermas, 1998: 2). And while the constitutional
democracies of the West provide examples worth pursuing, their utility
is limited for those born outside the political traditions that continue to
lend support to these democracies. Those who come from outside the
democratic tradition still face the fundamental task of nding criteria
and reasons they can employ to distinguish what is worth preserving
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from what should be rejected in humanitys democratic inheritance
(ibid.: 23). The obvious importance of the task, but the simultaneous
failure of modern philosophy to provide a foundation for practical
reason, helps to explain, Habermas notes, the attractiveness of the only
option that seems to remain available: the brash denial of reason alto-
gether, whether in the dramatic form of a post-Nietzschean critique of
reason or . . . of a systems functionalism that neutralizes anything that,
from the participant perspective, appears obligatory or at all meaning-
ful (ibid.: 3).
Not content to accept such a denial, Habermas has chosen instead
to map out an alternative concept of reason, substituting communicative
for practical reason. On the basis of this conception of reason and the
theory of communicative action of which it is part, Habermass ultimate
goal is provide a theory which supports the rational justication of both
moral norms and norms of political justice and democratic legitimacy.
The shift from practical to communicative reason is important for our
purposes because it signicantly alters the relationship between theory
and practice. The tradition of modern political theory envisioned a
direct link between practical reason and social practice. In transposing
the concept of reason into the linguistic medium, Habermas attenuates
this link. He does not offer individuals the knowledge necessary to
orient their actions; his theory is neither informative nor immediately
practical (1998: 5). Instead, he employs his theory to describe and
reconstruct the human rationality at work in everyday life; that is, he
attempts to show how the use of language and social interaction in
general necessarily rely on notions of validity, such as truth, normative
rightness, sincerity, and authenticity (Rehg, 1998: xiii). This rationality,
which is actualized through the medium of communication aimed at
reaching understanding, forms an ensemble of conditions that enable,
but also limit, the action of actors and the reproduction of the struc-
tures of everyday life (Habermas, 1998: 4). Communicative rationality
is not, however, a subjective capacity that individuals possess and that
would tell them what they ought to do. This is a decisive point. It means
that a theory that aims to describe communicative rationality will not
produce prescriptions for individual action; it will not tell individuals
how they should best lead their lives or how they should best organize
their society (Habermas, 1998).
In terms of the relationship between Habermass theory and agon-
istic politics, the attenuated nature of the theorypractice link opens up
a space for political contestation. At rst glance this claim must seem
far-fetched. Habermas never explicitly endorses an agonistic political
posture or publicly agitates for a political practice based on agonistic
principles. In so far as this is true, it calls into question the idea that
Habermass theory requires an agonistic approach to politics. What
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Habermass theory does do, though, is support a theoretical debate and
political practice conducive to a consideration of agonism as a theory
of politics and a strategy of political action. It does so in two ways.
First, by not prescribing a normative framework individuals should
adopt, Habermass theory provides them room to decide the amount of
political contestation proper to their particular historical situation.
Secondly, on the basis of the reconstruction of the manner in which
rational validity-claims can be found in all realms of social life, includ-
ing the rules and practices that individuals make use of when partici-
pating in public debate, Habermas provides standards of critique
individuals can employ to contest illegitimate norms. In other words,
Habermas goes beyond simply accommodating agonism within his
framework to provide some of the important means through which
political actors can test the desirability of political contestation as an
ingredient in the continuing project of democratization. This is indirect
support to be sure, but to do more would undermine the autonomy of
political actors as participants in the process of enlightenment and as
judges of the risks and expectations of political action (Habermas, 1973:
32). After all, [d]ecisions for the political struggle cannot at the outset
be justied theoretically and then be carried out organizationally (ibid.:
33).
One key source of this support comes from the theory of the public
sphere itself. The public sphere is, as Habermas (1998: 373) updates its
denition in Between Facts and Norms, a highly complex network that
branches out into a multitude of overlapping international, national,
regional, local, and subcultural arenas. When functioning at their best,
these arenas are accessible spaces of political debate. Sites of spon-
taneous action and participation bordering on the anarchic, these nodes
in the public network feature lively discussions in which actors, faced
with the constraints and opportunities presented by their concrete situ-
ation, not only bundle their specic viewpoints into an inuential
political opinion, but also have the opportunity to discover their own
individual potential as political actors. At its best, in other words, the
public sphere is one of the central sites where individuals can partici-
pate in the self-determination of their societys political path and
discover and actualize in the process their status as free and equal
citizens. At their worst, the various arenas that make up the public
sphere lack any of this creative and transformative political character.
Instead, they are sites of manipulation and passivity as powerful actors,
deploying their superior resources of political power, cultural prestige,
and nancial strength, exploit the natural openness of the public in
order to push their particular projects on a politically demobilized cit-
izenry. Securing plebiscitary acclaim, not fostering participation in the
process of collective self-determination, becomes the goal of such actors.
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Habermass social theory is designed to support the rst, best-case
scenario of public politics. This support comes in some of the usual
forms one expects from a theory constructed with practical intent. The
components of his social theory the two-tiered rendering of society as
system and life-world, the concept of colonization, the sociological
model of the public sphere are supposed to aid the empirical investi-
gation of democratic systems, providing the conceptual tools and theor-
etical generalizations needed to better locate the potential for
democratization present in modern, complex societies. Such an investi-
gation entails, in part, the analysis of power constellations that suppress
and distort the rationality announced in the teleological and inter-
subjective structures of social reproduction, structures to which
Habermass social theory is designed to draw our attention (Habermas,
1982: 221). This is the negative moment of his social theory: the height-
ening of awareness for the distorting effects of power. The theorys
positive moment comes in sensitizing individuals to the stubbornly tran-
scending power of rationality contained in everyday life, a power that
is renewed with each act of unconstrained understanding, with each
moment of living together in solidarity, of successful individuation, and
of saving emancipation (ibid.). In both its negative and positive
moments, the theory plays a clarifying and sensitizing role by provid-
ing analytical tools and concepts individuals can employ in order to con-
struct a critical analysis of their particular political situation.
Habermass theory of discourse ethics offers support of a different
kind to the democratic project. Democratization is the goal of his social
theory. As he notes:
We are faced with the problem of how capabilities for self-organization can
be developed to such an extent within autonomous public spheres that
radical-democratic processes of will-formation can come to have a decisive
impact on the regulatory mechanisms and marginal conditions of media-
steered subsystems in a lifeworld oriented toward use values, toward ends
in general. (Habermas, 1991a: 261)
But while Habermass social theory is designed to further the process of
democratization, it has relatively little to say about the institutions and
normative framework that would result from this process. Here the
theory of discourse ethics is signicant, not so much because it supplies
substantive guidelines for generating norms in those cases when they
have been contested, but because it offers a procedure for testing the
validity of norms that are being proposed and hypothetically considered
for adoption (Habermas, 1991b: 103). It is only political actors who
supply the normative content for any practical discourse, and it is they
who must engage in the process of trying to secure a valid norm. Dis-
course ethics, for its part, articulates the criteria which guide practical
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discourses and serve as the standard for distinguishing between legiti-
mate and illegitimate norms (Cohen, 1988: 316). The theory has a
double utility then, offering both possible procedures for arriving at
valid norms and a critical standard for assessing the legitimacy of
particular practices of normative justication.
In both of these instances, Habermass theory stands at a consider-
able distance from history in the sense that the theory provides certain
tools and procedures actors can take with them to the arena of political
practice, even as the theory itself remains outside of this arena. But there
is another sense in which the theory is in history, that is, more directly
involved in the political project of democratic self-organization. It is in
history in so far as Habermass theory contributes to the historical con-
stitution of a particular public space in which scholars and citizens can
contribute to the political discourse about the democratic transform-
ation of modern societies. In providing the conceptual tools for the
systematic study of the public sphere, Habermas contributes, for
example, to the development of a more or less coherent language in
which scholars can proceed with an analysis of the public sphere and
deliberative democracy. At the same time, Habermas himself continues
to intervene in this international public sphere in a variety of modes,
including engaging in critical self-reection about his own previous
work and analyzing the work of others on the topics of public politics
and deliberative democracy. In doing so, Habermas contributes to the
reproduction of this particular communicative network.
Whether in history or not, Habermass theory opens up a space for
democratic reection and democratic action, a space that necessarily
contains room for a consideration of agonistic politics. In this sense
Habermass theory facilitates the agonistic approach to politics. There
are, I think, very few people who would claim that contestation and
agonistic political relations are not part and parcel of politics, do not
belong to the very fabric of political practice. Habermas certainly has
never denied that this is the case. Indeed, from the very earliest he has
recognized and commented on conict, especially the conict over inter-
ests, as a characteristic dimension of modern politics. His always ener-
getic, sometimes very pointed, interventions in popular political debate
also demonstrate a fundamental appreciation for what agonistic
theorists consider to be among the essential ingredients of politics the
passionate advocacy of a particular position, a refusal to shy away from
confrontation, and an embrace of the metaphorical, rhetorical, playful,
embodied aspects of speech (Young, 1990: 118).
The agonistic model of politics is, in part, a theory of politics, one
that claims that political contest is a fundamental characteristic of
political practice. Beyond this, it is an ethical theory that urges the
adoption of political norms that will facilitate a politics based on
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contest. Finally, it also seems to imply a specic strategic approach to
politics, one that again recommends the value of conict and confron-
tation as a means of furthering radical democracy. All of these positions
are, of course, themselves subjects for discussion. In other words, agon-
istic theorists are themselves dependent on the public sphere, on pro-
cedures for testing the validity of norms, and on the conceptual
resources that help to identify sources of democratic consciousness, all
of which are resources that Habermass theory provides. What is the
status of political contest as a form of action? Is it the fundamental
form? Or derivative of something else? As a political strategy, to what
extent is the agonistic approach effective? Does the endless subversion
of codes and norms contribute to democratic politics or simply to
political frustration? In supplying the theoretical tools and contributing
to the historical constitution of the public sphere, Habermas promotes
debate, discussion, and contestation around exactly these questions. It
is in this limited, but nonetheless signicant, sense that his theory facili-
tates the further development of agonistic politics.
Conclusion
I have made two related arguments in this essay. First, I argued that the
agonistic critique of Habermass theory of the public sphere fails to offer
a convincing set of reasons in favour of abandoning the Habermasian
framework for a theory based on the agonistic principles. In fact, such
a move would entail a signicant loss in analytical power and norma-
tive insight. Expanding the scope of the essay, I then argued that
Habermass theory of the public sphere read in conjunction with other
aspects of this social theory allows us to question the sharp distinction
democratic theorists are prone to draw between consensus and political
contestation. If acceptable, what are the wider implications of these
arguments for the development of the theory of the public sphere and
democratic theory generally?
In response to the various criticisms of his analysis of the bourgeois
and post-bourgeois public spheres, Habermas has continued to defend
the basic outline of his theory of the public sphere. Despite the criticism
it has faced, Habermas has argued that his theoretical framework
nonetheless continues to provide the appropriate analytical perspective
for investigating contemporary public politics. The theory is particularly
useful, Habermas has claimed, for analyzing how citizens contest the
domination of public debate by organized political and economic inter-
ests and how these citizens are thereby able to open the public sphere
to a wider spectrum of topics, values and political perspectives
(Habermas, 1992: 455). Certainly one implication of this essay is that
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Habermass claim enjoys a basic credibility. His theory of the public
sphere is sound; it certainly does not suffer from the aws identied by
the theorys agonistic critics. To the extent that this is true, it suggests
that a potentially more fruitful path for future research lies in the direc-
tion of investigating the constituent parts of Habermass framework in
an effort to add conceptual and empirical specicity to his rendering of
the public sphere.
A hallmark of Habermass social theory is its attempt to theorize
the relationship between normative models of democracy and the
realities of political practice in modern, complex polities. One of
Habermass goals is to provide a theory of law and democracy that
avoids, on the one hand, the danger of losing contact with social reality
without, however, screen[ing] out all normative aspects of contem-
porary politics (Habermas, 1998: 6). Habermass investigation of the
public sphere takes place within this context. He provides such a
detailed sociological denition of the public sphere in order to give a
more precise form to, and seek a tentative answer to, the question of
whether and how a constitutionally regulated circulation of power
might be established (ibid.: 354). If the answer Habermas provides is
tentative, it is also abstract. Various elements of Habermass denition
screen out some of the variability in the types of public spheres present
in modern democracies. Thus, for example, some of the conceptual
couplets Habermas employs as building blocks of the category of the
public sphere center/periphery, success-orientated actors/actors who
employ communicative action, manipulated/non-manipulated public
opinion are very broadly drawn and do not always reect the com-
plexity of public politics. As commentators, for example, have pointed
out, actors regularly engage in both strategic and communicative action
in the course of their political interventions in the public sphere
(Johnson, 1991; James, 2002). Moreover, Habermas articulates the
category of the public sphere without any reference to the various
different ways in which procedures of opinion and will-formation are
organized within the set of democracies. Thus, for example, he does not
draw a distinction between the public sphere in presidential as opposed
to parliamentary systems, nor does he address the effect different types
of party systems might have on the democratic quality of public opinion.
These illustrations are meant to suggest that there is considerable room
within Habermass framework for conceptual specication and for an
empirical and comparative turn in public sphere research. Such a turn
would supply systematic investigations of actually existing public
spheres and thus multiply the points of contact between the theory of
the public sphere and the practice of public politics.
Finally in terms of the wider context of democratic theory, this essay
suggests the advantage of quickly moving away from the standard
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treatment of consensus and contestation. Such a move would allow a
more complex pattern of interaction between deliberative and agonistic
theories of democracy to emerge. This essay has taken the perspective
of deliberative democracy and made the case that the deliberative
framework stands in a positive sum relationship to agonistic concep-
tions of democracy. It would be interesting to witness the degree to
which a similar argument could be made from the agonistic perspective,
that is, an argument that would address the ways in which political con-
testation can support the achievement of consensus. It is possible to
make such an argument only if democratic theory moves away from its
reliance on the idea that consensus and contestation are necessarily
mutually exclusive aspects of political life.
Department of Political Science, University of California San Diego,
San Diego, CA, USA
Notes
I would like to thank Shannon Stimson and Paul Thomas for their comments
on earlier drafts of this essay.
1 The original reads, Aber wie sollten wir die Verallgemeinerungsfhigkeit
von Interessen prfen knnen, wenn nicht im Diskurs? (emphasis in
original; my translation) (Habermas, 1981: 324).
2 The opposition between political contestation/conict and consensus is
inuential throughout democratic theory and not simply in the particular
debate between deliberative democrats and theorists of agonistic
democracy. For example, see the recent work by Raymond Geuss (2001),
Ian Shapiro (1999), and Yasemin Soysal (1997).
3 Here it is important to draw a distinction between Deans article Civil
Society: Beyond the Public Sphere and her book The Solidarity of
Strangers: Feminism After Identity Politics. In the latter Dean does include
a discussion of Habermass theoretical reconstruction of the idealizations
presupposed by human speech and relates this to the political contestabil-
ity of norms (see Dean, 1996b: 15365). At the same time, this does not
alter her argument that the public sphere should be replaced by a model
based on civil society. The critique I am offering here applies more to Deans
article than to her book.
4 In an interview focussing on the aftermath of German unication,
Habermas makes his recognition of power politics explicit. Commenting on
the unication process, Habermas notes, Opening up legitimate spaces for
strategic action is just what such a legally formed political order is supposed
to do. The politics of the chancellors ofce . . . were naturally legal; they
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stayed within the space that was constitutionally conceded by the govern-
ment (Pensky, 1994: 105).
5 Prescriptivism in its extreme form maintains that all value standards of
citizenship theory should be treated as prescriptions that are immune to
challenge by evidence from social science. The standards in citizenship theory,
it would be said, are prescription[s] for a worthwhile policy which should
be sought after. No evidence about what men do or can do in present polities
could ordinarily undermine such prescriptions (Thompson, 1970: 30).
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