Recasting Democratic Theory, 1984–1996 175
from both sides and integrates them.”^12 Understanding the goals
Habermas articulated in his 1996 essays helps us to grasp the import
of what he considers his central thesis in the 1992 BFN, namely, that
the Western ideals of the rule of law and democracy are “internally
connected.”^13 Democracy and rule of law are “co-original” or “equi-
primordial” (gleichursprünglich), he argued: The two “mutually pre-
suppose each other.”^14
The strength of the republican model, Habermas explained, is
that it alone preserves the meaning of radical democracy, that is, of
a society that organizes itself. As such, it transcends the liberal mod-
el’s definition of collective goals as the mere aggregation of private
interests.^15 Its corresponding weakness is that it is overly dependent
on virtuous citizens who are devoted to the public good.^16 Habermas
claimed that his procedural model steered a middle course between
what we may call “thicker” and “thinner” models of democracy. The
republican concept of the state as “an ethical community” was too
thick, whereas the liberal concept of the state as “the guardian of
a market society” was too thin.^17 Habermas’s procedural turn was
prompted by his belief that only theoretical reconstruction could
rescue the insights of republicanism and liberalism from their too
concrete embodiments.
Historical contextualization of Habermas’s critiques makes it
clear why in the end he is more convincingly viewed as a species of
civic republican than a liberal: He puts his faith in popular sover-
eignty, not human rights, as the ultimate basis for the legitimacy of
the laws. Habermas acknowledged his partiality to republicanism
in referring to his procedural theory as a “communicative account
of republicanism.”^18 According to Habermas, a “proceduralist,” or
(^12) Ibid., 246.
(^13) William Rehg, “Translator’s Introduction,” in BFN, xxiv. For the core argu-
ment, see BFN, 84–104. Habermas published summaries of the main ideas
of BFN in a 1994 “Postscript” and in two of the essays in The Inclusion of the
Other. Thus the thesis he worked out in BFN remained central to his think-
ing through at least 1996.
(^14) Habermas, BFN, 93, 122.
(^15) Habermas, “Normative Models,” 246.
(^16) Ibid., 244.
(^17) Ibid., 246.
(^18) Habermas, “On the Relation between the Nation, the Rule of Law and
Democracy,” in idem, Inclusion of the Other, 139 (emphasis added). Compare
Larmore, The Morals of Modernity (Chicago: the University of Chicago
Press, 1999), 217–9, and Werner-Müller, A Dangerous Mind, 195.