Four models of the public sphere in modern democracies

Theory and Society

Volumn 31, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 289-324

  Ferree, Myra Marx ^a,b,c,d   Gamson, William A ^a,b,c,d   Gerhards, Jürgen ^a,b,c,d   Rucht, Dieter ^a,b,c,d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN   (United States)

^b BOSTON COLLEGE   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG   (Germany)

^d WZB BERLIN SOCIAL SCIENCE CENTER   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0141514776     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1016284431021     Document Type: Review

References (89)

1. This article is the product of a fully collaborative effort with the authors listed in alphabetical order. It draws on ideas in the authors' forthcoming book, Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the United States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
2. Nancy Fraser uses the phrase to distinguish normative theories based on non-utopian and achievable assumptions in "Rethinking the Public Sphere: Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," 69-98 in her Justice Interruptus (New York: Routledge, 1997).
3. Peter Bachrach, The Theory of Democratic Elitism: A Critique (Boston: Little Brown, 1967).
4. John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (Amherst, Mass.: Prometheus Books, 1991, originally 1861); Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, edited with an Introduction by L. G. Mitchell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, originally 1790).
5. John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (Amherst, Mass.: Prometheus Books, 1991, originally 1861); Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, edited with an Introduction by L. G. Mitchell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, originally 1790).
6. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper, 1942); Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), William Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (New York: The Free Press, 1960).
7. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper, 1942); Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), William Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (New York: The Free Press, 1960).
8. Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper, 1942); Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), William Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (New York: The Free Press, 1960).
9. C. Edwin Baker, "The Media that Citizens Need," University of Pennsylvania Law Review 147 (1998): 317-407.
10. The marketplace metaphor may be particularly apt when financial strength is accepted as a legitimate factor in the competition of ideas for a hearing. Seeing restrictions on election financing as restrictions on speech, as the U.S. Supreme Court has done, makes clear that this competition of ideas need not be thought of as being among equally empowered actors.
11. Consider the legal prosecution of Wobblies, deportations of communist and socialists, and various formal and informal blacklists recounted in Bud Schultz and Ruth Schultz, It Did Happen Here: Recollections of Political Repression in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), and the suspicion directed at "unpatriotic" speech in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
12. James H. Kuklinski, Ellen Riggle, and Victor Ottati, "The Cognitive and Affective Bases of Political Tolerance Judgments," American Journal of Political Science 35 (1991) 1-27.
13. Paul Hirst, Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Government (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994); and Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). The quotation is from p. 151.
14. Paul Hirst, Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economic and Social Government (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994); and Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). The quotation is from p. 151.
15. Robert Michels, Political Parties (New York: The Free Press, 1949, originally 1911).
16. See Dieter Rucht, "Linking Organization and Mobilization: Michels's Iron Law of Oligarchy Reconsidered," Mobilization: 4 (1999): 151-169 for further discussion of this point.
17. Both Suzanne Staggenborg and Jane Mansbridge make the argument that formal organizations offer advantages in allowing membership participation that extends beyond the friendship cliques and informal elites that can dominate ostensibly non-hierarchical groups. See Suzanne Staggenborg, The Pro-Choice Movement. Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). The problems of the "leaderless" grassroots organization were vividly described by Jo Freeman in her classic article "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," published under the name "Joreen" in A. Koedt, E. Levine, and A. Rapine, editors, Radical Feminism (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973). See also Jo Freeman, The Politics of Women's Liberation (New York: David McKay, 1975).
18. Both Suzanne Staggenborg and Jane Mansbridge make the argument that formal organizations offer advantages in allowing membership participation that extends beyond the friendship cliques and informal elites that can dominate ostensibly non-hierarchical groups. See Suzanne Staggenborg, The Pro-Choice Movement. Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). The problems of the "leaderless" grassroots organization were vividly described by Jo Freeman in her classic article "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," published under the name "Joreen" in A. Koedt, E. Levine, and A. Rapine, editors, Radical Feminism (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973). See also Jo Freeman, The Politics of Women's Liberation (New York: David McKay, 1975).
19. Both Suzanne Staggenborg and Jane Mansbridge make the argument that formal organizations offer advantages in allowing membership participation that extends beyond the friendship cliques and informal elites that can dominate ostensibly non-hierarchical groups. See Suzanne Staggenborg, The Pro-Choice Movement. Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). The problems of the "leaderless" grassroots organization were vividly described by Jo Freeman in her classic article "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," published under the name "Joreen" in A. Koedt, E. Levine, and A. Rapine, editors, Radical Feminism (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973). See also Jo Freeman, The Politics of Women's Liberation (New York: David McKay, 1975).
20. Both Suzanne Staggenborg and Jane Mansbridge make the argument that formal organizations offer advantages in allowing membership participation that extends beyond the friendship cliques and informal elites that can dominate ostensibly non-hierarchical groups. See Suzanne Staggenborg, The Pro-Choice Movement. Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). The problems of the "leaderless" grassroots organization were vividly described by Jo Freeman in her classic article "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," published under the name "Joreen" in A. Koedt, E. Levine, and A. Rapine, editors, Radical Feminism (New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973). See also Jo Freeman, The Politics of Women's Liberation (New York: David McKay, 1975).
21. Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy, 151.
22. Peter Dahlgren, "Introduction," 1-24, in Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks, editors, Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere (London: Routledge, 1991). The quotations are from p. 2 and p. 11.
23. James Curran, "Rethinking the Media as a Public Sphere," 27-57, in Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks, editors, Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere (London: Routledge, 1991). The quotation is from p. 30.
24. James Carey, "The Press and Public Discourse," The Center Magazine 20 (1987): 4-16. The quotation is from p. 14.
25. John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1980).
26. Randall Kennedy, "The Case Against 'Civility,'" American Prospect 41 (Nov-Dec, 1998): 84-90. The quotation is from p. 85.
27. Benjamin Barber, "Making Democracy Strong: A Conversation with Benjamin Barber," in Bernard Murchland, Civic Arts Review 9 (1996): 4-14. The quotation is from p. 8.
28. Jane J. Mansbridge, "Using Power/Fighting Power," 46-66, in Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996). The quotation is from p. 47.
29. Joshua Cohen, "Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy," 17-34, in Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit, editors, The Good Polity (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1989). The quotation is from p. 17.
30. As Habermas uses the term, "lifeworld" is in the realm of communicative action, in contrast to systems run by power or money. The life-world, if intact and not colonized by other systems, secures cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization. See Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Thomas McCarthy, translator (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984).
31. In practice, the distinction may simply reflect differences in how real social movements are structured in the United States and Germany. Social movement organizations in the United States are typically larger, and have more of a division of labor, including a media relations division or specialist, while German social movements, being organizationally decentralized and non-bureaucratic, come closer to Habermas's ideal type.
32. Jürgen Habermas, "Volkssouvernität als Verfahren: Ein normativer Begriff von Öffentlichkeit." Merkur 43 (1989): 465-477. The quotation is from p. 474.
33. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 303-304.
34. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 43.
35. Ibid., 79.
36. Amitai Etzioni, The New Golden Rule (New York: Basic Books), 104-105.
37. James Davison Hunter, Before the Shooting Begins (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 239.
38. Gutmann and Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement, 89.
39. Ibid., 360.
40. Ibid., 4.
41. Ibid., 136.
42. Ibid., 90.
43. Edmund Lambeth, in E. Lambeth., P. Meyer, and E. Thornson, editors, Assessing Public Journalism (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998), 27.
44. Tanni Haas, "What's Public about Public Journalism?" Communication Theory 9 (1999): 346-364. The quotation is from p. 356.
45. Jay Rosen, "Making Things More Public: On the Responsibility of the Media Intellectual," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 11 (1994): 363-888.
46. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 42.
47. See Bruce Ackerman, "Why Dialogue?" Journal of Philosophy 86 (1989): 5-22.
48. Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical about Critical Theory," 21-55, in Johanna Meehan, editor, Feminists Read Habermas (New York and London: Routledge, 1995); and Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," 69-98, in Justice Interruptus (New York: Routledge, 1997); Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space," 73-98, in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992); and Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Iris Marion Young, "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy," 120-135 in Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference.
49. Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical about Critical Theory," 21-55, in Johanna Meehan, editor, Feminists Read Habermas (New York and London: Routledge, 1995); and Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," 69-98, in Justice Interruptus (New York: Routledge, 1997); Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space," 73-98, in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992); and Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Iris Marion Young, "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy," 120-135 in Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference.
50. Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical about Critical Theory," 21-55, in Johanna Meehan, editor, Feminists Read Habermas (New York and London: Routledge, 1995); and Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," 69-98, in Justice Interruptus (New York: Routledge, 1997); Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space," 73- 98, in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992); and Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Iris Marion Young, "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy," 120-135 in Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference.
51. Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical about Critical Theory," 21-55, in Johanna Meehan, editor, Feminists Read Habermas (New York and London: Routledge, 1995); and Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," 69-98, in Justice Interruptus (New York: Routledge, 1997); Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space," 73- 98, in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992); and Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Iris Marion Young, "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy," 120-135 in Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference.
52. Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical about Critical Theory," 21-55, in Johanna Meehan, editor, Feminists Read Habermas (New York and London: Routledge, 1995); and Nancy Fraser, "Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy," 69-98, in Justice Interruptus (New York: Routledge, 1997); Seyla Benhabib, "Models of Public Space," 73- 98, in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992); and Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); Iris Marion Young, "Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy," 120-135 in Seyla Benhabib, editor, Democracy and Difference.
53. Dorothy E. Smith, Writing the Social: Critique, Theory and Investigations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999).
54. See Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1991); and Dorothy E. Smith, The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990).
55. See Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1991); and Dorothy E. Smith, The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990).
56. The problem of identifying the authentic voice of an actor as well as empowering that actor to use it effectively in the political arena is thus a central issue for these standpoint theories. See the nuanced treatment of the skills necessary to speak autonomously in Diana Tietjens Meyers, "The Rush to Motherhood: Pro-natalist Discourse and Women's Autonomy," Signs 26/3 (2001): 735-774.
57. Zali Gurevich,"The Other Side of Dialogue: On Making the Other Strange and the Experience of Otherness," American Journal of Sociology 93/5 (1988): 1179-1199)). The quotation is from p. 1189.
58. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1995), 476-480. See also, Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); and Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
59. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1995), 476-480. See also, Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); and Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
60. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1995), 476-480. See also, Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); and Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
61. Nancy Fraser, "What's Critical about Critical Theory."
62. Jean L. Cohen, "Critical Social Theory and Feminist Critiques, " 57-90, in Johanna Meehan, editor, Feminists Read Habermas (New York and London: Routledge, 1995). The quotation appears on pp. 79-80.
63. Martha Ackelsberg, "Identity Politics, Political Identities: Thoughts toward a Multicultural Politics," Frontiers 16/1 (1996): 87-101.
64. Among the more influential feminist critics of some standpoint epistemologies are R.W. Connell, Gender and Power, (Stanford University Press, 1987); and Susan Bordo, "Feminism, Postmodernism and Gender-skepticism," 133-156, in Linda Nicholson, Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge). See also, Aili Mari Tripp's discussion of how a discourse of difference may be specific to feminist political experiences in the United States and Western Europe, in comparison to the discourse of unity being constructed in Africa in 'Rethinking Difference: Comparative Perspectives from Africa," Signs 25/3 (2000): 649-675.
65. Among the more influential feminist critics of some standpoint epistemologies are R.W. Connell, Gender and Power, (Stanford University Press, 1987); and Susan Bordo, "Feminism, Postmodernism and Gender-skepticism," 133-156, in Linda Nicholson, Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge). See also, Aili Mari Tripp's discussion of how a discourse of difference may be specific to feminist political experiences in the United States and Western Europe, in comparison to the discourse of unity being constructed in Africa in 'Rethinking Difference: Comparative Perspectives from Africa," Signs 25/3 (2000): 649-675.
66. Among the more influential feminist critics of some standpoint epistemologies are R.W. Connell, Gender and Power, (Stanford University Press, 1987); and Susan Bordo, "Feminism, Postmodernism and Gender-skepticism," 133-156, in Linda Nicholson, Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge). See also, Aili Mari Tripp's discussion of how a discourse of difference may be specific to feminist political experiences in the United States and Western Europe, in comparison to the discourse of unity being constructed in Africa in 'Rethinking Difference: Comparative Perspectives from Africa," Signs 25/3 (2000): 649-675.
67. See Janet Jakobsen, Working Alliances and the Politics of Difference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); Ann Russo, "We Cannot Live without Our Lives," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); and Noel Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and Political Action (New York: Routledge, 1997).
68. See Janet Jakobsen, Working Alliances and the Politics of Difference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); Ann Russo, "We Cannot Live without Our Lives," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); and Noel Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and Political Action (New York: Routledge, 1997).
69. See Janet Jakobsen, Working Alliances and the Politics of Difference (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); Ann Russo, "We Cannot Live without Our Lives," in Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); and Noel Sturgeon, Ecofeminist Natures: Race, Gender, Feminist Theory and Political Action (New York: Routledge, 1997).
70. Anne Phillips, "Dealing with Difference: A Politics of Ideas or a Politics of Presence?" 475-495, in Joan Landes, editor, Feminism: The Public and the Private (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). The quotation is from p. 485.
71. Ibid., 486.
72. Benhabib, "Models of Public Space," 86-87.
73. Bonnie Honig, "Toward an Agonistic Feminism Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Identity," in Judith Butler and Joan Scott, editors, Feminists Theorize the Political (New York: Routledge, 1992). Although Arendt is typically seen as unfeminist and hostile to the constructionist project, Honig argues that Arendt too can offer theoretical resources to the constructionist tradition, since she, too, cballenges "a politics of representation that projects a false commonality of interests that is impositional and ill-fitting [and that] obstructs an important alternative: a performative politics that instead of reproducing and re-presenting 'what' we are, agonistically generates 'who' we are."
74. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, The Attack of the Blob: Hannah Arendt's Concept of the Social (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
75. Barbara Holland-Cunz, "Öffentlichkeit und Intimität - demokratie-theoretische Überlegungen," 227-246, in Elke Biester, Barbara Holland-Cunz, and Birgit Sauer, editors, Demokratie oder Andokratie? Theorie und Praxis demokratischer Herrschaft in der feministischen Diskussion (Frankfurt a/M: Campus, 1994).
76. Fraser, "What's Critical about Critical Theory," 28.
77. Ibid, 28, drawing on Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action.
78. "Empirically, I've learned most from the criticisms that point to the exclusionary mechanisms of the public sphere, liberal or postliberal....An analysis of the exclusionary aspects of established public spheres is particularly revealing...the critique of that which has been excluded from the public sphere and from my analysis too: gender, ethnicity, class, popular culture," Jürgen Habermas, "Concluding Remarks," 462-479, in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992). The quotation is from p. 466.
79. Young, "Communication and the Other," 123-124.
80. Ibid., 131.
81. Lynn Sanders, "Against Deliberation," paper presented at annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, 1992.
82. Dorothy Smith, Writing the Social.
83. Mary P. Ryan, "Gender and Public Access: Women's Politics in Nineteenth Century America," 259-288, in Craig Calhoun, editor, Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992). The quotes are from pp. 264 and 285-286.
84. Carol C. Gould, "Diversity and Democracy: Representing Differences," 171-186, in Benhabib, Democracy and Difference.
85. Chantal Mouffe, "Democracy, Power, and the 'Political'," 245-256, in Benhabib, Democracy and Difference. The quotation is from p. 248.
86. Meehan, Feminists Read Habermas, 17.
87. Bruce Ackerman, Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 11.
88. Benhabib, "Models of Public Space," 84.
89. Ferree et al., Shaping Abortion Discourse.