ABSTRACT
How does “communicative power” work? As I already noted, the concept of public legitimization of minority claims, proposed here, is based on the theory of communicative power as formulated by Jürgen Habermas. In works published after Between Facts and Norms, Habermas describes in more detail how he thinks civil society could “predetermine” public policies whose design and implementation are within the competence of the institutions of political power. The influence that is exercised (or rather, that could be exercised under certain conditions) by public opinion on policy decisions originates as a public expression of opinions and ideas in all sorts of forms, or, in the words of Habermas (2006, 415), “wild flows of messages – news, reports, commentaries, talks, scenes and images, and shows and movies with an informative, polemical, educational, or entertaining content.” The effect of these “wild flows of messages” on public opinion is shaped, weakened, or strengthened by “everyday talk in the informal settings or episodic publics of civil society” (ibid., 416) among friends, colleagues, or even with casual acquaintances. In the formation of public opinion on issues of common concern, though, an important role is also played by such influential “communicators” as journalists, politicians (insofar as they participate in public communication not from a position of power), lobbyists who represent interest groups, “advocates” of various causes, experts, “moral entrepreneurs,” as well as authoritative and politically independent intellectuals who intervene in public discourse at crucial moments to defend the common interest (see ibid.). “These actors do not possess ‘power’, per se, but derive public influence from the ‘social’ and ‘cultural capital’ they have accumulated in terms of visibility, prominence, reputation, or moral status” (ibid., 418). Of course, public opinion formed in the public sphere cannot, in itself, exercise “communicative power” with regard to the “strong public,” that is, the institutions of political power which, in liberal democracies, have a monopoly on the creation and implementation of binding decisions. As noted in Chapter 4, according to Habermas’s two-track model of deliberative politics, “communicative power” can be exercised only in а real representative democracy; or, in other
words, only if the fate of political parties truly depends on the voters’ will which, in turn, is influenced by public opinion:
Actors of civil society articulate political interests and confront the state with demands arising from the life worlds of various groups. With the legal backing of voting rights, such demands can be strengthened by threatening to withdraw legitimation.
