1 Globalization and the Antinomies of
Habermasian Critical Theory
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A striking programmatic oscillation can be readily identiWed in Habermas’
most developed account of deliberative democracy. 1 On the one hand,
Habermas at times proposes an indisputablyradicalvision of deliberative
democracy, where free-wheeling deliberation would emerge in civil society
but ultimately gain clear expression in the apparatus of government. Al-
though Habermas follows Nancy Fraser in distinguishing weak from strong
publics, with the latter culminating in binding legal decisions whereas the
former fail to do so, there remains no structural diVerence between the two
publics: in both, ‘‘communicative power’’ derived from spontaneous, unlim-
ited debate and deliberation predominates (Fraser 1992 ). In this version of the
argument, formal government institutions (most important, the central le-
gislatures) are simply a technical extension of civil society, the ‘‘organized
midpoint or focus of a society-wide circulation of informal communication’’
(Habermas 1996 , 182 ). In turn, the principle of the legality of the administra-
tion guarantees that bureaucratic mechanisms are rendered unambiguously
subordinate to processes of popular debate and deliberation which eVectively
‘‘determine thedirectionin which political power circulates’’ via the medium
of law (Habermas 1996 , 187 ). Of course, modern society still requires an
administrative apparatus operating according to a distinct logic, but Haber-
mas hopes that the ‘‘administrative state’’ might gain the requisite democratic
legitimacy which it too often lacks. Even seemingly problematic forms of
administration discretion can be successfully subordinated to the legitimacy-
generating power of deliberation in which ‘‘allmembers of the political
community... take part in discourse’’ in a meaningful way. ‘‘Each must
have fundamentally equal chances to take a position on all relevant contri-
butions’’ (Habermas 1996 , 182 ). This equality of chances is by no means purely
formal in character. For Habermas, it demands an egalitarian social and
economic setting that ‘‘has emerged from the conWnes of class and thrown
oV the millennia-old shackles of social stratiWcation and exploitation’’
(Habermas 1996 , 308 ). A normatively legitimate deliberative democracy, it
seems, can only take the form of radicalsocial(deliberative) democracy.
1 I develop this interpretation in greater depth elsewhere (Scheuerman 2002 a). See also Bohman
( 1994 ).
88 william e. scheuerman