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

357Civil Society and the Political Public Spheretory, disdainful social facticity. Many of these communicationsflowing in the opposite direction serve to relieve the burden ofunavoidable complexity from the official circulation by breakingproblems down into smaller components. Peters takes this circumstanceinto account with the help of a second explanatory element.For the most part, operations in the core area of the political systemproceed according to routines. Courts deliver judgments, bureaucraciesprepare laws and process applications, parliaments passlaws and budgets, party headquarters conduct election campaigns,clients exert influence on "their" administrations-and all theseprocesses follow established patterns. From a normative standpoint,the only decisive question concerns which power constellationsthese patterns reflect and how the latter can be changed. Thisin turn depends on whether the settled routines remain open to ·renovative impulses from the periphery. In cases of conflict, that is,processing matters according to the usual conventions is eclipsedby another mode of operation.This latter mode of operation is characterized by a consciousnessof crisis, a heightened public attention, an intensified search forsolutions, in short, by problematization. In cases in which perceptionsof problems and problem situations have taken a conflictual turn,the attention span of the citizenry enlarges, indeed in such a waythat controversies in the broader public sphere primarily ignitearound the normative aspects of the problems most at issue. Thepressure of public opinion then necessitates an extraordinarymode of problem solving, which favors the constitutional channelsfor the circulation of power and thus actuates sensibilities for theconstitutional allocation of political responsibilities. True, even duringthe "normal" course of business, parliaments and courts attemptnormatively to limit the discretion enjoyed by anadministration operating largely in a goal-oriented manner. But incases of conflict, the constitutional scheme for regulating access tonormative reasons acquires a sharper profile. Only in this way canparliaments and courts-the two branches of government thatalone are formally empowered to deal with normative reasons in aconstructive or reconstructive manner-also actually determine thedirection in which communication circulates. When conflicts becomethis intense, the political lawgiver has the last word. To be