Festschrift für Fritz W. Scharpf - MPIfG

336 V · Erklärung und Verallgemeinerung
But however many or few the voices in the communicative discourse, the
tenor of the discourse in single-actor systems is likely to be adversarial. Because
there is typically little significant consultation or deliberation with the
most affected interests at the coordinative stage of the discourse, at the
communicative stage the only courses of action left open to those interests,
as members of the informed public, or to the public more generally where
they are unwilling to acquiesce to a policy, is protest. Protest may come in
the form of public debate – by way of polemics from the press, interest group
leaders, experts, and/or the opposition; confrontation – by way of individual
or group shows of resistance, demonstrations in the streets, and strikes; or
electoral sanctions. Depending upon the intensity of the public reaction, the
government may decide to persist with the discourse and the policy unchanged
in the face of confrontation; to withdraw it without any further
public discussion in order to put an end to confrontation and/or to avoid
potential electoral defeat; or to modify the policy without changing the discourse
in order to accommodate the concerns of the most affected interests.