Abstract
The notion of the public sphere is prominent but there are nevertheless only a few monographs that deal with this key notion conceptually, and even fewer that try to integrate the different normative and sociological traditions that inform public sphere theorizing. Driven by a political impetus or a moral ethos rather than by an interest in the advancement of social theory, normative scholars treat the public sphere as a political utopia that primarily serves as a critical matrix of actual existing democracy and as a projection for democratic renewal. The question that is left open by these programmatic writings is how the utopia of the public sphere operates as a central ingredient of the normative contestations that make up democratic politics. Dealing with this latter question would ask for a contribution from sociology that does not ask what normative model of the public sphere is adequate, but what kind of cognitive-cultural foundations there are underlying the normative diagnosis and critique of contemporary society and its democratic potentials. Such a sociology of the public sphere, which is at the same time a sociology of the democratic self-organization of society, is formulated by Patrick O’Mahony in this path-breaking contribution.
In the tradition of Jürgen Habermas, the public sphere is introduced by O’Mahony as a key concept to bridge normative, political and sociological thinking about the modes and mechanisms for establishing legitimate political authority. More than a summary account of contemporary public sphere theories or a textbook collection of relevant authors, this book sketches a theory of the public sphere as a theory of society that can be formulated out of the synthesis of normative and social theory. O’Mahony’s book is not meant as a radical departure, but as an exercise in theoretical ground-taking. The author does not propose another normative inquiry of the public sphere translated into a philosophy of democracy. A sociological approach to democratic politics is developed instead, which demonstrates how the normative claims of political philosophy rest on cognitive foundations that are (re)produced by the complex of public discourse, and are inscribed in the reasoning capacities of publics. The theory of the public sphere is reformulated as a sociology of discursive democracy, which is not primarily meant as a template for the realization of the ‘good and just society’, but as a programme for sociological inquiry into the cognitive order of modernity, its formation through societal learning and its dynamic transformation. The book is hence more modest in its critical and political ambition but it lays out a highly ambitious intellectual task of social theory building.
It is this exercise of setting out the grounds combined with path-breaking theoretical innovation that turns this book into an exceptionally well-informed project. To formulate a contemporary theory of the public sphere which is at the same time a theory of contemporary society requires an extraordinary intellectual exercise of mastering, combining and synthesizing dispersed normative and theoretical writings from political philosophy and re-arranging and re-interpreting them within the framework of cognitive sociology. The book is what the author himself at one point describes as a Herculean task: ‘to take up the various dimensions of the Habermas project and on that basis to show, on his theoretical foundations, how the social theoretical and normative theoretical projects could be joined up’ (p. 251). The author needs almost 500 pages to wind up these different threads and presents a tour de force through the normative theory of democracy that is recombined and ultimately embedded in what is called a ‘cognitive sociology’ of the public sphere. Remarkably for this project, the public sphere is not just the central notion that is used to formulate such a theoretical synthesis; it is also the sphere of theoretical synthesizing where discourses can be brought together and where their propositions can be tested and recombined.
Among the myriad of sociologists and democratic theorists that are consulted by O’Mahony, the main inspiration for the formulation of a theory of the public sphere remains Jürgen Habermas. The author’s ambition is nothing less than to continue the drafting of a theory of communicative action which is related to the stabilization and reproduction of the cognitive and normative structures of society – a project which Habermas himself has seemingly lost sight of in his more recent programmatic writings. O’Mahony pursues this goal of extending Habermas’ original project by means of a cognitive sociology, which clarifies the modalities for the construction and critique of the normativity of modern society and the modalities of its democratic self-organization. While fully embracing this intellectual legacy, O’Mahony’s style of theory building is nonetheless different. The author operates in a more inclusive way than Habermas himself, who has often been more polemical in his scholarly disputes, juxtaposing different action logics and aiming at the dismissal of opposing theoretical standpoints. O’Mahony instead demonstrates a talent to develop theory out of the synthesis of existing approaches. In his four-dimensional matrix of social action spheres, an angle is reserved for even the most controversial positions such as the system theory of Niklas Luhmann or the radical tradition of Laclau and Mouffe.
With the aim of overcoming the ‘mutual indifference between normative-philosophical-empirical-theoretical approaches’ (p. 30), the book starts out with a sketch of five political philosophies that deliver complementary, rather than competing accounts of the democratic self-organization of society: Rawlsian liberalism, republicanism, radical (or antagonistic) democracy, political realism and deliberative democracy. The starting premise is that all these different ‘philosophies of democracy’ offer an account of the public sphere. The public sphere is not the property of a particular normative theory of democracy (like deliberative theory), but underlies its communicative and cognitive foundation. Political philosophies of democracy are therefore not treated as relying on contradictory or mutually exclusive assumptions, but as complementary. Such diverse authors as Rawls, Pettit, Fraser, Lefort, Mouffe and Luhmann are interpreted as ‘fellow travelers’ who help O’Mahony in his overall project to understand how contestation about the validity of norms constitute society.
From a German perspective, these sociological readings of the public sphere and its role in the integration and democratic self-organization of society are not new, and, in fact, as the author also acknowledges, have been at the heart of the œuvre of sociologists such as Bernhard Peters, Max Miller or Klaus Eder. For an English readership, the book is a useful reminder to re-interpret the more recent normative writings of Jürgen Habermas and his contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy in relation to his previous contributions for the formulation of a theory of communicative action. Habermas’ account of the public sphere appears then primarily as a contribution to a theory of society. The public sphere is normatively constituted as the arena for the engagement in critical argumentation among equals, but the sociological implications of this counterfactual ideal can be traced back in communications across all social spheres that impact on social and political structures and that facilitate societal learning. The public sphere is in this sense not restricted to a theory of deliberative democracy that provides a template for normative reasoning, but actually clarifies the central mechanisms through which democratic cultures are stabilized and evolutionarily developed.
O’Mahony’s book provides the necessary theoretical toolkit for this re-interpretation of the modern public sphere, which does not merely provide the moral foundations of democracy, but explains in a much more fundamental sense, how society is communicatively integrated. As the ‘public’ is to be conceived as a ‘third’ in an interlocutory social relationship, so the public sphere becomes the ‘third term’ that is needed to relate the system to the lifeworld, or, from the angle of democratic theory, the power structures of society to the actions, interpretations and sense-making practices of the individuals. This insight of a ‘third’ in terms of the virtual presence of the public is extended here beyond Habermas with the intention to formulate a cognitive sociology that relates discourse and collective learning back to the second-order modalities and cultural frames that make first-order practices of democracy possible. It results in what is termed a ‘virtual pragmatic of public communication’ (p. 281) translating the discursive situation of double contingency between interlocutors into a social situation of triple contingency that accounts for the constitutive role of the observing public. This third position of the public is distinct from an articulated public opinion and can be empirically traced back in the diffuse resonance of public discourse and its contingent effects.
If the main contribution of this book is to promote a cognitive turn in public sphere theory, such a reformulation inevitably needs to relate back to the mediating functions that were originally attributed to the public sphere and that underlie its institutional forms. Here the author comes up with an interesting proposal to analyze the public sphere not only in terms of its underlying mediating infrastructures and dynamics, but also in terms of providing a ‘mediating epistemology’ that allows actors from diverse backgrounds to enter into a communicative exchange with each other. In developing this cognitive sociology of the public sphere in Part 3 of the book, the author interestingly borrows from social system theory, introducing cognitive orders as semantic universes that define practical competences. Cognitive rule systems (like intimacy, efficiency, legality, sovereignty or publicity) operate through codes or scripts that are associated with forms of power to set up the boundaries of particular institutional spheres and their internal environments (publics). Unlike system theory, these domains are not simply binary coded but need to embrace functional, moral and ethical reasoning and comprise learning through horizontal and vertical exchanges. It is here that the concept of the public sphere as a mediating infrastructure bears new meaning for a theory of society. The functionally and institutionally unbound public sphere is then not just the environment of closed and autopoietic cognitive systems; it is the ‘horizon’ or the ‘orienting master frame’ (p. 336) for the mediation of system perspectives within broader society.
The book makes a path-breaking contribution by linking the public sphere not to a particular normative model of democracy, but grounding it in the cognitive-cultural foundations of modern society. Such a theory can be said to account for the ‘collective cognitive construction of a normative culture’ (p. 372). The public sphere is thus not directly related to the reproduction of the normative order in the sense that deliberation governs the application of norms. The public sphere informs the normative complex of society in a more diffuse way, mainly through the reproduction of a cognitive-cultural complex from which the contestation about norms can depart. Following this line of argumentation, public sphere theory can be more easily adapted to the condition of modern complex and diverse societies, in which rational dissent and compromises on interests are more likely outcomes of public discourse than agreement on the application of norms.
The cognitive reformulation further extends the range of application of public sphere theory to all levels of macro-, meso- and micro-organization. The public sphere does not only rely on what has been discursively agreed upon but also encompasses all implicit structures of taken-for-granted meaning that have evolved over time and are enshrined in particular cultural forms and identities. This sheds light on the presuppositions of discursive practices and the transcendental cognitive order that provides collective orientation. Here O’Mahony intends to arrive at a sociologically informed revitalization of critical theory that emphasizes how the potential for change and learning emanating from the counterfactual and the transcendental can be grounded in the micro-contexts of interaction and social practices. This sheds light on the responsive and constituting role of the lifeworld and civil society. Translated into a sociology of practice, public sphere scholars look beyond formal democracy and the way particular norms inform the institutional sphere of the state and society. Their focus is as much on informal democracy, for instance, the innovative processes of online communication and community that reproduce, inform and transform the normative-institutional order of society. The heritage of critical theory is further kept alive in the central notion of the counterfactual that becomes a kind of motor for public discourse at all levels of social organization. The counterfactual is brought in through the observatory position and critical scrutiny of the ‘third’ that generates a context of public legitimation. In this way, the shadow of the public hinges on all institutional performance, be it the state, university, or the market, reminding them of the immanence of norms and ethical standards as part of their operations.
In terms of the operationalization of a cognitive sociology of the public sphere, the book sheds light on the possibilities of applying a broader notion of deliberation that operates through societal resonances and the effects of triple contingency characterized by the virtual presence of observing publics. Within this cognitive framework the public sphere then operates as a ‘translator’ or as a ‘discursive medium’ along two axes of the lifeworld and the system world, and of the private and the public. The deliberative and discursive complex, which is placed at the centre of this configuration, is variably informed by inputs from both the functional sub-systems of society and from civil society in its organized and more spontaneous forms. The spheres of societal discourse are further brought together by plural communicative modes ranging from consensus in some arenas, to rational dissent, compromise, or radical dissent in others. The deliberative core is also not geared towards explicit agreement but characterized through processes of cumulative and long-term learning that cannot be located in a particular sphere of social interaction nor attributed to the validity of normative discourse.
Throughout the book, O’Mahony impresses with his remarkable intellectual sincerity covering the broadest range of authors, taking their arguments seriously, scrutinizing and not dismissing them lightly, but always constructively trying to extract some useful insights that help him to carry onwards his own project of theory building. O’Mahony is primarily interested in theoretical reconciliation, not in divisions. This provides a pleasant reading experience. The reader can decide to follow O’Mahony’s intellectual trajectory without being distracted or provoked by an unnecessary polemical style. Even if some scholars are touched upon only cursorily, such as the three-page treatise of Boltanski’s theory of justification, the author makes all possible efforts to reflect the complexity of the thought – ensuring that the reader is provided with the best possible knowledge, not simply in the form of a textbook-style summary, but in the form of an advance of theoretical knowledge and understanding.
The primary addressees of this book are sociologists and political theorists with an interest in contemporary challenges of democracy, the media and the transnationalization of politics and society. Democratic theorists are invited to an encounter with sociology, which provides the tools to explain democratization through the means of communication and learning. The book is also an invitation for sociologists to engage in normative argumentation and to explore how the counterfactual dimensions of democracy shape political culture and practice. Despite its clear strengths in advancing theoretical thought, the book also builds several bridges to empirical sociology. Beyond the usual pathways of media, communication and public opinion research, one such innovative programme for empirical analysis is the reconstruction of the social implications of counterfactuals, demonstrating that ‘the counterfactuals do not lie beyond social life, but actively structure it’ (p. 473). Such an empirical investigation is needed to encompass the multiple publics that are formed by and impact on the normative organization of society, and not simply those of the mass media or the new media.
The book is finally an important contribution to the discussion of the possibilities for the emergence of a democratic normative culture that reaches beyond the national. Against authors who argue for any form of substance-based republicanism and its incorporation in a trans-national or European demos as a prerequisite of democracy, O’Mahony reinterprets the cosmopolitan project as a cognitive form, that informs plural and dynamic identities and facilitates their democratic interactions across demoi and normative cultures. The main burden for the democratization of a trans-national polity such as the EU lies then not in the emergence of a demos, but in the rights and practices that are associated with citizenship. In terms of a methodological cosmopolitanism as envisaged by Ulrich Beck, the focus is then not so much on the emergence of a new normative order that competes with national democracy, but on cognitive-cultural foundations that undermine the state structures from below, allowing the consolidation of a trans-European culture of everyday life. Lifeworld changes can then be seen as being in dissonance to the system world of states and markets where learning processes are blocked, leading to a profound crisis of democratic legitimacy.
Another important implication of this cognitive reorientation is the detachment of the public sphere from the normative core of society and its specific carriers, among them, the media and civil society. With regard to the media, the cognitive structuration processes that accompanied the development of modern society have of course always been dependent on the availability of a communicative infrastructure through which collective learning processes could be channelled. Here the central role of the mass media is recognized as sustaining a meta-communicative discourse. Mass media are propelled towards centre-building, they have historically sustained the nation state around a territorial and institutional core that focused the imaginary of society. This raises the question of whether mass media can also perform as a global interest intermediary, or whether they can be realistically replaced by any new kind of infrastructure for global communication. The question of the utopian potential of digital media is left open. Here the author sketches several possible trajectories with regard to the processes of global cognitive structuration, which, for the foreseeable future, however, seem to be detached from the possibilities of the formation of a new normative centre and its institutional anchorage.
With regard to civil society, the demanding ethos of civil society remains the critical impetus of discourses that are carried by the intermediary and transversal structures of the public sphere, but as the author reminds us, this ethos should not be taken as the ultimate telos. As a medium of societal communication, the public sphere needs to be open to issues arising from all social spheres and provide publicity for plural standpoints representing the state, the economy and various private actors. The public sphere is distinct from civil society as it cannot claim to be a good in its own right. It cannot self-ascertain its ethos and supervise the respecting of democratic principles as members of civil society do, but constantly needs to confront the argumentative and conflictive character of public opinion as its principal medium.
Addressing core concerns with democracy in our contemporary societies and delivering a cognitive-deliberative account of our democratic cultures and of the premises of our intellectual criticism, it is to be wished that this book will find a broad readership. Sociologists, political theorists, philosophers and even practitioners can draw from what can be called a sociologically informed theory of democracy: reminding them that ‘democracy is only a façade, if the communicating public is not at its core’ (p. 250).