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During the 1960s the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas introduced the notion of a “bourgeois public sphere” in order to describe the symbolic arena of political life and conversation that originated with the cultural institutions of the early eighteenth-century; since then the “public sphere” itself has become perhaps one of the most debated concepts at the very heart of modernity. For Habermas, the tension between the administrative power of the state, with its understanding of sovereignty, and the emerging institutions of the bourgeoisie—coffee houses, periodicals, encyclopedias, literary culture, etc.—was seen as being mediated by the public sphere, making it a symbolic site of public reasoning. This volume examines whether the “public sphere” remains a central explanatory model in the social sciences, political theory, and the humanities.
“Informed, informative, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and reflecting an expansion based or inspired in part upon the earlier work of Habermas, this superb anthology of impeccable scholarship is a seminal and highly recommended body of work. Enhanced with the inclusion of an extensive bibliography, notes on the contributors, and a comprehensive index, Beyond Habermasis an essential addition to academic library philosophy collections.” · The Midwest Book Review
“This is an interesting collection of essays by a set of prominent and important scholars. Most of the essays respond to Habermas’ early book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. They do so, however, in a wide variety of fields… It is a huge benefit, in that the reader is not fed a diet of restricted and distorting examples, as is so often the case when political theorists debate the notion of the public space or the public voice.” · Andrew Norris, University of California, Santa Barbara
Introduction: Beyond Habermas? From the Bourgeois Public Sphere to Global Publics
Christian J. Emden and David Midgley
Part I: Public Opinion in the Democratic Polity
Chapter 1. Public Sphere and Political Experience
Lord (Richard) Wilson
Chapter 2. Public Opinion and Public Sphere
Gordon Graham
Chapter 3. The Tyranny of Majority Opinion in the Public Sphere
Gary Wihl
Part II: Knowledge and the Public Sphere
Chapter 4. Epistemic Publics: On the Trading Zones of Knowledge
Christian J. Emden
Chapter 5. The Public in Public Health
Anne Hardy
Chapter 6. Geeks and Recursive Publics: How the Internet and Free Software Make Things Public
Christopher Kelty
Part III: Democracy, Philosophy, and Global Publics
Chapter 7. Mediating the Public Sphere: Digitization, Pluralism, and Communicative Democracy
Georgina Born
Chapter 8. Critique of Public Reason: Normativity, Legitimation, and Meaning in the Public Sphere
Steven G. Crowell
Chapter 9. On the Global Multiplicity of Public Spheres: The Democratic Transformation of the Public Sphere?
James Tully
Contributors
Bibliography
Index