ABSTRACT
Jurgen Habermas’ relatively brief discussion of “juridification” in the concluding pages of Theory of Communicative Action (TCA) plays a major role in his exposition. Habermas’ turn to legal matters made sense given TCA’s overall argument. Juridification represented “the model case for the colonization of the lifeworld”. Such colonization occurred, Habermas argued, when the system imperatives of the economy and state administration ran roughshod over the communicatively and symbolically-structured lifeworld. Following Max Weber, Habermas argued that both modern capitalism and bureaucracy had only been secured on the basis of modern formal law. In some contrast to Weber, he envisioned modern law as exhibiting elements of moral-practical rationality resting on the lifeworld and symbolic reproduction. Drawing heavily on West German examples, Habermas argued that heightened regulation of schools artificially broke up complex socialization mechanisms into a “mosaic of legally contestable administrative acts”. One result was the endangerment of core pedagogical activities.
