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

335Civil Society and the Political Public Spherecollectively binding decisions, must assert itself opportunistically,without possibilities of privileged access, against all the otherfunctional systems (including the legal system). On the otherhand, the state-centered understanding of politics that was alreadypresent in the liberal model emerges in full force. That is, systemstheory ascribes the opinion-and will-formation dominated by partycompetition to a public of citizens and clients that, cut offfrom itslifeworld roots in civil society, political culture, and socialization, isincorporated in the political system. Here the administration doesnot just consist in the complex with the highest organizationaldensity. It also sets in motion a circulation running counter to the"official" circuit of power: the administration predominantly programsitself by steering he legislative process through its billproposals, by extracting mass loyalty from the citizenry throughparties that have become arms of the state, and by making directcontact with its clients.'' With the increase in social complexity, thebalance tips in favor of this informal circulation, so that thequestion of "how political responsibility under such conditions iseven possible" becomes meaningless.12 A systems theory that hasbanned everything normative from its basic concepts remainsinsensitive to the inhibiting normative constraints imposed on aconstitutionally channeled circulation of power. Through its keenobservations of how the democratic process is hollowed out underthe pressure of functional imperatives, systems theory certainlymakes a contribution to the theory of democracy. But it offers noframework for its own theory of democracy, because it dividespolitics and law into different, recursively closed systems andanalyzes the political process essentially from the perspective of aself-programming administration.The "realism" that systems theory gains with this selective approachcomes at the cost of a disturbing problem. According tosystems theory, all functional systems achieve their autonomy bydeveloping their own codes and their own semantics, which nolonger admit of mutual translation. They thereby forfeit the abilityto communicate directly with one another and as a result can only"observe" each other. This autism especially affects the politicalsystem, which also self· referentially closes itself offfrom its environment.In the face of this autopoietic encapsulation, one can