{"title":"Dick Bernstein as a public philosopher","authors":"Axel Honneth","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12657","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12657","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"12-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44985523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A not-very-new structural transformation of the public sphere","authors":"William E. Scheuerman","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12665","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12665","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"42-47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42768563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Good persons exist: Remembering Richard Bernstein","authors":"Judith Friedlander","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12655","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12655","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"3-4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48715948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Remembering Dick Bernstein","authors":"Philip Kitcher","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12658","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12658","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"8-11"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46340345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Habermas's new book, <i>A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i>,<sup>1</sup> offers a timely and insightful analysis of the threats that online communication poses to the maintenance of an inclusive public sphere in democratic societies. Amid growing discontent with democracy, there are plenty of reasons to be worried about the increasing deterioration of the political public sphere. In addition to long-standing threats such as the excessive influence of money in political discourse, the potential for manipulation by powerful social groups, and the exclusion of marginalized voices from public discourse, technological innovations such as social media platforms and big data collection are generating new types of threats.</p><p>These threats are being generated more quickly than society's ability to cope with them. The business model of social media platforms is based on maximizing user engagement through data harvesting and algorithmic personalization. The preselection of content for users based on data about their past preferences facilitates the creation of filter bubbles and echo chambers with the consequence that those who rely mainly on social media almost never receive information, news, or opinions that they do not already agree with. These features of social media not only increase group isolation, fragmentation, and polarization but also facilitate the dissemination of misinformation, fake news, conspiracy theories, and the micro-targeted manipulation of voters.</p><p>Amid these threatening developments, we are seeing a decline in traditional media outlets that operate under journalistic norms of impartiality, accuracy, accountability, and so on. Consequently, it is unclear how citizens can stay sufficiently politically informed to engage in meaningful debate with their fellow citizens, even on the most fundamental political problems facing them. At this historical juncture, the danger that a shared sense of community among the citizenry disappears seems alarmingly real. Yet, democratic self-government is only possible if citizens can forge a collective political will by changing one another's hearts and minds in public debate. Without an inclusive public sphere, citizens cannot keep the democracies they have got.<sup>2</sup></p><p>This concern is at the core of Habermas's analysis of the role of social media communication in bringing about a new structural transformation of the public sphere. Indeed, Habermas identifies the <i>inclusive</i> character of the public sphere as the feature that is most in danger of “disappearing” due to the centrifugal forces of social media communication which yield increased fragmentation, polarization, misinformation, and so on.<sup>3</sup> I share Habermas's concern. I am convinced by his analysis of the distinctive threats that social media communication poses to the maintenance of an inclusive public sphere. I also agree with the two main mechanisms that he identifies as most promisi
{"title":"A democracy, if we can keep it. Remarks on J. Habermas’ a new structural transformation of the public sphere","authors":"Cristina Lafont","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12663","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12663","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Habermas's new book, <i>A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i>,<sup>1</sup> offers a timely and insightful analysis of the threats that online communication poses to the maintenance of an inclusive public sphere in democratic societies. Amid growing discontent with democracy, there are plenty of reasons to be worried about the increasing deterioration of the political public sphere. In addition to long-standing threats such as the excessive influence of money in political discourse, the potential for manipulation by powerful social groups, and the exclusion of marginalized voices from public discourse, technological innovations such as social media platforms and big data collection are generating new types of threats.</p><p>These threats are being generated more quickly than society's ability to cope with them. The business model of social media platforms is based on maximizing user engagement through data harvesting and algorithmic personalization. The preselection of content for users based on data about their past preferences facilitates the creation of filter bubbles and echo chambers with the consequence that those who rely mainly on social media almost never receive information, news, or opinions that they do not already agree with. These features of social media not only increase group isolation, fragmentation, and polarization but also facilitate the dissemination of misinformation, fake news, conspiracy theories, and the micro-targeted manipulation of voters.</p><p>Amid these threatening developments, we are seeing a decline in traditional media outlets that operate under journalistic norms of impartiality, accuracy, accountability, and so on. Consequently, it is unclear how citizens can stay sufficiently politically informed to engage in meaningful debate with their fellow citizens, even on the most fundamental political problems facing them. At this historical juncture, the danger that a shared sense of community among the citizenry disappears seems alarmingly real. Yet, democratic self-government is only possible if citizens can forge a collective political will by changing one another's hearts and minds in public debate. Without an inclusive public sphere, citizens cannot keep the democracies they have got.<sup>2</sup></p><p>This concern is at the core of Habermas's analysis of the role of social media communication in bringing about a new structural transformation of the public sphere. Indeed, Habermas identifies the <i>inclusive</i> character of the public sphere as the feature that is most in danger of “disappearing” due to the centrifugal forces of social media communication which yield increased fragmentation, polarization, misinformation, and so on.<sup>3</sup> I share Habermas's concern. I am convinced by his analysis of the distinctive threats that social media communication poses to the maintenance of an inclusive public sphere. I also agree with the two main mechanisms that he identifies as most promisi","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"77-83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8675.12663","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45535662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>In his political interventions, Jürgen Habermas is a first-class rhetorician. His writing style is eloquent, polemical, rich in aperçus and metaphors, and often affective, especially angry (see Möllers, <span>2021</span>, p. 85). But there are also many metaphors in his contributions to philosophy, social theory, and political theory in which he clearly restrains himself rhetorically. Metaphors appear at crucial points in his theory formation. Formulations like the dialogical give and take of reasons “<i>in kleiner Münze</i>” (small coins), the discursive “<i>Verflüssigung</i>” (liquefaction) of traditions, the “colonization” of the lifeworld, the “center and periphery” of modern democracies, or their institutional “sluices”—a metaphor he has adopted from Bernhard Peters—create suggestive images in the minds of his readers. The author, who insists on the strict differentiation between day-to-day language, literary language, and the language of the social sciences (see Habermas, <span>1990a</span>), and whose philosophical self-understanding insists on the “unforced force of the better argument” is a master of evocative metaphors. This attribute alone makes it a pleasure to read his texts.</p><p>The German edition of his new book does not disappoint those readers in search of metaphors either. In the Marxist tradition (see Marx, <span>2011</span>), a number of metaphors are borrowed from the sphere of geology: “segments” (p. 33)<sup>1</sup> of the population, “erosion” of democracy (p. 87), normative “slopes” (p. 15), the “crumbling” of the political system (p. 109), or the “solidified lava” of anti-authoritarianism in Silicon Valley (p. 46). Some of the metaphors are nautical like normative “anchors” (p. 16), or from the theatre, like the “grimace” of libertarian political thought (p. 46). Only a few of them belong to organic life: the “root ground” of political culture (p. 32), the “<i>Gleichursprünglichkeit”</i> (co-originality) of democracy and the rule of law (p. 90), or the “nesting” of normative expectations (p. 14). Most of Habermas’ metaphors belong to the vocabulary of the technical world: the “building” of modern democracy (p. 9), “centrifugal” forms of communication (p. 43), the “architecture” of constitutional democracy (p. 32), the “net of historical memory” (p. 30), the “<i>Sollbruchstelle</i>” (predetermined breaking point) of political rights (p. 92), the “web of attitudes” (p. 30), the “social bond” (p. 31), civil society as an “early warning system” (p. 80)—and again the “flow chart” of the political system and its “filters” and “sluices” (p. 24, 100). One has to wait until the last paragraph of the book to find a military metaphor. Now is the time “<i>den Spieß umzudrehen</i>”<sup>2</sup> (p. 109) and fight the coalition of conspiracy theorists and right-wing populists.</p><p>Taking Habermas’ preference for technical metaphors into account, it comes as no surprise that he has speaks of “echo chambers” (p. 45) and “fragmentat
在他们看来，互联网符合公共领域的所有基本要求，尽可能接近协商民主的规范核心:万维网作为开放、无限、普遍、反等级和复杂的政治互动的交流基础设施。对于当时激进的技术乐观主义者来说，互联网创造了一种新的政治模式，因为它提供了普遍的访问、言论自由、不受限制的议程、不受强迫的交流以及传统政治机构之外的政治参与。哈贝马斯在他的新书中提醒读者，在数字时代之初传播的“平等主义和不受管制”(第45页)的交流关系的巨大“解放承诺”。事实上，Rheingold和其他20世纪90年代对电子民主持乐观态度的人认为，互联网上政治交流的积极品质与哈贝马斯的词汇惊人地相似(见Buchstein, 1997, pp. 250-251)。在他的著作《交际行为理论》中，哈贝马斯将公共领域定义为“一个实际上存在的交流网络”(哈贝马斯，1987，第390页)，它从任何时空限制的语境中解放出来。十年后，在他对协商民主理想的概述中，他提倡一个“去中心的社会”，在这个社会中，“无主体的交流形式[…]调节审议的流动”(哈贝马斯，1994，第7页)。根据他的观点，“交流技术[…]使高度分化的公共领域网络成为可能”(哈贝马斯，1990b，第360页)。公共领域应该包括一个“开放和包容的重叠网络，亚文化政治具有流动的时间，社会，和实质性的边界”(哈贝马斯，1998，第306页)。在这种“公共网络和领域的话语结构”中，“人民主权”变得匿名”(哈贝马斯，1998，第171页)。在他的新书中，哈贝马斯将数字技术描述为通信手段发展的第三个进化阶段，继几千年前的口头文字和现代早期机械印刷机的引入之后。尽管数字技术带来了“革命性”的变化(第41页)，但他(再次)坚持新技术的社会和政治中立性。这一立场——早在20世纪60年代末，赫伯特·马尔库斯就已经采取了这一立场——将哈贝马斯的论点与法兰克福批判理论学派中两个对立的立场区分开来。一方面，它背离了沃尔特·本雅明1936年关于机械复制时代艺术作品的著名文章或汉斯-马格努斯·恩森斯伯格(Hans-Magnus Enzensberger)的《媒介理论》(Baukasten zu einer Theorie der Medien, 1970)所持的乐观立场。另一方面，它也与西奥多·阿多诺(Theodor W. Adorno)对异化消费文化的批判以及公共领域的本质在后自由主义社会的大众传媒体系中被清算的论点保持距离。哈贝马斯在1992年指出，在30年前的《公共领域的结构转型》第一版中，不难看出阿多诺大众文化理论的强大影响(见哈贝马斯，1992,p. 438)。在这个回顾性的陈述中有一个调情的元素，因为早在20世纪60年代早期，他就提出了一个观点，即资本主义社会的消费主义公共领域应该也可以转变为一个更民主的后资产阶级公共领域。他在1964年的一篇不太为人所知的百科全书文章中提出的解决方案是呼吁政治干预，以创造“社会和政治权力的合理重组”(哈贝马斯，1974年，第55页)。公共领域应该“在内部结构以及与国家和彼此的关系中，置于致力于公共领域的敌对组织的相互控制之下”(哈贝马斯，1974，第55页)。这听起来像是当时西德公共电视组织方式的早期新社团主义扩张。基于他的中立立场，哈贝马斯早在60多年前关于公共领域的研究之初就赞同国家干预的策略，以重新规范媒体系统。他在1981年出版的《交际行为理论》(Theory of communication Action)中的思考也遵循了同样的模式。依靠实证研究，他认为——明确反对阿多诺——即使从文字转向图像和声音，电子媒体——电影、广播和电视——也没有把大众媒体变成一种完全支配和渗透日常交流语言的工具。相反，他强调现代大众传媒的“矛盾心理”(Habermas, 1987，第390页)。但是，“释放”大众传媒中的“解放潜力”，即“建立在传播结构本身”(哈贝马斯，1987，第390页)，必须通过政治措施付诸行动。 哈贝马斯甚至提到汉斯·马格努斯·恩岑斯伯格的“视频多元主义”和“电视民主”愿景，试图在这种背景下克服媒体网络的集中化。从那以后，哈贝马斯一再强调，现代大众传媒既可以加强也可以破坏政治传播的合理性，这取决于公共领域基础设施的监管方式(见哈贝马斯，1992，第437页)。在哈贝马斯首次出版他关于公共领域的开创性著作30年后，他指出，对于公共领域和民主本身的未来，“有理由做出不那么悲观的评估”(哈贝马斯，1992年，第457页)。又过了30年，哈贝马斯似乎又回到了悲观主义。在他的新书中，哈贝马斯重复了以前关于包容的、开明的自由主义政治文化作为民主政治秩序存在和进一步发展的必要条件的重要性的陈述。1992年出版《事实与规范之间》(Between Facts and norm)一书时，他对西方民主国家进一步发展的乐观态度，仍然基于他对生活世界走向合理化的长期趋势的假设。由于后传统社会化模式的支持，家庭和公民群体在日常面对面的交流中进入了更高的认知和道德理性阶段，并辐射到政治交流中。众所周知，他借鉴了Andrew Arato和Jean Cohen的市民社会概念，并将其转化为理性、价值观和话题渐进式变化的制度源泉，通过大众传媒传播到政治体系的中心。他将公民社会描述为发现生活世界中产生的道德相关问题的环境。因此，他假设生活世界在感知社会问题方面具有理性优势，这些问题将通过社会运动和民间社会的自愿协会转移到公共领域。哈贝马斯在《事实与规范之间》中对社会运动和公民社会过于积极的评价忽略了这样一个事实，即当时已经有许多自愿协会追求保守的、反动的、民粹主义的和激进的右翼政治目标(见Buchstein, 1994，第107-108页)。他把他对公民社会的考虑限制在一个问题上，即一个由大众传播媒介主导的公共领域能否以及在多大程度上为公民社会成员提供实现政治变革的现实机会。在《事实与规范之间》中，他对进一步民主化的可能性持相对乐观的态度。在他的新书中，哈贝马斯没有那么乐观。他更加强调社会化模式的结果的“脆弱性”(第30页)和自由民主的不稳定状态。他指出，世界各地自由民主国家的“政治倒退”(第41页)似乎对生活世界的合理化缺乏信心。这种日益增长的悲观情绪是有原因的，与当前的时代精神无关，而是源于哈贝马斯理论的微妙变化。乍一看，他似乎只是在更新他对新媒体组织结构的思考，以提出他关于新结构转型的论点。在他的书中，可以再次找到中立主义立场和改革与监管政治的国家干预策略。再一次，他将他对公共领域的思考构建在他的协商民主理论中。他认为，现代民主国家的民主合法性建立在政治公共领域的包容性基础之上。大众传播媒介具有不可或缺的功能，因为它们确保公民参与共同的、尽管是匿名的大众传播。政治观点只有通过大众传媒的宣传才能凝聚成有效的民意，从而对政治决策产生有针对性的影响。因此，大众传播媒介必须具有“启发性”(第23页)。与任何距离的任何数量的参与者同时加速的政治交流的限制的离心解体具有一种“矛盾的爆发力”(第43页)。在引用实证研究的结果时，哈贝马斯指出，互联网上政治传播的审议质量仍然是一个“悬而未决的问题”(第40页)。根据哈贝马斯的说法，“平台”(第44页)的特征是“新媒体实际上是新的”(第44页)。换句话说，它们使所有潜在用户
{"title":"Being a master of metaphors","authors":"Hubertus Buchstein","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12661","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12661","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In his political interventions, Jürgen Habermas is a first-class rhetorician. His writing style is eloquent, polemical, rich in aperçus and metaphors, and often affective, especially angry (see Möllers, <span>2021</span>, p. 85). But there are also many metaphors in his contributions to philosophy, social theory, and political theory in which he clearly restrains himself rhetorically. Metaphors appear at crucial points in his theory formation. Formulations like the dialogical give and take of reasons “<i>in kleiner Münze</i>” (small coins), the discursive “<i>Verflüssigung</i>” (liquefaction) of traditions, the “colonization” of the lifeworld, the “center and periphery” of modern democracies, or their institutional “sluices”—a metaphor he has adopted from Bernhard Peters—create suggestive images in the minds of his readers. The author, who insists on the strict differentiation between day-to-day language, literary language, and the language of the social sciences (see Habermas, <span>1990a</span>), and whose philosophical self-understanding insists on the “unforced force of the better argument” is a master of evocative metaphors. This attribute alone makes it a pleasure to read his texts.</p><p>The German edition of his new book does not disappoint those readers in search of metaphors either. In the Marxist tradition (see Marx, <span>2011</span>), a number of metaphors are borrowed from the sphere of geology: “segments” (p. 33)<sup>1</sup> of the population, “erosion” of democracy (p. 87), normative “slopes” (p. 15), the “crumbling” of the political system (p. 109), or the “solidified lava” of anti-authoritarianism in Silicon Valley (p. 46). Some of the metaphors are nautical like normative “anchors” (p. 16), or from the theatre, like the “grimace” of libertarian political thought (p. 46). Only a few of them belong to organic life: the “root ground” of political culture (p. 32), the “<i>Gleichursprünglichkeit”</i> (co-originality) of democracy and the rule of law (p. 90), or the “nesting” of normative expectations (p. 14). Most of Habermas’ metaphors belong to the vocabulary of the technical world: the “building” of modern democracy (p. 9), “centrifugal” forms of communication (p. 43), the “architecture” of constitutional democracy (p. 32), the “net of historical memory” (p. 30), the “<i>Sollbruchstelle</i>” (predetermined breaking point) of political rights (p. 92), the “web of attitudes” (p. 30), the “social bond” (p. 31), civil society as an “early warning system” (p. 80)—and again the “flow chart” of the political system and its “filters” and “sluices” (p. 24, 100). One has to wait until the last paragraph of the book to find a military metaphor. Now is the time “<i>den Spieß umzudrehen</i>”<sup>2</sup> (p. 109) and fight the coalition of conspiracy theorists and right-wing populists.</p><p>Taking Habermas’ preference for technical metaphors into account, it comes as no surprise that he has speaks of “echo chambers” (p. 45) and “fragmentat","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"48-54"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8675.12661","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41431002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Richard J. Bernstein on the public use of reason","authors":"Seyla Benhabib","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12653","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12653","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"16-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42488799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>Political communication and opinion formation have always been central topics in democratic theory. Today, all eyes are on the new digital landscape and the ways that it is affecting these central elements of democracy. The diagnosis in both the popular press and scholarly research is that the digital revolution has been anything but good for democracy: “Today conventional wisdom holds that technologies have brought the world addictive devices, an omnipresent surveillance panopticon, racist algorithms, and disinformation machines that exacerbate polarization, threatening to destroy democracies from within” (Bernholz et al., <span>2021</span>, p. 3). Assessing the threat of the present information revolution is especially relevant for theories of deliberative democracy that place communication and deliberation at the center of the democratic system.</p><p>In this essay, I focus on Jürgen Habermas’ version of deliberative democracy and the assessment of the digitalization of the public sphere that follows from it (Habermas <span>2022c</span>). This assessment identifies fragmentation and privatization as the most serious threats to a properly functioning public sphere. While I agree that fragmentation and privatization are threats to the democratic function of public sphere, I question whether digitalization is their primary cause and suggest that we should be focusing on political actors who intentionally pursue strategies that fragment and polarize the public sphere. Thus, the culprit here is not so much technology and acquisitive platforms as authoritarian political elite intent on dulling the power of the public sphere to hold political actors to account.</p><p>Deliberative democracy is a broad research paradigm. Very generally, it can be described as a “talk-centric” rather than “vote-centric” view of democracy (Chambers, <span>2003</span>, p. 308) in which democracy is studied and evaluated “from the point of view of the quality of the processes through which individuals come to discuss, debate and mutually justify their respective stances before voting or taking other sorts of political action” (Scudder & White, <span>2023</span>, p. 12). This central normative core has been developed, studied, and theorized at what might be called two levels of democracy. On one level, we see the development and indeed proliferation of citizen deliberative initiatives. These concrete exercises in deliberative democracy bring citizens together in face-to-face designed settings with good information, trained moderators, and procedural norms that promote participant equality in the deliberative and decision-making process. Here, deliberation is a practice structured within an institution. There are thousands of these initiatives across all democracies, and within non-democracies, with immense variation in design and function (Farrell & Curato, <span>2021</span>). Their use and insertion into democratic systems is on the rise and, in many places, sig
{"title":"Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem","authors":"Simone Chambers","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12662","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12662","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Political communication and opinion formation have always been central topics in democratic theory. Today, all eyes are on the new digital landscape and the ways that it is affecting these central elements of democracy. The diagnosis in both the popular press and scholarly research is that the digital revolution has been anything but good for democracy: “Today conventional wisdom holds that technologies have brought the world addictive devices, an omnipresent surveillance panopticon, racist algorithms, and disinformation machines that exacerbate polarization, threatening to destroy democracies from within” (Bernholz et al., <span>2021</span>, p. 3). Assessing the threat of the present information revolution is especially relevant for theories of deliberative democracy that place communication and deliberation at the center of the democratic system.</p><p>In this essay, I focus on Jürgen Habermas’ version of deliberative democracy and the assessment of the digitalization of the public sphere that follows from it (Habermas <span>2022c</span>). This assessment identifies fragmentation and privatization as the most serious threats to a properly functioning public sphere. While I agree that fragmentation and privatization are threats to the democratic function of public sphere, I question whether digitalization is their primary cause and suggest that we should be focusing on political actors who intentionally pursue strategies that fragment and polarize the public sphere. Thus, the culprit here is not so much technology and acquisitive platforms as authoritarian political elite intent on dulling the power of the public sphere to hold political actors to account.</p><p>Deliberative democracy is a broad research paradigm. Very generally, it can be described as a “talk-centric” rather than “vote-centric” view of democracy (Chambers, <span>2003</span>, p. 308) in which democracy is studied and evaluated “from the point of view of the quality of the processes through which individuals come to discuss, debate and mutually justify their respective stances before voting or taking other sorts of political action” (Scudder & White, <span>2023</span>, p. 12). This central normative core has been developed, studied, and theorized at what might be called two levels of democracy. On one level, we see the development and indeed proliferation of citizen deliberative initiatives. These concrete exercises in deliberative democracy bring citizens together in face-to-face designed settings with good information, trained moderators, and procedural norms that promote participant equality in the deliberative and decision-making process. Here, deliberation is a practice structured within an institution. There are thousands of these initiatives across all democracies, and within non-democracies, with immense variation in design and function (Farrell & Curato, <span>2021</span>). Their use and insertion into democratic systems is on the rise and, in many places, sig","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"61-68"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8675.12662","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41886774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
<p>In contemporary debates about the crisis of democracy, it is often said that we are living in a time of an anti-democratic regression, and insofar as it is a phenomenon that develops within democratic systems, this is also called “democratic regression,” as Armin Schäfer and Michael Zürn (<span>2021</span>) do.<sup>1</sup> I think this addresses a crucial dimension of the critical analysis of our present, but I also see the need for further conceptual reflection and clarification. For “regression” is a complex concept with many connotations, and its usage must be considered carefully, in particular because it is important to avoid several fallacies in the discussion about it, of which I discuss three—that of the status quo ante fixation (Section 2), that of the reduction of the concept of democracy (Section 3), and that of the misclassification of critiques of democracy (Section 4). These considerations lead to my own assessment of the causes of democratic regression (Section 5).</p><p>I begin with some remarks on the concepts of crisis and regression. A crisis is the moment in which the fate of a person or a society is decided, when there is no more going back and not yet a way forward. It marks, as Schleiermacher (<span>1984</span>/1799) says, the “border between two different orders of things” (“<i>Grenze […] zwischen zwei verschiedenen Ordnungen der Dinge</i>,” p. 325). The old is dying, and the new cannot be born, as Gramsci (<span>1996</span>/1930, p. 33) puts it. One should, therefore, be cautious about talking of a crisis <i>of</i> democracy (in distinction to a crisis <i>within</i> democracy, or a crisis that democracy has to cope with) because this is the situation where it seriously teeters on the brink whether it will last.</p><p>With regard to socio-political orders, I distinguish between two types of crisis (cf. Forst, <span>2021</span>, Chap. 12 and 16). A <i>structural crisis</i> occurs when the order is structurally no longer able to fulfill its tasks. We ascertain a <i>crisis of justification</i> when the self-understanding of an order shifts so that it loses its very own concept. Then, authoritarian political visions can emerge under the guise of democratic rhetoric, for example, in movements that proclaim “We are the people” but really mean “Foreigners out.” If such movements are understood as democratic, we experience a crisis of justification that can lead to regression.</p><p>Regression is a weighty concept when applied to societies, not only, but especially since the <i>Dialectic of Enlightenment</i>, which states that the “curse of irresistible progress is irresistible regression” (Horkheimer & Adorno, <span>2002</span>/1944, p. 28). Drawing on psychoanalysis,<sup>2</sup> Horkheimer and Adorno (<span>2002</span>/1944) do not merely mean the “impoverishment of thought no less than of experience” (p. 28), but also a regression behind forms of civilization to the point of “barbarism,” into a world in which ideological
在当代关于民主危机的辩论中，人们经常说我们生活在一个反民主倒退的时代，就其是民主制度内部发展的一种现象而言，这也被称为“民主倒退”，正如Armin Schäfer和Michael z<e:1>(2021)所做的那样我认为这解决了对我们目前的批判性分析的一个关键方面，但我也看到需要进一步的概念反思和澄清。因为“回归”是一个具有许多内涵的复杂概念，它的用法必须仔细考虑，特别是因为在讨论它时避免几个谬误是很重要的，其中我讨论了三个谬误，即对现状的固定(第2节)，民主概念的还原(第3节)，以及对民主批评的错误分类(第4节)。这些考虑导致了我自己对民主倒退的原因的评估(第5节)。我首先对危机和倒退的概念进行了一些评论。危机是一个人或一个社会的命运被决定的时刻，当没有回头路，也没有前进的道路。正如Schleiermacher(1984/1799)所说，它标志着“两种不同秩序之间的边界”(“Grenze[…]zwischen zwei verschiedenen Ordnungen der Dinge，”第325页)。正如葛兰西(1996/1930，第33页)所言，旧的正在死去，新的无法诞生。因此，谈论民主危机(区别于民主内部危机或民主必须应对的危机)时应该谨慎，因为这是一种严重摇摇欲坠的情况，无论它是否会持续下去。关于社会政治秩序，我区分了两种类型的危机(参见Forst, 2021，第12章和第16章)。当秩序在结构上不再能够完成其任务时，就会发生结构性危机。当一种秩序的自我理解发生变化，以致失去了它自己的概念时，我们确定了正当性危机。然后，威权主义的政治愿景可以在民主修辞的幌子下出现，例如，在宣称“我们是人民”但实际上意味着“外国人出去”的运动中。如果这些运动被理解为民主运动，我们就会经历一场可能导致倒退的正当性危机。当应用于社会时，回归是一个重要的概念，不仅如此，尤其是自启蒙辩证法以来，它指出“不可抗拒的进步的诅咒是不可抗拒的回归”(霍克海默&安普;阿多诺，2002/1944，第28页)。根据精神分析，霍克海默和阿多诺(2002/1944)不仅意味着“思想的贫乏不亚于经验的贫乏”(第28页)，而且还意味着文明形式的倒退，达到了“野蛮”的地步，进入了一个意识形态错觉导致各种非理性反转的世界，包括集体消灭他人的意愿。反过来，哈贝马斯(2019，第174页，tr. RF)采用了“自我造成的回归”(selbst verantwortete regression)的概念，反对将其解释为返祖式的“野蛮状态的复发”，而是“一个根据当时的标准认为自己是‘文明的’的整个民族，从现在起，道德解体的绝对新的、永远存在的可能性”。这就是“文明决裂”(zcivilisationbruch)的含义。我建议将“民主倒退”的讨论定位在一个范围内，从这种极端形式的文明破裂到某种特殊性质的社会和政治倒退现象。通过回归，我们的意思是，如果我们保留结构和正当性(或:社会和政治关系以及自我理解)的两个维度，不仅是一种或另一种回归，而且是一种全面的、集体的对标准的削弱，这些标准绝不能受到质疑——事实上，绝不能以理性为代价受到质疑。用经典的法兰克福术语来说，回归是非理性的胜利:只有理性，在一个全面的、实践的和理论的意义上(将在更详细的定义中)，应该是使用这样一个苛刻概念的标准。因此，回归的真正维度是本体的，因此是辩护的空间(Forst, 2017a)，因为不能以充分理由拒绝的知识或道德标准不仅仅是远离了一点，而是被遗忘、误解，或者更糟的是，被明确拒绝。这种倒退不仅仅代表着倒退，而且会持续地阻碍可能的道德-政治进步。当它不仅影响到个别群体，而且影响到社会的大部分时，这一点尤其正确。正如Schäfer和z<s:1> rn(2021)所理解的那样，民主回归不仅以缺乏集体自决的结构性为特征，而且以公民“背离”民主为特征(第11页)。 他们称之为“双重异化”——实践与民主理想的异化，以及公民与作为一种制度形式的民主的异化。两者都使用“理想”一词，这应该有助于避免在使用“回归”一词时经常犯的错误:将现状(事前)偏见作为对这种事态的规范性固定的谬论因为这太容易了(也在Schäfer &z<e:1>， 2021年，第12页，49-56页)，当倒退受到谴责时，类似于“偏离已经实现的民主标准”的表述悄悄出现，突然间，专制民粹主义的阶段就像从民主条件的天堂中罪恶的叛教一样，暗示，似乎以前就存在过。然而，这里有一个不合逻辑的推论:在结构上，某些民主成就可能出现倒退，但并不意味着整个制度以前符合真正的民主理想。在自我理解中，可能会有一种对威权主义的明确的，比如仇外的庆祝，这只会暴露出已经隐含的仇外心理现状(事前)偏见的谬论也阻碍了对导致倒退的(结构和文化)原因和趋势的分析;它们要么是前一状态所固有的，要么是由前一状态产生的更重要的是，最初导致危机的问题状况被提升为一种理想状态，这是自相矛盾的。此外，还有一种(反)民主倒退，在这种倒退中，从复杂的意义上讲，根本没有民主，但现在通往民主的道路比以前更加受阻。因为，正如我所说，这种倒退不仅是倒退，而且是道德-政治进步可能性的持久障碍。我在这里强调进步的这个维度，理解为社会和政治关系的改善(我将回到这一点)，6因为，正如霍克海默和阿多诺所强调的那样，技术进步可以与道德-政治倒退携手并进。因此，我们所说的“理想”必须是一种理性的理想(这里我要超越Schäfer和z<e:1> rn)——然而，“理想”不是指完美世界的乌托邦式愿景，而是指理性有效的原则，因此不能用充分的理由加以拒绝。经典地说:理性的原则，因为另一种规范性不能承载在回归概念中表达的对非理性的基本批判。如果一个人看不到这一点，他就会陷入传统主义，这种传统主义只能根据已经实现和制度化的标准或社会公认的理想来评估倒退。这不仅带来了前面提到的意识形态怀旧的危险(关键词:“捍卫民主”)，而且人们再也无法解释为什么这种理想应该是有效的——它的规范力量的来源是什么。否则，在同一层面上，可能会出现法西斯主义的倒退，家长制的倒退，等等——也就是说，一旦达到或认识到背离法西斯主义或家长制的标准，这是令人遗憾的。某些东西一旦被建立或认可，并不能提供一个很好的理由，为什么它应该有效和拯救。原因肯定有其他更清晰的来源。否则，我们就阻碍了我们批判地看待过去存在的东西，同时也阻碍了我们审视当前的倒退趋势。然而，这是我们应该能够做到的，从理性的角度来看，它可以批判性地和话语性地证明自己，并允许我们以不同的方式谈论停滞，进步或倒退。可以说，回归是理性的一个消极概念，因为它指出了真正的非理性。只有从理性合理的规范观点出发，我们才能用社会分析的术语来谈论回归;历史决定主义的传统主义不适合作此论述这并不是说，在社会诊断术语中，关于回归的判断不涉及时间过程;他们通常会这样做，即使一种情况也可以被称为“退行性”。然而，重要的是，关于回归的时间过程陈述，在它们比较两种事件状态的地方，诉诸于一种更高的规范性标准，这种标准不是基于时间的，尽管它与那些事件状态有关。社会科学视角和规范视角必须在其不同的逻辑中得到认识。与传统主义的距离可以通过求助于进步的概
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<p>Asked whether he stands to his rather optimistic reassessment of the public sphere from 30 years earlier, Jürgen Habermas hinted in an interview in 2020 that he himself would not undertake an attempt to renew his seminal theory of the democratic public sphere. Fortunately for us political theorists, he reversed course shortly thereafter. Although just as a reaction to the edited volume by Martin Seeliger and Sebastian Sevignani, the essay Habermas wrote presents his most elaborate explanation of how he thinks about the digital transformation and the way it affects the democratic public sphere (Habermas, <span>2022a</span>, in English: 2022b).</p><p>In what follows, I want to zoom in on the question of how Habermas approaches digital communication and its societal effects. Like others in this symposium, I have read Habermas’ new essay mostly as a re-assessment of his normative outlook on the overall trajectory of the public sphere in Western liberal democracies. In this respect, the essay represents a break with the trend toward an increasingly positive assessment of the resilience and self-healing powers of democratic publics. To some extent, Habermas returns to the original story of decay of the public sphere which characterized his original work in 1962. Without questioning Habermas’ diagnosis as a whole, I differentiate the effects of the digital constellation on democracy and the public sphere, pointing out counterforces, opportunities for regulation, and a more optimistic conclusion.<sup>1</sup></p><p>I will proceed in three steps. First, I will reconstruct how Habermas’ thinking on digital communication has developed in comparison to earlier statements on the matter. Second, I will discuss how the analysis can be challenged and extended by placing it in the context of the wider debate on democracy and digitalization. Third, I will comment on the conclusions that Habermas draws at the end of the essay.</p><p>For a long time, Habermas’ <span>2006</span> article “Does Democracy still have an epistemic dimension?” (Habermas, <span>2006</span>) had been the most elaborate reassessment of his public sphere theory. In this piece, Habermas updated his two central writings on the public sphere from the 1990s: the foreword to the re-issue of <i>The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i> (Habermas, <span>1990</span>) and the respective chapters in <i>Between Facts and Norms</i> (Habermas, <span>1992</span>). Both can themselves be read as updates of Habermas 1962 classic <i>The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i>.</p><p>In these texts, Habermas not only elaborated on his views about the public sphere and the institutions of democracy; his outlook on the development of the mass media public sphere also brightened significantly. While <i>The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i> tells a story of decay, his newer writings take their cue from the workings of an established and self-reflexive German democracy, whe
{"title":"A polarizing multiverse? Assessing Habermas’ digital update of his public sphere theory","authors":"Thorsten Thiel","doi":"10.1111/1467-8675.12667","DOIUrl":"10.1111/1467-8675.12667","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Asked whether he stands to his rather optimistic reassessment of the public sphere from 30 years earlier, Jürgen Habermas hinted in an interview in 2020 that he himself would not undertake an attempt to renew his seminal theory of the democratic public sphere. Fortunately for us political theorists, he reversed course shortly thereafter. Although just as a reaction to the edited volume by Martin Seeliger and Sebastian Sevignani, the essay Habermas wrote presents his most elaborate explanation of how he thinks about the digital transformation and the way it affects the democratic public sphere (Habermas, <span>2022a</span>, in English: 2022b).</p><p>In what follows, I want to zoom in on the question of how Habermas approaches digital communication and its societal effects. Like others in this symposium, I have read Habermas’ new essay mostly as a re-assessment of his normative outlook on the overall trajectory of the public sphere in Western liberal democracies. In this respect, the essay represents a break with the trend toward an increasingly positive assessment of the resilience and self-healing powers of democratic publics. To some extent, Habermas returns to the original story of decay of the public sphere which characterized his original work in 1962. Without questioning Habermas’ diagnosis as a whole, I differentiate the effects of the digital constellation on democracy and the public sphere, pointing out counterforces, opportunities for regulation, and a more optimistic conclusion.<sup>1</sup></p><p>I will proceed in three steps. First, I will reconstruct how Habermas’ thinking on digital communication has developed in comparison to earlier statements on the matter. Second, I will discuss how the analysis can be challenged and extended by placing it in the context of the wider debate on democracy and digitalization. Third, I will comment on the conclusions that Habermas draws at the end of the essay.</p><p>For a long time, Habermas’ <span>2006</span> article “Does Democracy still have an epistemic dimension?” (Habermas, <span>2006</span>) had been the most elaborate reassessment of his public sphere theory. In this piece, Habermas updated his two central writings on the public sphere from the 1990s: the foreword to the re-issue of <i>The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i> (Habermas, <span>1990</span>) and the respective chapters in <i>Between Facts and Norms</i> (Habermas, <span>1992</span>). Both can themselves be read as updates of Habermas 1962 classic <i>The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i>.</p><p>In these texts, Habermas not only elaborated on his views about the public sphere and the institutions of democracy; his outlook on the development of the mass media public sphere also brightened significantly. While <i>The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere</i> tells a story of decay, his newer writings take their cue from the workings of an established and self-reflexive German democracy, whe","PeriodicalId":51578,"journal":{"name":"Constellations-An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":"69-76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8675.12667","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47292379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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