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

385Civil Society and the Political Public Sphereally regulated circulation of power actually prevails in the politicalsystem. The answers to this question in turn inform our ownparadigmatic understanding of law. I note the following fourpoints for elucidating such a historically situated understanding ofthe constitution.(a) The constitutionally organized political system is, on the onehand, specialized for generating collectively binding decisions. Tothis extent, it represents only one of several subsystems. On theother hand, in virtue of its internal relation to law, politics isresponsible for problems that concern society as a whole. It must bepossible to interpret collectively binding decisions as a realizationof rights such that the structures of recognition built into communicativeaction are transferred, via the medium of law, from thelevel of simple interactions to the abstract and anonymous relation- ·ships among strangers. In pursuing what in each case are particularcollective goals and in regulating specific conflicts, politics simultaneouslydeals with general problems of integration. Because it isconstituted in a legal form, a politics whose mode of operation isfunctionally specified still refers to society-wide problems: it carrieson the tasks of social integration at a reflexive level when otheraction systems are no longer up to the job.(b) This asymmetrical position explains the fact that the politicalsystem is subject to constraints on two sides and that correspondingstandards govern its achievements and decisions. As a functionallyspecified action system, it is limited by other functional systems thatobey their own logic and, to this extent, bar direct political interventions.On this side, the political system encounters limits on theeffectiveness of administrative power (including legal and fiscalinstruments). On the other side, as a constitutionally regulatedaction system, politics is connected with the public sphere anddepends on lifeworld sources of communicative power. Here thepolitical system is not subject to the external constraints of a socialenvironment but rather experiences its internal dependence onenabling conditions. This is because the conditions that make theproduction of legitimate law possible are ultimately not at thedisposition of politics.(c) The political system is vulnerable on both sides to disturbancesthat can reduce the eff ectiveness of its achievements and the