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

358Chapter 8sure, considerable evidence shows that by itself the parliamentarycomplex usually lacks the strength "to turn cases into cases ofconflict." Institutions that decide under time pressure have a weakcapacity to detect latent problems, which are apprehended eitherinsufficiently or not at all by settled routines. And they have littleinitiative to stage newly emergent problems in a successful anddramatic manner.The distinction between normal and extraordinary modes ofposing and solving problems, however, can be rendered fruitful fora sociological translation and realistic interpretation of the discourseconcept of democracy only if we introduce two furtherassumptions. The illegitimate independence of social and administrativepower vis-a-vis democratically generated communicativepower is averted to the extent that the periphery has both (a) aspecific set of capabilities and (b) sufficient occasion to exercisethem. The first assumption, (a), refers to the capacities to ferretout, identifY, and effectively thematize latent problems of socialintegration (which require political solutions); moreover, an activatedperiphery must then introduce them via parliamentary (orjudicial) sluices into the political system in a way that disrupts the .latter's routines. The second assumption, (b), is less problematic.. As we have seen, the links between decentered, increasingly autonomoussocial sectors loosen in the course of progressive functionaldifferentation. There is thus a growing need for integrationthat renders crises permanent, stimulates the public sphere, andmakes accelerated learning processes necessary.The problematic assumption is (a). It places a good part of thenormative expectations connected with deliberative politics on theperipheral networks of opinion-formation. The expectations aredirected at the capacity to perceive, interpret, and present societywideproblems in a way that is both attention-catching and innovative.The periphery can satisfY these strong expectations onlyinsofar as the networks of noninstitutionalized public communicationmake possible more or less spontaneous processes of opinionformation.Resonant and autonomous public spheres of this sortmust in turn be anchored in the voluntary associations of civilsociety and embedded in liberal patterns of political culture andsocialization; in a word, they depend on a rationalized lifeworldthat meets them halfWay. The development of such lifeworld