ABSTRACT
This chapter traces how the understanding of both the public sphere and the counter public sphere as developed in the 1960s has changed over time. It looks at how the view of what constitutes a participating public has evolved towards the idea of a group bound together by a shared, lived experience, by a set of common circumstances or challenges faced in everyday life, or a shared affective reaction to such circumstances or challenges. The chapter provides a more nuanced view of publics in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s and how they challenge the binary conception of a public sphere and counter public sphere. Nuclear weapons became a symbol for the struggle against West Germany’s democratic deficit.” the work of the various publics convened to protest the environmental impact of specific industrial installations, such as a nuclear facility or an airport expansion, contributed to the rise of the citizens’ initiatives as examples of counter public spheres.
