ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the problem with existing public sphere theory as Fraser sees it, bringing out the particular way Nancy Fraser sets out to solve the problem she identifies. Public sphere theory encourages us, rightly, to focus on the tension-ridden space where discursive practices and normative requirements meet. If Fraser is incorrect in claiming that all the presuppositions of the public sphere model have become invalid at once, then there is no obvious advantage in imagining the public sphere to be rebuilt de novo on some other scale, targeted at another addressee and populated by a differently constituted group of citizens. The deep risk transnationalising pressures pose for the public sphere as a practical concept is that neither citizen discourse nor the networks of political action are ever focused in such a way that they are heard in dialogue with each other.
