Jurgen Habermas

General Summary

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is Habermas's examination of a kind of publicity that originated in the eighteenth century, but still has modern relevance. It begins by attempting to demarcate what Habermas calls the bourgeois public sphere. He defines the public sphere as the sphere of private people who join together to form a "public." He traces the history of the division between public and private in language and philosophy.

Before the bourgeois public sphere came representative publicity, which existed from the Middle Ages until the eighteenth century. It involved the king or lord representing himself before an audience; the King was the only public person, and all others were spectators. The public and private realms were not separated.

Economic developments were vital in the evolution of the public sphere. Habermas emphasizes the role of capitalist modes of production, and of the long-distance trade in news and commodities in this evolution.

The most important feature of the public sphere as it existed in the eighteenth century was the public use of reason in rational-critical debate. This checked domination by the state, or the illegitimate use of power. Rational-critical debate occurred within the bourgeois reading public, in response to literature, and in institutions such as salons and coffee-houses. Habermas sees the public sphere as developing out of the private institution of the family, and from what he calls the "literary public sphere", where discussion of art and literature became possible for the first time. The public sphere was by definition inclusive, but entry depended on one's education and qualification as a property owner. Habermas emphasizes the role of the public sphere as a way for civil society to articulate its interests.

The development of the fully political public sphere occurred first in Britain in the eighteenth century. The public sphere became institutionalized within the European bourgeois constitutional states of the nineteenth century, where public consensus was enshrined as a way of checking domination. The fully developed public sphere was therefore dependent on many social conditions, which eventually shifted.

Habermas argues that the self-intepretation of the public sphere took shape in the concept of "public opinion", which he considers in the light of the work of Kant, Marx, Hegel, Mill and Tocqueville. The bourgeois public sphere eventually eroded because of economic and structural changes. The boundaries between state and society blurred, leading to what Habermas calls the refeudalization of society. State and society became involved in each other's spheres; the private sphere collapsed into itself. The key feature of the public sphere - rational-critical debate - was replaced by leisure, and private people no longer existed as a public of property owners. Habermas argues that the world of the mass media is cheap and powerful. He says that it attempts to manipulate and create a public where none exists, and to manufacture consensus. This is particularly evident in modern politics, with the rise of new disciplines such as advertising and public relations. These, and large non- governmental organizations, replace the old institutions of the public sphere. The public sphere takes on a feudal aspect again, as politicians and organizations represent themselves before the voters. Public opinion is now manipulative, and, more rarely, still critical. We still need a strong public sphere to check domination by the state and non-governmental organizations. Habermas holds out some hope that power and domination may not be permanent features.

Important Terms

Bourgeois constitutional state  -  The bourgeois constitutional state is a nineteenth century invention, formed as an attempt to link the public sphere to an idea of law. It guarantees its citizens certain basic rights, which amount to establishing the public sphere as a public institution. The state does this in order to abolish the idea of the state as a dominating force by linking law to rational debate. The bourgeois state is not long-lived, however, as it depends on particular social and economic factors that are unique to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Civil society  -  Habermas borrows the term "civil society" from Hegel. Civil society is the sphere of production and exchange, which forms part of the private realm and is distinct from the state. Civil society is essentially what most people call "the economy", but includes other social institutions. It operates according to its own laws, but is able to represent its interests to the state through the public sphere.

Literary public sphere  -  The literary public sphere develops in the eighteenth century; its key institutions are literary journals, periodicals, and the coffee houses and salons where these publications were discussed. The literary public sphere represented the first time that the public could critically discuss art and literature, drawing on the emotional resources they developed within the family. It developed into the political public sphere.

Political public sphere  -  The political public sphere represents private people who have come together as a public to use their reason critically. It is not so much a place as a series of actions.

It developed out of the literary public sphere, and depended on private people's status as both property owners and human beings; its roots were in the family and in the world of property ownership. In the past, the political public sphere represented a critical voice that analysed and often opposed government action, and prevented domination by the powerful state. In its modern form, however, the public sphere is no more than a manipulative form of publicity, as politicians, advertising agents and public relations experts try to create and manipulate a false public.

Representative publicity  -  Representative publicity is the form of public sphere that preceded the literary public sphere. It operated in the feudal states of medieval and early modern Europe. Essentially, it consisted of the King or the nobility representing their political power before the people. They merely displayed their power; there was no political discussion, because there was no "public" in the modern sense. In order for political power to exist at all, an audience was required. Habermas sees elements of this style of publicity returning in the behavior of modern political parties and public relations experts. See refeudalization

Immanuel Kant  -  (1724–1804) German philosopher. Habermas argues that Kant's philosophy of right and of history form the foundations of the eighteenth-century theory of the public sphere. He undertakes a detailed analysis of Kant's work in terms of publicity.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  -  (1770–1831), German Philosopher and author of the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right. For Habermas, Hegel views public opinion in a similar way to Kant, but his view of civil society emphasizes its discontinuity and confusion. Civil society for Hegel cannot provide the rational basis for private people to turn political authority (domination) into rational authority.

Karl Marx  -  (1818–83). German political philosopher and social critic who rote Capital and the Communist Manifesto. Habermas analyses Marx as a theorist of the public sphere who both denounced the idea, and yet used it to reveal the problems with bourgeois society.

John Stuart Mill  -  (1806–73) English philosopher who wrote On Liberty, Utilitarianism and Principles of Political Economy. Habermas analyses Mill as a central theorist of the liberal public sphere; public opinion for Mill is a powerful force, but one that needs to be controlled.

Jeremy Bentham  -  (1748–1832) English philosopher and author of Fragment on Government and Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Bentham is best known for formulating the principle of utility—all humans should maximize utility by producing the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Alexis Charles Henri Clerel de Tocqueville  -  (1805–1859) French social theorist who wrote Democracy in America and The Ancien Regime and the Revolution. Together with Mill, Tocqueville is identified by Habermas as an ambivalent liberal theorist of the public sphere.

Refeudalization  -  A process that Habermas identifies in modern social-democratic states. Refeudalization involves a merging of the state and society, public and private that approximates to conditions in the feudal state, and a return of elements of representative publicity. Habermas does not believe that modern states are returning to the Middle Ages, merely that certain feudal elements are returning.

Rational-critical debate  -  The lifeblood of the public sphere. Rational-critical debate occurred in the eighteenth century public sphere between members of a property-owning, educated reading public using their reason. It centered first on literary questions, then on political issues. One of Habermas's criticisms of the modern state is the decline of rational, meaningful argument.