Expanding the Public Sphere through Computer ... - ResearchGate

CHAPTER 2. THE PUBLIC SPHERE 28
with Schumpeter, suggested substantial revisions in what they called “classical”
democratic theory. As Pateman (1970) discusses, however, modern theorists fail
to distinguish between the “classical” theorists who emphasize a protective function
of participation (Bentham, Mill), and those who emphasize a educative and
integrative function of participation (Rousseau, J. S. Mill, as discussed above in
Section 2.2 on page 17).
Pluralism is a related perspective, most closely associated with the work of Robert
Dahl (1961). It requires participation by citizens to be group-formation and identification
actions. The “end” desired, however, remains protection from government.
In this configuration, decisions are to be made not by a small class of
elites, but through the bargaining process among groups (each representing interests
of its members). Citizens require information from government and groups,
and must be able to exchange information within their groups. While it is unclear
how pluralist groups ought to be run, pluralism assumes an equality of position
among groups for access to the bargaining forum, and assumes an equality of
access among self-interested citizens in terms of joining and supporting groups.
Self-interested citizens identify with others in their groups, and the common good
is represented by the compromises in the bargaining forum. Participation has
a largely “protective” function, and is basically designed to protect the citizens
from arbitrary actions by the government.
In either the classical or contemporary perspectives which emphasize protection
as the function of participation, it is neither necessary nor possible for citizens
to engage each other in meaningful and important political discussion. The public
sphere does not support such action, as it no longer (if, indeed, it ever did)
provides an autonomous place in which private persons can discuss issues of public
importance free from the pressures imposed by the market or the state (see
Evans & Boyte (1986) and McAdam (1988)). The idealized public sphere “degenerates,”
in Habermas’s words, as simultaneous stress from both its “private”
and “public” nature forces a change in its political function. As the press, the
preeminent institution of the mature public sphere, becomes commercialized and
emerges as a forum not for public conversation but advertising, the character of
the public sphere in the political realm more closely resembles the completely private
realm of commodity exchange. On the other side, as it became clear that the
state needed to guarantee political freedoms to maintain the independence of the
public sphere, the exclusively private nature of the public sphere in the political
realm was eliminated (Habermas 1989).