The public sphere – how does it exist? Remarks on the agonistic critique of Habermas’s theory

Abstract

The article is a polemic with Chantal Mouffe’s position on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere. In her critique of the post-political neoliberal age, Mouffe considers Habermas as the chief theorist and spokesman of rational consensus, assuming an “a priori social rationality”, inscribed in the rules of impartial discourse. The main thesis of the article is that Mouffe’s criticism is based on a partial misreading of Habermas’s ideas – on the omission of the connections he assumes between formal and informal circuits of communication, and on the excessive emphasis she puts on the normative conditions of “ideal speech situation”. To justify this attention in drawn to the evolution of Habermas’s theory, related to his assimilation of the arguments of his critics, including the recognition of the diversity and multiplicity of public spheres. Proceduralism in Habermas’s theory may be properly understood only within a wider context of democratic legitimation, which means that institutionalized procedures are complementary to the open, unpredictable moments of communicative action, related to the performative mode of existence of the public sphere. The following part of the article concerns Mouffe’s idea of “conflictual consensus”. Regardless of the ontologization of conflict, which underlies Mouffe’s theory of the political, she is unable to do without the institutional framework of democracy. On the level of deeper justifications, the theory of agonistic democracy seems therefore inconsistent. After all, Mouffe’s idea of transforming antagonism into agonism, though often questionable in political practice, refers precisely to the mediating role of commonly recognized institutions and procedures.