In addition, they have taken important steps towards describing the
appropriate institutional moorings of a vibrant deliberative democracy
(Chambers 2003 ; Dryzek 1990 ; Habermas 1996 ), while struggling to dem-
onstrate why deliberative democracy, when properly conceived, is the
rightful intellectual heir of the early Frankfurt School (Bohman 1996 ).
Habermas’ account of deliberative democracy is not only normatively
distinct from competing liberal and communitarian models (Forst 2001 ),
but it also purports to pose a more credible challenge to the social
inequalities and injustices of contemporary capitalist society. In addition,
Habermas and his followers repeatedly insist that their version of delibera-
tive democracy remains realistic. It not only acknowledges the fact of
modern social complexity, but we can even begin to see a rough outline
of its proper operations in the otherwise depressing realities of present-day
political practice (Benhabib 1996 ; Bohman 1996 ; Hauptmann 2001 ). Al-
though maintaining a critical perspective on the status quo, it avoids a
methodologicallyXawed juxtaposition of the ‘‘ought’’ to the ‘‘is,’’ thereby
oVering relatively constructive guidance for those seeking to advance over-
due radical reforms of the liberal democratic status quo.
The present-day critical theory obsession with deliberative democracy
nonetheless seems surprising. With the notable but typically overlooked
exceptions of Franz L. Neumann and Otto Kirchheimer, the early Frankfurt
School tended to neglected political and legal theory altogether (Scheuerman
1994 ). Implicit Marxist theoretical assumptions about the state and law led its
most prominent representatives (Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and
Herbert Marcuse) to discount normative political theory as well as creative
intellectual approaches to the analysis of political and legal institutions. Only
with Habermas’ life-long programmatic overhaul of critical theory—most
important being his formulation of atheory of communicative action—was it
possible for Frankfurt-oriented critical theorists to grasp the full signiWcance
of normative political theory to a critical theory of society (McCarthy 1982 ;
White 1989 ). Not surprisingly, Habermas and his followers have been at the
forefront of recent eVorts to develop critical models of deliberative democ-
racy in which Habermas’ ideas about uncoerced speech and communication
typically loom in the background.
But should critical theorists continue to devote their intellectual energy to
the project of deliberative democracy? Does deliberative democracy consti-
tute the legitimatefuture—and not just the contemporary—focus of critical
theory? In order to answer this question, we needWrst to consider another
86 william e. scheuerman