ABSTRACT
Public legitimization within the framework of the Habermasian model of the public sphere The numerous publications on the subject propose different concepts and definitions of “public sphere.” Here, I use this term in the most general sense, as an open network of communication streams in which citizens’ opinions and wills regarding issues of public importance are formed. Viewed in this way, communicative interactions in the public sphere differ from those in the private sphere – in people’s private lives as well as in various cultural or professional circles; or, if we use a term of Jürgen Habermas’s (borrowed from phenomenology), in various “lifeworlds” (Habermas 1996). Public communication deals with issues that actually or potentially concern all citizens, rather than just those who belong to a particular group or category that they can leave if they want to (see Rawls 1997, 769). This is precisely why the willformation of the participants in public debates is a particularly responsible job. A religious community, or a fan club, for example, may discuss issues that are of exclusive interest to its members; moreover, it may discuss them in a way that is specific to the group in question. The participants in such discussions have no responsibilities to people outside their circle. As the outcomes of such debates do not concern anyone other than the members of the group, the participants do not have to take into account anyone else’s rights and interests, or the capacities of non-members to understand their arguments and to judge how convincing they are. In a nutshell, such communicative interactions may be “confined” to narrower or wider circles of participants, and in this sense, they are not public. Furthermore, relations in the public sphere differ from relations of power. Convincing people to act or behave in a certain manner and coercing them to do so are two alternative ways of producing motivation. In fact, public communication is often used as an instrument of political or economic domination, but such instances are considered to be foreign to the public sphere. The authorities may exercise censorship of the media, or even obligate them to publish materials that serve the government’s interests without allowing for criticism. They may organize public debates on issues where anyone who voices a point of view that deviates from the official “party line” is liable to be punished. However, these
forms of public communication do not qualify as belonging to the public sphere, which functions as such only if communicative interactions within it are not conducted under political or economic pressure. This, however, is not to say that within the institutions of political power themselves, there cannot be debates of a public nature, which take place within what John Rawls calls the “public political forum” (Rawls 1997, 767). It comprises, according to Rawls,
the discourse of judges in their decisions, and especially of the judges of a supreme court; the discourse of government officials, especially chief executives and legislators; and finally, the discourse of candidates for public office and their campaign managers, especially in their public oratory, party platforms, and political statements.
