66 Philosophical Frames
reasoning that are in tension with modern liberal conceptions of the pub-
lic sphere. Specifically, they remain unbounded by the strictures of lib-
eral norms of publicness premised on atomistic views of the social agent
and contractually based notions of trust; by a strict interpretation of the
dichotomy between private and public spheres; and by the ultimate basing
of public reason on private interest. For socioreligious movements public
reasoning is mostly based on a practical reason sanctified by religious tra-
ditions, however variably interpreted.^1 Such a perspective provides these
discourses with a fluidity that accounts in large measure for their success
in mobilizing large numbers of people to their cause.
o understand how the concept of the common good entertained T
by many socioreligious movements is linked to notions of practice and
“common sense” we need to consider the recent literature on civil soci-
ety and the public sphere, and the role of religion therein. Specifically,
we argue that the operation performed by socioreligious movements
comes close to Gramsci’s notion of “good sense” [buon senso] as the key
to mobilize politically marginalized sectors of society. Such movements
thus contribute to the constitution and contestation of norms of public life
by providing services to their communities and articulating social justice
claims that challenge the discourse of rights that is the daily bread of secu-
lar elites. A specific combination of “resistance” and “project” identities^2
deployed by socioreligious movements impinge on the legitimacy of both
state and (more recently) NGO elites, and through them, on the allocation
of resources for development, welfare and education. This process unfolds
through the creation of historically novel lines of solidarity that, without
being utopianly “horizontal,” challenge state-centric, vertically defined,
disciplinary discourses of the social.
abermas’s famous definition of the public sphere considers it H
“above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public.”^3 This
definition is, however, too limited to explain trajectories of formation of
and access to public spheres—not only for the non-Western world. It can-
not capture the actions for reclaiming the common good performed by
those socioreligious movements which do not endorse the kind of secular-
ity produced by the modern state and by any variant of liberal, republican,
or socialist (and, not to forget, fascist) ideologies. We do, however, build
on Habermas’s recognition of the possibility of “plebeian,” alternative