Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

297Deliberative Politicsdiscourse and forms of argumentation that l:>9rrow their normative ,content from the " validity basis of action oriented to reachingunderstanding. In the final analysis, this normative content arisesfrom the structure oflinguistic communication and the communicativemode of sociation.In the present context, it is interesting that these descriptions ofthe democratic process also set the stage for a normativeconceptualization of state and society. All we need presuppose is atype of public administration that emerged in the early-modernperiod with the European nation-state and developed functionalties with the capitalist economy.According to the republican view, the citizens' opinion- and willformationforms the medium through which society constitutesitself as a political whole. Society is, from the very start, politicalsociety-societas civilis-for in the citizens' practice of political selfdeterminationthe community becomes conscious of itself, as itwere, and acts upon itself through the citizens' collective will.Hence democracy becomes equivalent to the political self-organizationof society as a whole. This leads to an offensive understandingof politics directed against the state apparatus. In Hannah Arendt'spolitical writings, one can see where republican argumentationdirects its salvos: in opposition to the civil privatism of a depoliticizedpopulation and in opposition to the production of mass loyaltythrough parties that have become arms of the state, the politicalpublic sphere should be revitalized to the point where a regeneratedcitizenry can, in the forms of a decentralized self-governance,(once again) appropriate bureaucratically alienated state power.In this way society would finally develop into a political totality.Whereas the separation of the state apparatus from society elicitsa polemical response from the republican side, according to theliberal view the gap cannot be eliminated but only bridged by thedemocratic process. Naturally, the regulated balance of power andinterests needs to be channeled by the rule oflaw. The democraticwill-formation of self-interested citizens has comparatively weaknormative connotations, and it forms only one element in acomplex constitution. The constitution is supposed to curb theadministration through normative provisions (such as basic rights,separation of powers, and statutory controls); in addition, the