Complexity, Pluralism, and the Constitutional State: On Habermas's Faktizität und Geltung

Jürgen Habermas has from the start had the goal of developing a normative democratic theory based on rational consensus. From The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1989a; first published in 1961) to The Theory of Communicative Action (1984, 1987), Habermas has sought to elaborate the underpinnings for such a critical theory of democracy, one that is oriented to the participation of reasoning citizens. In many respects, Habermas's recent Faktizität und Geltung , while cast as a philosophy of law, bears the fruit of that labor by offering his long-awaited “radical” democratic theory. Habermas calls his theory of democracy “deliberative politics,” clearly aligning himself with those contemporary political theorists who emphasize public deliberation and participation. However, many faithful readers of Habermas may find his approach to legal and political legitimacy in Faktizität und Geltung somewhat surprising. Rather than defending participatory democracy directly, he instead embeds these radical democratic principles in a complex account of the political and legal institutions of constitutional democracies.