BFN - Chapter 8

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PubS - comm. structure rooted in LW thru association network of Civ.Soc
PPubs - sounding board for problems to be processed by Pol.Sys

Pubs - warning system w/ sensors, sensitive, unspecialized

Must amplify the pressure of problems -
- Nec. to detect, identify,convincingly thematize problems
- Furnish possible solutions
- Dramatize them in a way that they are taken up and dealth with by parliamentary complexes
- Besides signal fx - necessary an effective problematizations

Capacity of PubS to solve problems on its own is limited
- must be used to oversee the treatment of problems in pol.sys.
- barriers and P structures exist w/in - barriers can be overcome in critical situations by escalating movements



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PubS
- social phenomena - as elementary as action, actor, assocation, collectivity
- eludes conventional sociological concepts of soc.O
- not an inst., organization
- not a framework of norms w/ diff. competences and roles, membership regulations
- not a system - even if allows one to draw internal boundaries
- characterized by open, permeable, shifting horizons


- best described as network for communicating information and POV
- opinions expressing affirmative or negative attitudes
- streams of comm. are, in the process, filtered and synthesized in way that they coalesce into bundles of topically specified public opinions

Reproduced thru comm.a - like LW as a whole
- mastery of natural LL suffices
- tailored to the gen. comprehensibility of everyday comm.practice

LW - reservoir for simple interactions
- Specialized S of action and knowledge - diff. w/in LW remain tied to these interactions
- Categories
- religion, education, family - associated w general reproduction functions of the LW
- cultural reproduction, social integration, socialization
- science, morality, art - take up different V aspects of everyday comm.a - truth, rightness, veracity

PubS - not specialized in either of these two ways
-leaves specialized treatment of qs to PolSys
- distinguishes itself thru a comm.structure - related to a third feature of comm.a
- it refers neither to the functions nor the contents of everyday communication but the social space generated in communicative action

Unlike SOactors - mutually observe each other

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- comm.actors encounter each other in situation they at the same time constitute w/cooperatively negotiated interpretations
- ISubly shared space of speech situation is disclosed when the participants enter into interpersonal relationships by taking positions on mutual speech-act offers and assuming illocutionary obligations
- Actors take a second-person attitude, reciprocally attributing comm. freedom to other
- Unfold within lingustically constituted public space
- This space stands open, in principle, for potential dialogue partners who are present as bystanders, or could come on the scene and join those present
- Special measures needed to prevent others from entering

Spatial structure of simple, episodic enounters
- can be expanded, rendered more permanent, in abstract form for a larger pub of present persons
- Pub.infrastruc. of - assemblies, performances, presentations, - architectural metaphors of structured spaces
- Still cling to concrete locales when an audience is physically gathered
- More detached from public's physical presence, extend to virtual presence of scattered readers, listeners, viewers - linked by public media
- the clearer the abstraction that enters when spatial structure of simple interactions is expanded into a PubS

Gen.ized comm. struc. contract to informational content and POV
- uncoupled from thick contexts of simple interactions - from specific persons, obligations
- context gen.ion, inclusion, growing anonymity demand a higher degree of explication that must dispense with technical vocabularies and special codes

Orientation to laypersons, implies loss in differentiation
- uncoupling comm. opinions from concrete practical obligations - intellectualizing effect
- proces. of OF - especially in regard to pol. qs - cannot be separated from transformation of participants pref. and attitudes
- but can be separated from putting these into action

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"To this extent, the communication structures of the public sphere relieve the public of the burden of decision marking, the postponed decisions are reserved for the institutionalized political process."
- utterances are sorted according to issue, contribution
- contributions are weighted by the affirmative vs. neg. responses they receive
- Information are then worked into focus opinion

Bundled opinions into PubO
- the controversial way it comes about and the amount of approval that carries it
- not representative in statistical sens
- not an aggregate of ind. gathered, privately expressed opinions held by isolated persons - not survey resuts
- opinion polls - reflect PubO only if they have been preceeded by focused pub. deate, corresponding OF in mobilized PubS

Diffusion of info and POV via effective broadcasting media - not only thing that matters in public processes of comm
- although only broad circulation of comprehensible, attention-grabbing messages arouse sufficiently inclusive participation
- rules of shared practice of communication are of greater significance for structuring PubO
- agreement on issues dev. only as the result of more or less exhaustive controversy in which proposals, info, and reasons can be more or less rationally dealt with

Discursive level of OF and the quality of the outcome vary with the more or less in the rational processing of exhaustive proposals information reasons
- success of PubComm. not intrisincally measued by the requirement of inclusion either - but by the formal criteria governing how a qualified PubO comes about
- structures of power-ridden, oppressed PubS exclude fruitful, clarifying discussions
- the quality of PubO - measured by the procedural properties of its process of generation - is an empirical variable
- from NPOV - provides a basis for measuring the L of the influence of PubO on PolS

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  - Actual influence coincides with L influence as little as the belief in L coincides w L
- Conceiving things this way at least opens perspective from which the relation between actual influence and the procedurally grounded quality of public opinion can be empirically investigated


Parsons' - influence
- symbollically generated form of comm. that facilitates interactions in virtue of conviction or persuasion
- persons or insts. can enjoy a reputation that allows their utterances to have an influence on others' beliefs without having to demonstrate authority, or give explanations in the situation
- feeds on resource of MU - based on advancing trust in beliefs not currently tested


PubO represents political potentials - can be used for influencing the voting behavior of cns, or the WF in parliamentary bodies, adm. agencies, courts

Pol. influence becomes Pol P, potential for rendering binding decision
- when it affects the beliefs and decisions of authorized members of the Pol S, determines the behavior of voters, legislators, officials
- like soc.P - pol. influence can become pol.p only thru institutionalized procedures

Influence develops in PubS, becomes the object of struggle there
- reputation of those who have acquired influence in special PubS also comes into play
- As soon as pub.space has expanded beyond context of simple interactions - diff. among organizers, speakers, hearers, arenas, galleries, stage, viewing space
- actors' roles - increasingly professionalize and multiply with organizational complexity and range of media are furnished with unequal opportunities for exerting influence


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The political influence that the actors gain thru public comm. must ultimately res on the resonance, approval of egalitarian lay public
- public of citizens must be convinced by comprehensible and broadly interesting contributions to issues it finds relevant
- public audience possesses final authority - it is constitutive for the internal structure and reproduction of the PubS - only place where actors can appear


Distinguishing actors
- emerging from public to take part of reproduction of PubS itself from actors who occupy already constituted public domain in order to use it
- large, well-org. interest groups - anchored in various soc. SS, affect the pol. S thru the PubS
- without manifest use of sanctions, rewards they rely on in bargaining, or in nonpublic attempts at pressure
- capitalize on their soc. power, convert it into pol.p - only if they can advertise interests ina language that can mobilize convincing reasons, shared value orientations
- contributions of these are vulnerable to criticism which contributors from other sources are not exposed
- credibility lost when sources of social power are made publicly
- PubO can be manipulated, but not publicly bought, or publicly blackmailed - can't be manufactured

Before it can be captured by actors with strategic intent, the public sphere together with its public must have developed as a structure that stands on its own and reproduces itself out of itself
- this lawlike regularity gov. formation of PubS - remains latent in the constituted PubS - takes effect again only in moments when PubS is mobilized

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PPubs fulfills fx of perceiving, thematizing encompassing soc.problems only insofar as it develops out of the comm. taking place among those who are potentially affected
- carried by public recruited from among the entire citizenry
- in diverse voices of public - one hears the echos of private experiences that are caused throughout soc. by externalities and internal disturbances of various fxal S
- even by ST Ap on whose regulatory activities the complex, poorly coordinated SS depend

Systemic deficiencies
- experienced in the context of individual life histories
- such burdens accumulate in the LW
- has the appropriate antennae
- in its horizon, private life histories are intermeshed, of clients of fx S that might be failing in their delivery of services

Only spheres of private life have an existential LL at their disposal - in which such socially generated problems can be assessed in terms of one's own life history
- Problems voiced in PubS first visible when they are mirrored in personal life experiences
- To extent these are expressed in languages of religion, art, literature - literary PubS, specialized for the articulation of values and world disclosure - intertwined with PPubS


Citizens occupy two positions at once - bearers of PPubS and members of Soc.
- as members of soc - roles of employees, consumers, insured persons, patients, taxpayers, clients of bureaucracies, students, tourists, commuters
- in such complementary roles - exposed to specific requirements and failrues of the corresponding service systems
- such experiences are assimilated privately - interpreted within horizon of a life history intermeshed with other life histories in the contexts of shared LWs
- comm. channels of PubS - liked to private spheres - thick networks of interaction found in families, circles of friends, looser contacts w neighbors,

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- linked so that spatial structures of simple interactions are expanded abstracted, but not destroyed
- thus - MUO predominant in everyday practice is also preserved for a communication among strangers - conducted over great distances in PubS whose branches are complex

Threshold separating PrivS and PubS - not marked by fixed set of issues or relationships, but by different condtions of comm.
- conditions leading to differences in the accessibility of the two spheres - safeguarding intimacy of one, publicity of other
- private not sealed off from public - only channel the flow of topics from one into the other
- "For the public sphere draws its impulses from the private handling of social problems that resonate in life histories."
- viewed historically - connection bw public and private spheres is manifested in the clubs, organizational forms of a reading public composed of bourgeois private persons and crystalizaing around newspapers and journals



Sphere of civ soc - rediscovered today in wholly new historical constellations
- CivSoc - in contrast to liberal "bourgeois society", Hegelian "system of needs, Marxist, which included the economy as constituted by private law and steered thru markets in labor, capital, commodities
- CivSco - inst.al core comprises - nongov, non.eco connections, voluntary associations - anchoring the comm. sturctures of PubS in soc component of LW

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- Composed of those more or less spontaneously emergent assoc, orgs, movements
- attuned to how societal problems resonate in the priv.s
- distill and transmit such reactions in amplified form to PubS
- Core comprises network of assoc. - institutionalize problemsolving discourses on q of gen. interests inside the framework of org. PubS
- Discursive designs - have an egalitarian, open form of org.
- mirrors essential features of kind of comm. around which they crystallize, led continuity and permanence


While these aren't most conspicuous element of PubS - do form org. substratum of gen. public of citizens
- more or less emerging from the PrivS, made up of citzens who seek acceptable interpretations for their soc. interests and experiences, want to have an influence on institutionalized OWF

Eisenstadt's definition of civ.soc - with a certain continuity with older theory of pluralism
- civ soc embraces multiplicty of ostensibly private yet potentially autonomous pub.arenas, distinct from state
- activities of such actors are regulated by various associations existing w/in them - preventing the society from degenerating into a shapeless mass
- in civ.soc - sectors aren't embedded in closed, ascriptive, or corporate settings
- open-ended, overlapping
- each has autonomous access to the central political arena - with a certain degree of commitment to that setting


Jean Cohen, Andrew Areto - features of civ.soc. - demarcated from ST, ECO, other fx S, but coupled with core priv.s of LW

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- Plurality - families, informal groups, vol. assoc whose plurality and autonomy allow for a variety of forms of life
- Publicity - insts. of culture and comm
- Privacy - domain of ind. self-dev. and moral choice
- Legality - structures of gen. laws and basic rights needed to demarcate plurality, privacy, publicity from the ST at least and tendentially, the Eco.
- Together these secure the inst. existence of a modern diff. civ.soc.


*The constitution of this sphere thru basic rights - provides some indicators for social structure
- freedom of assembly, assoc - when linked with freedom of speech - define scope for various types of assoc. and soc.
- vol.assoc - intervene in the formation of PubO, push topics of gen.interest, acting as advocates for neglected issues and underrepresented groups
- groups difficult to organize or that pursue cultural, religious, or humanitarian aims
- ethical com., relig. denominations
- freedom of the press, radio, tv - safeguards the media infrastructure of pub.comm.
- supposed to preserve an openness for competing opiniions, represetn a diversity of voices


Pol. S - must remain senstive to the influence of PubO - intertwined w PubS and CivSoc thru the activity of pol.parties and gen.elections
- intermeshing guaranteed by right of parties to colloborate in PWF of the people, as well as the citizens' active and passive voting rights and other participatory rights

*Network of assoc can assert its authority, preserve spontaneity on if it can draw support from a mature pluralism of forms of life, subcultures, WVs
- const. protection of privacy - promotes the integrity of private life spheres
- rights of movement, privacy of letters, mail, telecomm., inviolability of one's residence, protection of families
- circumscribe an untouchable zone of personal integrity and independent jugdment

Connection bw autonomous civ.soc and an integral private sphere
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 sharply contrast w/ experiences of totalitarian societies of bureaucratic socialism
- panoptic state directly controls dessicated PubS, undermines private basis of this PubS
- admin. intrusions, constant supervision - corrode comm. structure of everyday contacts
- destruction of solidary living conditions, paralysis of intitiative and independent engagement in overregulated, yet legally uncertain sectors
- hand in hand with crushing of social groups, associations, networks
- with indoctrination and the dissolution of cult. identities
- the suffocation of spontaneous public comm.

*Communicative rationality is thus destroyed simultaneously in both public and private context of comm.
- the more the bonding force of comm. action wanes in private life spheres, and the embers of comm. freedom die out, the easier it is for someone who monopolizes the PubS to align the mutually estranged, isolated actors into a mass that can directed and mobilized in a plebiscitarian manner

Const. guarantees alone can't preserve PubS and CivSoc from deformations
- comm.strucs must be kept in tact by energetic civ.soc.
- politicized pubs must reproduce, stabilize its from its own resources
- evident in odd self-referential character of the practice of comm. in civ. soc
- "Those actors who are the carriers of the public sphere put forward 'texts' that always reveal the same subtext, which refers to the critical function of the public sphere in general."
- Beside manifest content of public utterances, "performative meaning of such public discourse at the same time actualizes the function of an undistorted public sphere as such."

Insts. and Legal Guarantees of free and open OF - rest on unsteady ground of the pol.comm of actors of who in using them - interpret, defend, radicalize their normative content


Actors who know they are involved in the common enterprise of reconstituting and maintaining structures of the PubS as they contest opinions, strive for influence
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- differ from those who merely use forums that already exist

Dual orientation of actors who support the PubS
- with programs, directly influence the PolS
- also reflexively concerned with revitalizing, enlargening civil society and the PubS
- also confirming their own identities and capacities to act

Cohen, Arato
- dual politics - esp. in new soc. movements that simultaneously pursue offensive and defensive goals
- offensive - bring up issues relevant to the whole society, define ways of approaching problems, propose possible solutions, supply new info., interpret values differently, mobilize good reason, critcize bad ones
- intended to bring about a broad shift in PubO, alter the parameters of org. PWF, exert pressure on gov. in favor of specific policies
- defensive - attempt to maintain existing structures of association and public influence, gen. subcultural counterpublics and counter institutions, to consolidate new collective identites, to win new terrain in form of expanded rights and reformed insts.
- preserving, dev. comm. infrastructure of LW. captures Touraine and JH's insight - movements  can be carriers of the potentials for cultural modernity
- must redefine identities, reinterpret norms, dev. egalitarian, dem. associational forms.
- the expressive normative and comm. modes of collective action involve efforts to secure inst. changes w/in civ.soc that correspond to new meanings, identities, norms created


Janus-faced politics - aimed at the Pol S and the self-stabilization of PubS and civ.soc - space is provided for the extension and radicalization of existing rights
- combination of assocs, publics, rights - when supported by pol.cul in which independent initiatives and
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movements represent an ever-renewable, L, pol.O - an effective set of bulwarks around civ.soc - within whose limits much of the program of radical democracy can be reformulated


Civ.soc - can't be seen as a focal point where lines of societal self-org. as a whole would converge
- Cohen, Arato emphasize limited scope for action that is afforded to non.inst. pol movements, forms of pol. expression
-  structurally nec. self-limitation of rad.-dem. practice

1. robust civ. soc - only dev. in context of lib.pol.culture, and corresponding patterns of socialization, and on the basis of an integral PriS
- can blossom only in an already R.ized LW
- otherwise, populist movements arise that blindly defend the frozen traditions of a LW endangered by capitalist modern.ion

2. w/in PubS, or LPubs - actors can only gain influence, not PolP.  Pub influence can become comm.P only after it passes thru the filters of inst. procedures of dem. O and L laMa
- the informal flow of public opinion issues in beliefs that have been tested from the standpoint of the generalizability of interests.
*- Not influence per se, but influence transformed into communicative power legitimates political decisions.

Pop. sov. set comm. aflow cannot make itself felt solely in the influence of informal pub. discourses
- not even when these arise from AU PubS

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- generating PolP - influence must have an effect on the dem. reg. deliberations of dem. elected assemblies, assume authorized form in formal decision

3. Instruments available in law and adm.p - limited effectiveness in fx diff. societies
- pol. steering, while the addressee for all unmanaged integration problems, can often only take an indirect approach, must leave intact the modes of operation internal to fx S, and other highly org. spheres of ac
* - holistic aspirations to a self-org. soc must be given up
- civ.soc. can directly transform only itself - can have at most an indirect effect on self-transformation of the PolS; generally, influence only on the personnel and programming of this S
- doesn't occupy the position of a macrosubject - supposed to bring society as a whole under control, and simultaneously act for it
- adm.P not suitable medium for fostering emancipated forms of life
- can develop in wake of dem. proccesses - can't be brough about thru intervention

Self-limitations - NOT incapacitation
- knowledge required for pol. supervision, or steering - a scarce resource in scarce societies - can certainly become the source of a new systems paternalism
- admin ony knowledge from knowledge S, doesn't produce it, doesn't enjoy a monopoly on such knowledge
- despite assymetrical access to expertise and lim. problem solving capacties, civ. soc. has the opportunity of mobilizing counterknowledge and drawing on the pertinent forms of expertise to make its own translations

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- public's consisting of laypersons, comm. with OL - doesn't imply an ability to diff. the essential questions and reasons for dec.
- can serve as pretext for technocratic incapacitation of PubS - only if pol. initiatives of civ.soc. fail to provide sufficient expert knowledge along with appropriate, if nec., multilevel translations in regard to managerial aspects of pub.issue



Empirical Relevance of PPubs and CivSoc
- requires addtional assumptions to translate it into empirically falsifiable manner


Under certain circumstances
- civ soc can acquire influence in PubS, effect parl.complex thru own PubOs, compel Pol S to switch over ot the official circulation of P
- sensitve to problems, the groupings of civ soc - send out signals too weak to initiate learning processes, or redirect deMa in the Pol S in the short run

In Xsocieties
- PubS consists of an intermediary structure bw Pol S and private sectors of the LW and fx systems on the other hand
- highly complex network - branches out into a multitude of overlapping inter, nation, regio, local, subcultural arenas
- points of reference ofr subst. diff. of PubS - functional specifications, thematic foci, policy fields
- still accessible to laypersons

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- PubS differentiated into levels - according to density of comm and org. complexity and range
- episodic publics - coffee houses, traverns, streets
- occasional or arranged - particular presentations, events, party assemblies, church congresses
- abstract - isolated readers, listeners, viewers - scattered across geographic areas, even around globe, brought together only thru mass media
- All partial publics - remain porous to one another
"The one text of 'the' public sphere, a text continually extrapolated and extending radially in all directions, is divided by internal boundaries into arbitrarily small texts for which everything else is context; yet one can always build hermeneutical bridges from one text to the next."
- Segmented PubS - thru exclusion mechanisms
- can't harden into orgs or S, on exclusion rule w/o proviso for its abolishment

-- boundaries inside UPubs - defined by its reference to Pol S - remain permeable in principle
*- Built into LPubs - rights to unrestricted inclusion and equality  - prevent Foucaldian type of exclusion mechanisms, ground potential for self-transformation
- universalist discourses of the BPubS couldn't immunize themselves from within
ex. labor movement, feminism
- able to join these discourses in order to shatter the structures that had intially constituted them as the other of a BPubS


Roles of the actors appearing in these arenas are increasingly separated from the roles of spectators
- as the audience is widened, becoming more inclusive and abstract


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- can the public's adoption of YNP on a issue be autonomous - is it a process of becoming informed, or a more or less congealed game of power
- question w/o answer - but can be posed more precisely by assuming that pub.proc. of comm. can take place with less distortion the more they are left to the internal dynamic of a civ.soc. that emerges from LW

Distinction bw actors emerging from and those appear before the public
- appearing before - have org. P, resources, sanctions - available from the start
- actors anchored in civ.soc. also depend on the support of sponsors who supply the nec. resources
- such sponsoring doesn't nec. reduce the authenticity of pub.actors they support
- appearing before - from specific org. or fx S have own basis of support
- inc. large interest groups w/social power, as well as est. parties that become arms of the pol. S

Distinction bw 'indigenous' actors and mere users - can't be made based on org. compleixty, resources, professionalization - nor from interests
- some can be identified from their functional background - represent pol.parties, pressure groups, unions or prof.assoc., consumer protection or rent control assoc.
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- others must produce identifying features
- especially evident w/ social movements
- go thru phase of self-identification, self-legitimation
- even after that, they pursue a self-referential identity politics parallel to goal-directed politics
- must continually reassure themselves of their identity
- identification also possible by sensitivity to threast to comm.rights
- "It is also shown in the actors' willingness to go beyond an interest in self-defense and take a universalist stand against the open or concealed exclusion of minorities or marginal gropus."
- existence of soc.groups depends on whether they find org. forms that produce solidarities and publics, forms that allow them to fully utilize and radicalize existing comm. rights and strucs as they pursue special goals


3rd group of actors - journalists, publicity agents, press
- collect information, make decisions about the selection and presentation of programs, and to a certain extent control the entry of topics, contributions, and authors in to the mass-media-dominated PubS
- centralization of mass media - with growth in complexity, expensive
- inc. pressure of selection - becomes the source of P
- not sufficient reined in, but becoming subjected to const. regulation
- image of politics on tv - issues/contributions prof.produced as media input, fed via press conferences

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- official producers of info - are more successful the more they can rely on trained personnel, fin and tech resources, on prof. infrastructure
- coll. actors operating outside the Pol S, or outside large orgs. normally have fewer opportunities to influence the content/views presented
- especially for views which aren't "balanced" - centrist and rather narrowly defined spectrum of est. opinions


Broadcast messages - subject to information-processing strategies w/in the media
- oriented by reception conditions as preceived by media experts, program directors, press
- follow market strategies - aim to capture public receptiveness, cognitive capacity, attention
- while structure of media well-established, effects are controversial
- strategies of interpretation of viewers - comm. w/ one another, can be provoked to criticize, reject what programs offer, synthesis it with judgments of their own

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Unclear still how the mass media intervene in diffuse circuits of comm in PPubS
- N. reactions to it's powerful postion are clearer
- Gurevtich, Blumler - list of tasks media ought ot fulfill
1. survey socio-pol environment - report dev. likely to impinge on welfare of cn
2. meaningful agenda-setting, identify key issues of the day - including forces that may have formed and may resolve them
3. platform for intelligent, illuminating advocacy by pol and spokespersons of other causes and int. groups
4. dialogu across diverse range of view - bw actual and prospective powerholds and mass publics
5. mechanisms for holding officials to account for exercise of power
6. incentives for cit. to learn, choose, become involved in pol.proc
7. principled resistance to efforts of those outside media to subvert independence, integrity, ability to serve the audience
8. sense of respect for the audience member - as potentially concerned, able to make sense of pol.environment

- principles guide both prof.'s SU and laws gov. mass comm.
- express simple idea - "the mass media ought to understand themselves as the mandatary of an enlightened public whose willingness to learn and capacity for criticism they at once presuppose, demand, reinforce
- ought to maintain independence, be receptive to publics' concerns and proposals, confront the pol. process with articulate demands for L.ion

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power should be neutralized - tacit conversion of adm.p or soc.p into pol.influence blocked
- use of PubS by actors - should be base on their making convincing contributions to the solution of problems that have been perceived by the public, have been put on the public agenda w/public's consent
- polparties would have to participate in OWF from public's own POV - rather than patronizing the public and extracting mass loyaly from the PubS for purposes of maintain their own power




Depiction of PubS as infiltrated by AdmP and SocP - one will be cautious in estimating the chances of civ.scoc having an influence on PolS
- But this estimate pertains only to a public sphere at rest - "In periods of mobilization, the structures that actually support the authority of a critically engaged public begin to vibrate.  The balance of power between civil society and the political system then shifts."




Central q - who can place issues on agenda, det. direction the lines of comm. take
- have constructed models that depict how new, compelling issues dev.
1- inside access model
2- mobilization model
3- outside initiative mode
- from dem.theo POV - present alternatives in how PubS and Pol S influence one another

1- inside access model - initative - officeholders, pol leaders
- issue circulates inside Pol S all the way to its formal treatment
- broader public either excluded or doesn't influence process

2- mobilization model

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- begins w/in pol. S - but proponents of the issue must mobilize PubS
- support needed to either obtain formal consideration, or implement adopted program successuflly

3- outside intiative model
- initiative lies with forces in the periphery - outside purview of Pol S
- with help of mobilized PubS - pressure of Pub.O - compel formal consideration
group outside gov - 1. articulates grievance, 2. tries to expand interest in the issue to enough other groups in the pop. to gain a place on the pub.agenda 3. in order to create sufficient pressure on deMakers to force the issue onto the formal agenda for their serious consideration.
- likely to predominate in more egalitarian societies.
- inclusion into formal agenda doesn't mean policy will be that sought by group


In normal cases - issues and proposals have a history whose course corresponds more to first or second model
- as long as the informal circulation of power dominates the pol.S -  initiative and power to put problems on agenda lies with gov.
- as long as mass media in PubS - contrary to N self-understanding to draw their material from powerful,well-organized information producers, and prefer media-strategies that lower discursive level of pub.comm., issues will tend to start in, and be managed from the center - rather than follow spontaneous course originating in periphery


While no conclusive evaluation of mutual influence that pol and public have on each other can be made

Suffices to make it plausible that
- In a perceived crisis situation - actors in civ.soc. can assume a surprisingly active and momentuous roule

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despite lesser org. complexity
weaker capacity for action
structural disadvantages

- at critical moements of an accelerated history - acts get the chance to reverse the normal circuits of comm. - in the pol. S and in the pubS
- shift of entire system's mode of problem solving


Comm.struc of PubS - linked with the private life spheres
- in a way that gives the civil-social periphery the advantage of greater sensitivity in detecting, ident. new problem situations
ex. spiraling nuclear-arms race, peaceful use of atomic energy or other large-scale technological projects scientific experimentation such as genetic engineering, the ecological threats involved in an overstrateined natural environment, the dramatically progressing impoverishment of the Third World and problems of world economic order,
ex. issues such as feminism, increasing immigration, associated problems of multiculturalism

- issues raised initally by intellectuals, concerned cns, radical professionals, self-proclaimed advocates

- moving in from this outermost periphery
- issues force their way into newspapers, intereested assoc, clubs, prof. orgs, academies, forums, czn initiatives, other platforms
- catalyze growth of social movements, new subcultures
- can dramatize contributions, present them effectively so mass media take up the matter
- only thru controversial presentation in the media - do such topics reach the larger public and subsequently gain a place on the public agenda
- sometimes the support of sensational actions, mass protests, etc. is required before an issue can make its way into the core of the political system and there receive formal consideration

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Other ways in which issues develop - other paths from the periphery to the center

In general, even in more or less power-ridden public spheres - the power relations shift as soon as the perception of relveant social problems evokes a crisis consciousness at the periperhy
- if actors in civ.soc then join together, formulate the relevant issue, promote it in the PubS - efforts can be successful

"because the endogenous mobilization of the public sphere activates an otherwise latent dependency built into the internal structure of every public sphere, a dependency also present in the normative self-understanding of the mass media"

- players in arena owe influence to the approval of those in the gallery
- insofar as rat.LW supports the development of a LPubS by furnishing it with a solid foundation in civ soc
- the authority of a position taking public is strengthend in the course of escalating public controversies

Under LPubS, informal public comm. accomplishes two things
- prevents the accumulation of indoctrinated masses seduced by populist leaders
- pulls together the scattered critical potentials of a public that was only abstractly held together thru public media
- helps it have pol.influence on inst. OWF

Only in LPubS
- do subinstitutional pol. movements take this direction
- abandon the conventional path of interest politics in order to boost the const. regulated circulation of power in the PolS

In authoritarian distorted PubS - brought into alignment - merely provides a forum for plebiscitary L.ion


Sense of a reinforced demand for L.ion
- especially clear when subinst. protest movements reach a high point by escalating their protests
- last means for obtaining more of a hearing and greater media influence for oppositional arguments are acts of civil disobedience
- acts of nonviolent symbolic rule violation
- meant as expressions of protest against


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binding decisions that, their legality notwithstanding, actors consider -L in light of valid const. principles

Directed at two address
- officeholders, parliamentary reps
- to reopen formally concluded pol. del - so that their decisions may possibly be revised in view of the continuing public criticism
- the sense of justice of the majority of the com
- to the critical judgment of a public of citizens that is to be mobilized w/ exceptional means

Civ.diso - always an implicit appeal to connect org. PWF w/ comm. processes of PubS
- subtext aimed at a pol. S that as const. org.ized, may not detach itself from civ. society and make itself independent of peripher

"Civil disobedience thereby refers to its own origins in a civil society that in crisis situations actualizes the normative contents of constitutional democracy in the medium of public opinion and summons it against the systemic inertia of institutional politics."

Self-referential character - Cohen, Arato
- involves illegal acts, usually on the part of collective actors, that are public, principled, symbolic in character
- involve primarily nonviolent means of protest
- appeal to the capaicty for reason and the sense of justice of the populace
- aim of civ.disobedience - persuade pub.O in civil and pol. soc. that a particular law or policy is illegitimate, a change is warranted
- cllective actors involved in civil disobedience invoke utopian principles of const. dems - appealing to the ideas of fundamental rights, or democratic L
- a means for reasserting the link bw civil and pol society - when legal attempts at exerting the influence of the former on the latter have failed and other avenues are exhaused


* Interpretation of civ.disobedience manifests the self-consc. of a civ.soc. confident that at least in a crisis it can increase the pressure of a mobilized public on the Pol S

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- to the point where the latter switches into conflict mode, and neutralizes the unofficial countercirculation of power

Justification of civil disobedience relies on a dynamic understanding of the const. as an unfinished project

Const. ST
- not a finished structure
- a delicate and sensitive
- above all fallible and revisable enterprise
- whose purpose is to realize the system of rights anew in changing circumstances
- to interpret the system of rights better
- to institutionalize it more appropriately
- to draw out its contents more radically

This is the perspective of citizens who are actively engaged in realizing the system of rights
Aware of, and referring to, changed contexts, such citizens want to overcome in practice the tension between social facticity and validity.
- PPOV can't be adopted by legal theory
- it can reconstruct the paradigmatic understanding of law and democracy that guides citizens whenever they form an idea of the structural constraints on the self-org. of the legal com. in their soc.


"From a reconstructive standpoint, we have seen that constitutional rights and principles merely explicate the performative character of the self-constitution of a society of free and equal citizens.  The organizational forms of the constitutional state make this practice permanent."

Double temporal reference of every example of dem. const.
- marks a beginning in time - historic document
- its normative character means that the task of interpreting and elaborating the system of rights poses itself anew for each generation
- as the project of a just society, a constitution articulates the horizon of expectaion opening on an ever present future

As an ongoing process of const.making set up for the long haul - the dem. procedure of L lawmaking acquires a privileged status
- can such a demanding procedure be implemented in complex societies like our own, if so, how can it be done effectively

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so that a const.reg. circ. of P actually prevails in the pol.S

Four points for elucidating such a historically situated understanding of the const.

a. const.org. pol sys - specialized for generating collectively bind decisions
- represents only one of several SS
- in virtue of its internal relation to law
- politics is responsible for problems that concern society as a whole
- must be possible to interpret collectively binding decisions as a realization of rights such that the structures of recognition built into comm.a are transfred to anon. rels. among strangers
- in pursuit of particular collective goals, regulating specific conflicts - politics simultaneously deals with gen. problems of integration
- constituted in legal form - politics whose M.O. is functionally specificed still refers to society-wide problems
- carries on the tasks of soc.int at a reflexive level when other action systems are no longer up to the job

b. Assymetrical position - explains pol.S - contraints on two sides, with two standard governing its achievements and decisions
- fx specified act. S - limited by other functional S that obey their own logic, and bar direct pol. interventions
limits on the effectiveness of adm.P
- const. reg. act. S - politics is connected with the PubS, depends on lifeworld sources of comm.p
- internally dep. on enabling conditions
- conditions that make L law possible - ultimately not at the disposition of politics

c. pol.S - vulnerable on both sides to disturbances that can reduce the effectiveness of its achievements

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and the L of its decisions respectively

ineffectiveness
- the regulatory competence of the pol. s fails
- if the implemented L programs remain ineffective
- if regulatory activity gives rise to disintegrating effects in the act. S that requires regulation
- instrumend deployed overtax legal medium and strain the Ncomposition of pol. S
- as steering problems become more complex, irrelevance, misguided regulations, and self-destruction can accumulate to the where a reg. trilmma results


lack of L
- pol. S fails as a guardian of soc.int. if its decisions, even tho effective, can no longer be traced back to L law
- const. reg. circ. of power - nullifed
- if adm.S becomes independent of comm.gen. P
- if soc.P of fx S and large orgs. is converted into -L power
- if LW resources for spontaneous pub.comm. no longer suffice to guarantee an uncoerced articulation of soc.interests

Independence of -L P - together with the weakeness of civ.soc and the PubS can deteriorate into a L dilemma which in certain circumstances can combine w/ steerigng trilemma and devel. into a vicious circle
- pol. S pulled into whirlpool of L deficits and steering deficits - reinforce one another


d. Crises can at most be explained historically - not built into structures of fx diff societies in a way that they would intrisincally compromise the project of self-empowerment undertaken by a society of free and equal subjects who bind themselves by law
- Symptomatic of the peculiar position of a Pol S as asymmetrically embedded in  highly complex circulation processes
- Actors seeking to engage successfully as czs - must form an idea of this context
- Because these rights must be interpreted in various ways under changing social circumstances, light thrown on this context is refracted into a spectrum of changing legal paradigms

Historical constitutions can be seen as so many ways of construing one and the


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same practice - that of self-determinaton of the part of free and equal citizens
- Those involved must start with their own current practice if they want to achieve clairty about what such a practice means in general.