Davis 391these impulses can in fact be found, suggesting the development of local
public spheres outside the West.
The development of capitalist relations of production and attendant
markets on a global scale would seem to indicate that the necessary con-
ditions for the rise of the public sphere are not limited to the European
experience. Contra Habermas, I argue that it is not especially useful to
consider the public sphere as a “Western” concept. Rather, we should
explore whether the conditions for its application exist in Iraq and, if they
do, we must examine the public sphere’s functional equivalents in Iraqi
society and their impact on the political process.
pplying the concept of the public sphere to Iraq necessitates con-A
structing it in a logical and systematic manner. The logical antecedents
for the rise of the public sphere, in whatever geographical locale, require
significant changes in social and political consciousness. Creating a public
sphere logically requires not only prior changes in consciousness, but a
particular form of consciousness, one that embodies discontent with the
existing political order. Further, the notion of the public sphere implies the
development of a critical sociopolitical mass. In other words, there must be
growth in the number of members of the discontented social strata who
are willing to transform their feelings of discontent into forms of behavior
that seek to change understandings of political authority and the struc-
ture and practices of existing political institutions. Only when a certain
numerical threshold has been reached, and the discontent of particular
social strata crystallizes into oppositional ideologies, such as occurred
among Habermas’s entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, can one begin to envision
the necessary conditions for the emergence of the public sphere. Beyond
these developments, there are other logical antecedents to the rise of the
public sphere. One of the most important is the commitment to the idea
of nationhood and an emergent notion of citizenship by those social strata
interested in bringing about political change. Thus, the notion of the pub-
lic sphere is intimately bound up with changes in political identity.
n sum, the concept of the public sphere must be historically and I
socially contextualized and be seen as part of a process that is brought
about by significant economic and social transformation. Because the
public sphere requires changes in the world views of those who seek to
construct and use it, the public sphere cannot be considered merely as a