An Interview with Jürgen Habermas

The Habermasian Public Sphere and Exclusion: An Engagement with Poststructuralist-Influenced Critics

“…Habermas accepts the impossibility of realizing the always‐already‐presupposed idealization of communicative rationality: “the public sphere ideal is not perfectly reachable” (Habermas , p. 477). This impossibility is not just due to empirical “distortions” (which will be discussed further in the next section), but also to logical limits: Responding to his critics, Habermas has, particularly in recent times, argued that communicative rationality, and thus the deliberative public sphere norm, cannot be understood as an “end state,” a “final stage which can be realized in time” (Habermas as cited in Carleheden & Gabriëls, , p. 10), because if realized it “would make all further communication superfluous” (Habermas, , p. 1518). In other words, the full realization of communicative rationality would mean the end of communication, and human history, as it would eliminate those negative social conditions that make communication in social life necessary, “conditions such as inadequate information, interpersonal misunderstandings, lack of insight, and so on” (Cooke, , p. 417, referring to Albrecht Wellmer's work).…”

“…302–308), but to identify the “functionally necessary” sociopolitical resources (or positive conditions) needed to enhance—in quality and quantity—rational‐critical deliberation in everyday practical argumentation (Chambers, ; Habermas, , p. 325). Specific resources will depend on context, but according to Habermas (, ; see also Carleheden & Gabriëls, ) they will, in general, include: (first) a mass media system regulated in relation to the idealized criteria, (second) a network of autonomous civil society associations supporting communicative reasoning and public opinion formation, the emergence, reproduction, and influence of which depend on (third) “a liberal‐egalitarian political culture sensitive to problems affecting society as a whole” (Habermas, , p. 488), which, in turn, requires (fourth) social rights to the provision of sustainable living conditions, and (fifth) a population accustomed to (universal) freedom and versed in critique.…”