Democracy Today.indb - Universidade do Minho

DESIGNING THE PUBLIC REALM
A PREREQUISITE FOR DEMOCRATIC INNOVATION
Marco Walter
WHENEVER THE STATE OF PRESENT DAY DEMOCRACIES IS CONSIDERED, one finds
the widespread view that they developed in a rather unpleasant way: The
gap between citizens and political establishments is widening, represented
by declining voter turn-out, waning trust in politicians and decreasing
membership of traditional political organisations (e.g. Furedi 2005: 30ff.
Smith 2009: 4, Schmitter/Trechsel (draft): 100-103). Furthermore, there
is concern that well-organised interest-groups and economic constraints
are dominating the political process, thereby fostering disillusionment
of ordinary citizen participation (e.g. Linder 1999: 103, Crouch 2004,
Shapiro 1999, Walzer 1999). The question therefore arises, of how these
developments can be countered and the citizen encouraged to reengage.
However, there are as many approaches to solving this problem as there
are concepts of democracy. This paper will address two of these possible
solutions and briefly discuss the results they yielded when tested in practice.
After that, the argument is put forth that any particular approach is
likely to miss the intended aims if it does not include a properly designed
public sphere in its model. Since the concept of the public sphere is both
extensively used and poorly defined, a careful analysis is carried out in
order to delineate its crucial elements, drawing heavily on the theory and
practices of ancient Athenian democracy. This proceeding allows in the
end for advice regarding future democratic innovations.
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DESIGNING THE PUBLIC
REALM – A PREREQUISITE
FOR DEMOCRATIC
INNOVATION
Marco Walter