Jurgen Habermas The Divided West
Book Review
Jürgen Habermas, The Divided West
Polity: Cambridge 2006, paperback
224 pp., 0-7456-3519-9
ANASTASIA MARINOPOULOU
Towards a Transnational Public Sphere?
The publication of a new book by Habermas has inaugurated, for at least the last thirty
years, a multifarious range of discourses throughout the realms of philosophy and
politics. The present book, released in Germany in 2004, displays the continuation of
a certain problematic which literally commences in the nineties with Between Facts
and Norms and a series of subsequent books, namely The Inclusion of the Other, The
Postnational Constellation and Time of Transitions. The latter books initiate concerns
referring to the social transition from legality to legitimacy, the internal connection
between law and politics and the potential public use of reason so that social
rationality would achieve a viable and ‘rational’ form.
Habermas focuses on the latter points being mainly inspired by historical events of the
late twentieth and early twenty-first century, such as the downfall of the Berlin Wall,
the attack on the Twin Towers and most recently the war in Iraq. These concerns
evolve through a series of arguments marked by a scope of referral to states and
peoples, to the formation of national law and deliberative politics or to social
transitions within a state through the expression of individual need. In his latest book
The Divided West he passes more concretely to more global, inclusive concerns. He
opens up and expands his argumentation and critique not only towards state or
national societies but also towards global politics and transnational legal and political
potentialities.
The title itself introduces the latter points by identifying normative disagreement that
divides the western world and consists in the incompatibility of the economic with the
political sphere. The economic integration of states that is set forward by
multinational treaties does not necessarily or deterministically entail political or
1
cultural consensus among nation states. Universal political claims seem neither so
universal, nor so binding, nor so valid so as to determine and ensure the ‘equal and
reciprocal hearing … of all those affected’ in Habermas’ words.
Habermas attributes this disagreement mainly to the asymmetry created between the
interrelations of the political constellation with law within a state and the international
law. The former act as a political binding force of a state society while the latter bears
the same aim but on an international level without, however, deriving its power from
different state societies being united to promote political dialogue and agreement
which find expression and realization in law. Furthermore, the political power of
international law, being unconstrained by a concrete political sphere, brings forward
political distortion and cultural deformation within states as well as on an
international level subsequently.
As an alternative, intercommunication between state law and international law in this
sense, bearing thus an intrinsic political nature, results in the imposition of restrictions
on the sovereignty of individual states under a cosmopolitan rule of law represented
and sustained by internationally accepted political institutions, instead of sovereign
states manifesting an insufficient international perspective of law. Internationally
accepted political institutions bear the potentiality to regulate interactions among
states with a view to form a civil constitution presupposing thus a community of states
bound by normative agreement concerning politics and law.
Nevertheless, even when all economic institutions are being unified and harmoniously
collaborate, political coordination seems to be at a loss to integrate and configure
social systems. In more concrete terms, even when European states seem to accept
economic restrictions fully and succeed in coordinating them on a European
integrated scale, the configuration and political application of a European constitution
falls short of the demands and appeals of European peoples. Habermas turns his
problematics towards the consideration of a cosmopolitan rule of law as a global
political binding force. In this way the twentieth first century marks a transition from
international law to a cosmopolitan society with a rational face and a viable dialectics
between the national and the international field.
Once more Habermas sets the notion of the public sphere at the centre of his work,
but in this book the notion is contextualized with a view to a transnational public
sphere that would relocate civic solidarity socially through the mutual networking of
public spheres. Habermas seeks to promote a European identity beyond national
2
boundaries where political civic identity is formed through political processes of
cosmopolitan institutionalisation.
A common European consciousness or, in other words, a collective identity
crystallizes around certain moral, legal and political values and principles forming
thus a pan-European political public sphere. This transnational public sphere was
shaped to a great extent through common processes of identity consciousness
formation which were characterized by the acceptance of secularization, the priority
of the state over the market, the primacy of social solidarity over ‘merit’, skepticism
concerning technology, awareness of the paradoxes of progress, rejection of the law of
the stronger and a commitment to peace. What remains for a transnational public
sphere to achieve is probably the central concern of Habermas’ problematics.
The suggestion that communicative use of reason can find practice not only within
state democracies but also beyond a state level and within political institutions that
deal with procedures of international legality questions the viability of a rational
cosmopolitan model of democracy. In other words, for Habermas, a transnational
deliberative democratic process of legitimation calls for a transnational public sphere
that stems from a communicative use of reason of multiple public spheres within
nation-states. In fostering democracy beyond the state level we need a cosmopolitan
rule of law that fosters a cosmopolitan rationality.
Especially the latter term that is set as a prospective goal for present and future
societies depends on a communicative use of reason, namely on tolerance of civil
disobedience and on the mutual recognition of all involved parts, on equal respect and
reciprocal consideration within a universalistic discourse so that democracy is
realised.
A cosmopolitan rationality presupposes the formation of a cosmopolitan
consciousness that takes shape not because of legal restrictions, but through collective
social and trans-social processes. At this point a redefinition of the social aim of law
might be indispensable. Trans-social integration seems possible not only due to
transnational legal coordination but mostly with the help of law so that the function of
the political sphere finds itself in conjunction with legal processes.
Apart from law the relocation of the political back to the social agenda can be
accessed by means of a communicative interrelation of all public spheres (within a
European area for instance) that would render civil society unruptured from state or
international law. This would also render law itself unruptured and renewed, oriented
3
towards the formation of a cosmopolitan rule based on multiple coordination of the
public spheres.
The problems that today’s societies and states face are of a political nature and cannot
be anticipated solely based on administrative or functional decisions, either the latter
concern common markets or legal frames associated with nation states, namely weak
perspectives and unstable political coordination. Especially legal interests need not
serve as ends in themselves or be socially limited and politically absolutist, but should
mostly undergo processes of mutual intercommunication with the public spheres and
civil society so that states would be occupied with the formation of a cosmopolitan
rationality presupposing the realization of cosmopolitan law. These processes entail
not only the extension of the potentialities of legal concerns but also the extension and
full exploitation of deliberative democratic interests that give shape to a cosmopolitan
rationality by means of forming a transnational public sphere.
For Habermas legality is not the only royal way to legitimacy. This path also includes
the transition of legal imperatives if they are considered fruitless for public spheres
and for a public use of reason by societies and states. Nowadays, European societies
and states are characterized by the transition from national boundaries to the
formation of a pan-European public sphere which impacts political institutions and
leads to the formation of cosmopolitan law and rationality.
Political dynamics on a European scale cover the dynamics of a future international
law, namely a cosmopolitan law, so that the latter would realize a normative legal
development that appeals to the public spheres’ concerns. These concerns regard
participation in the political sphere for individuals and political collectivities and the
interest in a viable, democratic rationality, namely a social and political rationality
that has a human face for individuals and societies.
Published in Philosophical Inquiry, Vol. XXIX, no. 3 - 4 (Summer – Fall 2007).
4
Jürgen Habermas, The Divided West
Polity: Cambridge 2006, paperback
224 pp., 0-7456-3519-9
ANASTASIA MARINOPOULOU
Towards a Transnational Public Sphere?
The publication of a new book by Habermas has inaugurated, for at least the last thirty
years, a multifarious range of discourses throughout the realms of philosophy and
politics. The present book, released in Germany in 2004, displays the continuation of
a certain problematic which literally commences in the nineties with Between Facts
and Norms and a series of subsequent books, namely The Inclusion of the Other, The
Postnational Constellation and Time of Transitions. The latter books initiate concerns
referring to the social transition from legality to legitimacy, the internal connection
between law and politics and the potential public use of reason so that social
rationality would achieve a viable and ‘rational’ form.
Habermas focuses on the latter points being mainly inspired by historical events of the
late twentieth and early twenty-first century, such as the downfall of the Berlin Wall,
the attack on the Twin Towers and most recently the war in Iraq. These concerns
evolve through a series of arguments marked by a scope of referral to states and
peoples, to the formation of national law and deliberative politics or to social
transitions within a state through the expression of individual need. In his latest book
The Divided West he passes more concretely to more global, inclusive concerns. He
opens up and expands his argumentation and critique not only towards state or
national societies but also towards global politics and transnational legal and political
potentialities.
The title itself introduces the latter points by identifying normative disagreement that
divides the western world and consists in the incompatibility of the economic with the
political sphere. The economic integration of states that is set forward by
multinational treaties does not necessarily or deterministically entail political or
1
cultural consensus among nation states. Universal political claims seem neither so
universal, nor so binding, nor so valid so as to determine and ensure the ‘equal and
reciprocal hearing … of all those affected’ in Habermas’ words.
Habermas attributes this disagreement mainly to the asymmetry created between the
interrelations of the political constellation with law within a state and the international
law. The former act as a political binding force of a state society while the latter bears
the same aim but on an international level without, however, deriving its power from
different state societies being united to promote political dialogue and agreement
which find expression and realization in law. Furthermore, the political power of
international law, being unconstrained by a concrete political sphere, brings forward
political distortion and cultural deformation within states as well as on an
international level subsequently.
As an alternative, intercommunication between state law and international law in this
sense, bearing thus an intrinsic political nature, results in the imposition of restrictions
on the sovereignty of individual states under a cosmopolitan rule of law represented
and sustained by internationally accepted political institutions, instead of sovereign
states manifesting an insufficient international perspective of law. Internationally
accepted political institutions bear the potentiality to regulate interactions among
states with a view to form a civil constitution presupposing thus a community of states
bound by normative agreement concerning politics and law.
Nevertheless, even when all economic institutions are being unified and harmoniously
collaborate, political coordination seems to be at a loss to integrate and configure
social systems. In more concrete terms, even when European states seem to accept
economic restrictions fully and succeed in coordinating them on a European
integrated scale, the configuration and political application of a European constitution
falls short of the demands and appeals of European peoples. Habermas turns his
problematics towards the consideration of a cosmopolitan rule of law as a global
political binding force. In this way the twentieth first century marks a transition from
international law to a cosmopolitan society with a rational face and a viable dialectics
between the national and the international field.
Once more Habermas sets the notion of the public sphere at the centre of his work,
but in this book the notion is contextualized with a view to a transnational public
sphere that would relocate civic solidarity socially through the mutual networking of
public spheres. Habermas seeks to promote a European identity beyond national
2
boundaries where political civic identity is formed through political processes of
cosmopolitan institutionalisation.
A common European consciousness or, in other words, a collective identity
crystallizes around certain moral, legal and political values and principles forming
thus a pan-European political public sphere. This transnational public sphere was
shaped to a great extent through common processes of identity consciousness
formation which were characterized by the acceptance of secularization, the priority
of the state over the market, the primacy of social solidarity over ‘merit’, skepticism
concerning technology, awareness of the paradoxes of progress, rejection of the law of
the stronger and a commitment to peace. What remains for a transnational public
sphere to achieve is probably the central concern of Habermas’ problematics.
The suggestion that communicative use of reason can find practice not only within
state democracies but also beyond a state level and within political institutions that
deal with procedures of international legality questions the viability of a rational
cosmopolitan model of democracy. In other words, for Habermas, a transnational
deliberative democratic process of legitimation calls for a transnational public sphere
that stems from a communicative use of reason of multiple public spheres within
nation-states. In fostering democracy beyond the state level we need a cosmopolitan
rule of law that fosters a cosmopolitan rationality.
Especially the latter term that is set as a prospective goal for present and future
societies depends on a communicative use of reason, namely on tolerance of civil
disobedience and on the mutual recognition of all involved parts, on equal respect and
reciprocal consideration within a universalistic discourse so that democracy is
realised.
A cosmopolitan rationality presupposes the formation of a cosmopolitan
consciousness that takes shape not because of legal restrictions, but through collective
social and trans-social processes. At this point a redefinition of the social aim of law
might be indispensable. Trans-social integration seems possible not only due to
transnational legal coordination but mostly with the help of law so that the function of
the political sphere finds itself in conjunction with legal processes.
Apart from law the relocation of the political back to the social agenda can be
accessed by means of a communicative interrelation of all public spheres (within a
European area for instance) that would render civil society unruptured from state or
international law. This would also render law itself unruptured and renewed, oriented
3
towards the formation of a cosmopolitan rule based on multiple coordination of the
public spheres.
The problems that today’s societies and states face are of a political nature and cannot
be anticipated solely based on administrative or functional decisions, either the latter
concern common markets or legal frames associated with nation states, namely weak
perspectives and unstable political coordination. Especially legal interests need not
serve as ends in themselves or be socially limited and politically absolutist, but should
mostly undergo processes of mutual intercommunication with the public spheres and
civil society so that states would be occupied with the formation of a cosmopolitan
rationality presupposing the realization of cosmopolitan law. These processes entail
not only the extension of the potentialities of legal concerns but also the extension and
full exploitation of deliberative democratic interests that give shape to a cosmopolitan
rationality by means of forming a transnational public sphere.
For Habermas legality is not the only royal way to legitimacy. This path also includes
the transition of legal imperatives if they are considered fruitless for public spheres
and for a public use of reason by societies and states. Nowadays, European societies
and states are characterized by the transition from national boundaries to the
formation of a pan-European public sphere which impacts political institutions and
leads to the formation of cosmopolitan law and rationality.
Political dynamics on a European scale cover the dynamics of a future international
law, namely a cosmopolitan law, so that the latter would realize a normative legal
development that appeals to the public spheres’ concerns. These concerns regard
participation in the political sphere for individuals and political collectivities and the
interest in a viable, democratic rationality, namely a social and political rationality
that has a human face for individuals and societies.
Published in Philosophical Inquiry, Vol. XXIX, no. 3 - 4 (Summer – Fall 2007).
4