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- Herausgeber: ibidem
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
What kind of public sphere is possible in the European Union with its considerable diversity of national identities, languages and media systems? Against the backdrop of debates about a fundamental European community deficit and the possibility of postnational democracy, this book explores the role of a European public sphere not only in bridging presumed gaps between citizens and their representatives in the European institutions, but also in creating transnational communicative spaces that contribute to the politicization of EU politics. Drawing on Deweyan pragmatism, social constructivism and the Habermasian notion of constitutional patriotism, this book moves beyond the conventional wisdom that a European public sphere necessitates the existence of a sense of European “identity light”. Arguing that a political sense of community along the lines of a European constitutional patriotism can only emerge out of the democratic process itself, Maximilian Conrad looks at the role of daily newspapers not only as framers of public debate, but also as actors with distinct normative views regarding the future of the integration process, both in terms of the nature of the EU as a polity and the nature of democratic rule in this polity. The crucial empirical question addressed in the book is: Do newspapers with a pronounced preference for more democracy beyond the nation state also play a more active role in providing forums for transnational debate?
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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ibidem Press, Stuttgart
“The cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy.The prime difficulty[…]is that of discovering the means by which a scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognize itself as to define and express its interests.”
- John Dewey,ThePublic and its problems
Contents
1Democracy:The Unfinished Projectof European Integration
Introduction
Almost five years after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in the European Union (EU),in the midst of aEuropean-Parliamentelection campaign thatmay for the first timehaveadirectimpact on the selection of the next Commission President,conventional wisdomstillholds that theunion and its decision-making processesare characterized byaprofounddemocratic deficit. There are numerous reasons for this perception, but the most important one isarguablythat thevery realgap betweenthe union’s citizens anditsinstitutions expresses itself in afundamentalunawareness on the part of the citizensoflegislation that is under preparation at virtually any given point in time. Quite simply, controversialEU legislation has a tendency to catch people off guard, asEU citizens are too oftenunawareof the laws that the European institutions produce until they feel the effects on their own skin.In addition to this, the EU isdifficult to make sense of from the perspective of political theory, both with regard toits complex mix of supranational and intergovernmental elements(e.g. Eriksen 2009, chaps. 8-10; Wiener 2011; Eriksen & Fossum 2012) and the simple fact that it isanevolvingpolitical system.Quite often, thiscombination of an unawareness of the way the institutions work and an unawareness of what kind of legislation is under preparationresults in afundamental rejecton of the EU and its political system as a whole.These problems are exacerbated by the challenges brought about in the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis and the style ofexecutive federalismthrough whichever more austerity packagesare imposedon the countries worst hit by the crisis (Habermas 2011).
Solutions to the democratic deficit have however proved elusive over the years.To an important extent, this is becausethe nature of theevolving polity remains contested, making it difficult to develop normative criteria for assessing the democratic quality of EU decision making(cf. Eriksen & Fossum 2012). The union is oftenand suitablydescribed as apolity sui generis:at its core, itremainsan international organization,althoughthe participating member states have delegated an unusual amount of authority to the union’s supranational institutions(e.g. Wiener 2011).Despite thisextensivepooling of sovereignty(Moravcsik 1998),thefact that the union continues to be based on international treaties (as opposed to a popularly authored constitution) underlines how far theunion is from becoming anything like a federal state. Nonetheless, the discourse on the democratic deficit often takes as its implicit starting point the notion that the EU should be democratic in a way at least closely resembling the way democracy works in nation states. As we will see below, political philosophy and democratic theory haveonlybegun to question whether the concept of popular sovereignty is indeed the best normative ideal for democracy beyond the nation state. Political debate on the EU democratic deficit, however, tends to assume that only a strengthening of mechanisms of representative-democratic accountability can fix the democratic deficit in the EU.
Representative democracy is one of thecornerstonesof EU governance.[1]At the same time, there are clearly also limits to the extent to which representative democracy can be institutionalized without the EU becoming too much like a state founded on the notion of European peoplehood and thus a Europeandemos(cf. Eriksen 2009, chap. 10). As a matter of fact, art. 10 TEU already goes quite far in stating that citizens are representeddirectlyin the European Parliamentandvia their respective governments in the European Council and in the Council of Ministers. At the same time, the intergovernmental nature of the EU continues to be reflected in the limited role that the European Parliament playse.g.in theselection ofkey positions in the EU compared to the role played by the European Council(Conrad 2014).[2]
The contested nature of the EU as a polity also has profound implications fornormativeexpectationsregardingits democratic performance and the role that its representative institutions can play in shaping its decisions. The debate on the democratic deficit has for instance emphasized the Europeandemosdeficitasa factor limiting thescope of the possible future democratization of the EU.Europeans do not constitute a people, whether from the perspective of constitutional law or from the perspective of the self-perceptions of its citizens.The EU, as Jan-Werner Müller remarks, is “not based on one constituent power”, but “on an expandinggroup of demoi”(Müller 2011: 201; italics in the original).
Authors in the Habermasian tradition tend to emphasize the need for European demos construction, more or less as a precondition for a meaningful reconstitution of democracy beyond the nation state(Habermas 1998; Eriksen & Fossum 2004, 2007). James Bohman(2005, 2007a), on the other hand, highlighted the problems that could arise from the postnational project of European demos construction, arguing that any such move bears the risk of creating a “hierarchy of authority” between the newly created European demos and the already existing and democratically constituted demoi at the level of the member states.For Bohman,European integration therefore necessitates a fundamental transformation of democracy both in terms ofthe normative ideal and the institutional design of democracy(Bohman 2007b). Instead of reconstituting democracy via the construction of European peoplehood,heproposes that democracy itself has to be transformed into somethingbeyondthe concept of popular self-rule in the singular. Transnational democracywould have to be rule of the peoples in the plural and should be conceived of in terms of a democratic minimum, namelyfreedom from domination(ibid.;cf. Müller 2011).
The paradoxical relationship between European integration and democracy thus becomes a problem for democratic theory(cf. Eriksen &Fossum 2012). Since democratic theory has so far only produced an account of democracy aspopular sovereignty(and thus on the basis of the idea of a unified body of citizens that perceives itself as a demos), state-centered democratic theory is the only normative yardstick available for assessing the democratic character of transnational polities such as the EU(Chevenal & Schimmelfennig 2013). Eriksen and Fossum therefore see two options for the EU: it would either have to become more like a state to fit the categories of state-centered democratic theory, which would amount to a reconstitution of Europe; or democratic theory has to develop a compelling account of democracy beyond the state, which would amount to a “reconfiguration” of democracy (Eriksen & Fossum 2012).
To the extent that debates on the democratic deficit have focused on a lack of stronger mechanisms of democratic accountability,theyhave thereforebeen barking up the wrong tree. The European Union’s democratic deficit is not primarily an institutional deficit that can be fixedfor instancethrough a gradual strengthening of the European and/or the respective member state parliaments. Such institutional reforms have of course taken place from the mid-1980s onwards, and to some extent they may even have enhanced at least the perception of the democratic character of EU law-making. Through a series oftreaty-reform processes, the European Parliamenthas gonefrom being little more than a consultative body to anequal co-legislator on par with the Council of Ministers, the union’s main intergovernmental institution(e.g.Bache et al. 2011: 299;Burns 2013: 159ff.).[3]Most recently, the Lisbon Treaty furthermore strengthenedtheroleofmember state parliaments as a kind of control mechanism in EUdecision making.[4]Such reforms maycontribute to lessening the perception of a democratic deficit.From the perspective of democratic theory, they arehowevermore of a cosmetic than substantive nature, as they do not address the much more pressing—and much more fundamental—question of what democracy ought to look like beyond the nation state.Can democracy be reconstituted beyond the nation state without reconstituting the notion of peoplehood beyond the nation state?In other words, canthe European Union become a democratic polity without developing a sense of European peoplehood first—can it become a transnational democracy of demoi (Bohman 2005, 2007a; Cheneval & Schimmelfennig 2013)?
The democratic deficit in EUdecision makingistherefore more of a symptom of a much broader problem, namely the problem of the lack of a democratic theory beyond the nation state.Asdecision makingincreasingly moves beyond thenation state, a fundamental need for democratic control mechanisms emerges also beyond thenation state.The starting point for Habermas’s account of the “postnational constellation” is the observation that globalization(economic and otherwise) undermines nation-state democracy in a variety of ways, but also that democratic politics can catch up with globalization (Habermas 1998).In the context of the European Union as arguably the world’s first postnational polity (in the making),one can however point to a much more fundamental democratic deficit than thosewhichinstitutional reform could fix, namely the lack ofa lively public sphere that could provide acommunicative counterweightto the institutions of the EU political system(Conrad 2010; Eriksen 2005; Eriksen 2009, chap. 7).
This deliberative understanding of democracy as an interplay between the public sphere and the institutions of the political system is one crucial aspect of JürgenHabermas’sdiscourse theory of democracy (Habermas 1996). It is an understanding of democracythat can help us understand the nature of the EU’s democratic deficitbeyondpurely institutionaland/or “affective” factors (cf. Warleigh 2003: chap. 1).[5]In this deliberative understanding, representative government can claim legitimacy only ifdecision makingis accompanied by free, lively and inclusive debate in the public sphere (Habermas 1996: chap. 7-8). Democracy is therefore an ideal that requires a highly active notion of citizenship. In the European Union, there is good reason to question whether the promise of deliberative democracy has been fulfilled in the sense of suchan interplaybetween the public sphere and the political system. While decision-making authority isincreasinglypooledat the European level, public opinion and will formation have largely remained within the member states (Gerhards 2000). Consequently, EU politics tends to take place in the shadow ofan at best embryonicpublic sphere.This is a crucial aspect of the democratic deficit that institutional reform will notbe able tofix, simply because it is located outside the institutional system of the EU(Conrad 2010).
Viewed in this light, attempts by the European institutions—foremost by the European Commission as well as to a lesser extent by the European Parliament—to contribute to the coming into being of a European public sphere(e.g. Van Brussel 2014)come across as ironic: well aware of the democraticillegitimacythat arises out ofdecision makingin the absence of a shared public sphere, the EU political system depends in its legitimacy on supporting the manufacturing of its own communicative counterweight. In recent years, the European Commission has done so prominently through a “period of reflection” in the aftermath of the French and Dutch referenda on theTreaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, through aPlan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate, and most recently through one of the most ambitious external communication efforts to date, namely the “presseurop.eu” website. Aiming at “promoting informed democratic debate within the EU”,thelatterprojecttranslates anddisseminatespress articles from the EU’s28member states, and iscurrently availablein 10 different languages.
But is a third transformation of democracy a realistic possibility (Dahl 1989: 224), thatis: is democracy beyond thenation statepossible tobegin with? As a reference point for collective identities, norms, values and traditions, thenation stateis often viewed as a natural home of democracy, particularly by those who implicitly or explicitly subscribe to communitarian presuppositions about the very nature of democracy. In such readings, democracy is viewed to presuppose a normatively integrated community of valuesor “normative-affective community” (Etzioni 2007). Deliberation is thought to be possible only to the extent that deliberators can rely on a shared conception of the good in settling normative disputes.Most of all, a thick sense of collective identity is seen as a necessary condition for the very possibility of social solidarity(Calhoun 2002).The critique of such communitarian ideas about democracy is hardly new.Rawls’Theory of Justicedeveloped a conception of social justice that takes into account that modernsocietiesarerarely (if ever) trulycommunities: they are not integrated aroundone,but around severalconceptionsofthe good. Societies are made up ofmany communities, oftenwith mutually irreconcilable“comprehensive doctrines”(Rawls 1971). But the normative conclusion that Rawlsian liberalism draws from this empirical observation is unsatisfactory to those who see democratic politics as more than a mere search for compromise.[6]
Habermasopened up a radically different path.Agreeing with Rawls that the notion of societies as communities is in itself a myth,henonethelessmaintains that democratic deliberationbeyond a mere searchfor compromise ispossible.For Habermas,public deliberation has a civilizing function, forcingdebaters to arguenoton the basis of their individual values,beliefsor interests, but on the basis of acommonly acceptablehuman characteristic: the capacity for reason.[7]Under these conditions,deliberativedemocracy is possibleevenin diverse, heterogeneousnation statesocieties(Habermas 1996: chap. 5; see also Ingram 2010: chap. 6). But if democracy is possibledespite such challenges, why should it be inconceivable beyond thenation state?
The crossroads which the European Union faces at present is foremost a democratic dilemmathat is connected to the question of whetherEurope’s citizensarewilling to take on the task of finishing theunfinished project of European integration,namelythe questfor afull democratization of the EU.This point concerns the European institutions less than it does the public sphere. The European Union can become fully democratic only if a European public sphere emerges as a control mechanism in relation to the EU political system(Conrad 2010). But this can only come about at what somewouldconsider a cost,possibly even a dramatic cost: it would require that Europeans begin torecognizeone anotheras part of the same political community, as fellow citizens in the world’s first postnational polity (Eriksen & Fossum 2004; 2007).Communication necessitates community, yet not in the sense of a thick collective identity, but instead in the sense of mutual recognition. The European public sphere can take the step from communicative freedom to communicative poweronlyif and when public debate begins to transcend national borders (cf. Bohman 2007a; chap. 2). For a European public sphere to function as a communicative counterweight against the institutions of the EU political system, the institutionalization of communicative freedom also needs to be utilized by European citizens to speak up collectively against the EU legislative process whenever protest is deemed necessary.In the post-Lisbon EU, some researchers have pointed to the newly introduced European Citizens‘ Initiative (ECI) as a participatory-democratic element that has the potential to ignite a European public sphere (Conrad 2011), for instance via the emergence of transnational discursive spheres (Knaut & Keller 2012).
To a radical democrat like Habermas (cf. Warren 1995), the promise of postnational democracy outweighs whatever “cost” may be associated with a move of democraticdecision makingbeyond thenation state(Habermas 1998: chap. 5).[8]But clearly, postnational democracy does notappeal equally to all. Communitarian undertones pervade much of the debate on the democratic deficit,both on the left and right side of the political spectrum. Aclear expression ofthiscan be found in the debate surrounding the so-called “no-demosthesis”, both inacademic and popular usage. Based on the notion that an “internally coherent demos must exist prior to democracy” (Trenz 2009: 3), theno-demosthesis refers to the observation thatthe presumed absence of a coherent European demos makesEuropean-level democracy difficult to achieve—if not outright impossible.There is of course a lot to this. Democracy in the EU requires that EU citizens begin to recognize one another as members of the same political community. At the same time,there is a need for cautionnot to confuserecognitionwithcollective identity.Recognizing one another as equals in deliberation does not imply the existence of a thick sense of collective identity. Communication may or may not constitute community, but the latter is no precondition for the former (Eder 1999).[9]
Two different readings of theno-demosthesis should be emphasizedin this context.On the one hand, theno-demosthesis comes primarily from the field of constitutional law. Famously, Dieter Grimm has argued that due to the absence of a single European demos, the EU cannot give itself a democratic constitution beyond the form of a mere intergovernmental treaty (Grimm 1995; cf. Weiler 2005). But this legal understanding of theno-demosthesis needs to be distinguished from a moreclearlypolitical reading,basedin turnon implicit or explicit communitarian presuppositions. This understandingincludesthe view that democracy itself is impossible beyond thenation state, and has been appliednot leastin discussions about strengthening the EU’s supranational institutions, most of all the directly elected European Parliament. The strengthening of the EP has been met with skepticism based on the view that in the absence of a single European demos, there cannot be anydemocratically legitimate parliamentary assembly speaking on behalf of the European people.
Such a political understanding of theno-demosthesis is however normatively problematic. Read in this way, theno-demosthesisislittle more than a self-fulfilling prophecy to be employed as a potent strategy against the very idea of European demos construction, i.e. against “thearrested development of European citizenship”(Warleigh 2003: chap. 6). On the one hand, theno-demosthesis is usedempiricallytosupportclaimsthat a fundamental precondition for democracy is not met at the European level: those affected by EU legislation do not constitute one singular demos, but rather a multitude of currently28separate demoi. On the other hand, theno-demosthesis is usednormativelyto support claims that democratic control of the EUdecision-making processmust be exercisedexclusivelywithin thenation state.Butthisnormative side of theno-demosthesishasproblematic exclusionary connotations. It prescribes that public opinion and will formation on European-level legislation take place exclusively in the forums of the national public sphere. It therefore prescribes that the members of the national community have a privileged position in public opinion and will formation in the national public sphere, and that citizens of other EU countries need not be recognized as equals in democratic deliberation, even though they are also part of the same legal space in which collectively binding decisions are made.
Under these conditions, a European demosanda European public sphereare very difficult to imagine. A European demos can emerge only gradually, through the recognition of other EU citizens as part of the same political community and consequently as equals in democratic deliberation.Theno-demosthesis fails to take into account that a European collective identityneed notbe a basic infrastructural requirement of democracy at the European level, but that it can emerge alsoin the course of democratic practice (Trenz 2009).The viewthatdemocracyisbound to the context of thenation stateis as historically contingent as the notion that the demos itself is bound to thenation state:there is no inherent conceptual link between the two (Habermas 1998; Bohman 2007a).Correspondingly, the absence of a European demos is not therootof the EU democratic deficit, but rather one of itsclearestexpressions—andconsequences.While certainlegal and/or empirical argumentscertainlysupport theno-demosthesis,normative argumentsagainstthe very constitution of such a European demos are problematic because they inhibit theveryprospect for democracy beyond thenation state.
This is not to say, however, that a European demos would(or should) subsume or replace the existing demoi in the union’s member states. On the contrary, as James Bohman formulates it, the current transformation of democracy requires that both biggerandsmaller units beinvolved in democratic governance, i.e. that the current problems of democracy be solved not through the search for “some optimal size or ideal democratic procedure, but rather [through the establishment of] a more complex democratic ideal” (Bohman 2007a: 2).[10]What appears clear, however, is that democracy in the European Union depends on much more than institutional reform alone. The democratic legitimacy of EUdecision makingfundamentallydepends on the emergence of a European public sphere that can serve as a counterweight to the institutions of the EU political system. Such a European public sphere has to be the site of a lively, inclusive and free debate on EU politics.Butthis takes us back to the question of collective identity:how can a European public sphere emerge in the presumed absence of a thick sense of European collective identity (Eriksen 2005)?
Purpose & Ambition
The purpose of this study is to delvefurtherintothe conditions under which a shared public sphere is possible in the European Union.Againstthe backdrop of debates on the transformation of democracy beyond thenation state(Dahl 1994; Habermas 1998; Bohman 2007a),the study explores the role that daily newspapershave played inproviding forumsfor transnational debateonEU constitution makingin the presumed absence of an overarching European collective identity.In doing so, the study uses empirical means toreconsider a contentious questionstemming from the realm of political theory, namely the question of the supposed co-constitutivenessof public spheres and political communities. In the discourse-theoretical perspective, public spheres in the strong, deliberative sense are thoughtnottodepend on communitarian resources. But if this is the case, how can we conceptualize the“minimum level of social integration” (Kantner 2004) thought necessary in order for individuals to initiate a deliberative search for solutions—in our case in the European Union?
Recentefforts to conceptualize this minimum level of social integration as some form of “identity light” (Risse 2004)are highly commendable. On the other hand,such attempts are misleadingto the extent that theymaintainthat identity(even in athinform)ratheris an ontologicalprecondition fordeliberation.As an alternative, this studyargues that transnational debate instead depends on the extent to which European integration is thought toaffectEU citizens collectively or as member state citizens. From a normative perspective, transnational debate should be stronger where European integration is viewed to affect all Europeans, and thus where “second-country nationals” are recognized as members of the same political community.In the empirical context ofEU constitution making,this studythereforeexplores whether daily newspapers in Germany and Sweden have activelyprovidedforums for transnational debate.Can morelivelytransnational debate be observed in newspapers with stronger preferences for postnational democracy in the EU?
To begin with, let us consider whatreasons we have, normatively and empirically speaking, for assuming thatnewspapers should have different practices in this regard.Froma social-constructivistpoint of view,affectednesscanrarely (if ever)be determined objectively.EU constitution makingmay be considered a problem in terms of the sovereignty of thenation state,but it can also be considered a solution to the problem of a loss of democratic control.Problemslack essential qualitiesand are constituted inthesubjective interpretationof an observer,often through the use offrames(e.g.Tankard2001; cf. Strömbäck 2004: chap. 2).Affectedness is therefore also determined in framing processes,movingthe act ofas well asthe actorconstructingan issue to the center of analytical attention.[11]Consequently, we need to look attheactorsframingan issue and thereby settingthe standard forrecognition of legitimate participants inanygivendebate. From this perspective, we have reason to believe that newspapers with stronger postnational preferencesshould apply different frames than their conservative, intergovernmentally oriented counterparts.And normatively speaking, we should also expect transnational debateto be strongerinnewspapers promoting more democracybeyondthenation statethan innewspapersfavoringintergovernmentalintegration.
Arelatedpoint stems fromthe perspective of media studies in conceptualizing the mass media asgatekeepersin public communication (McQuail 1994: chap. 8; Strömbäck 2004). Following this perspective, this study explores the role of daily newspapers in framingEU constitution makingandin allowing (or not!) speakers from other national contexts “to pass through the ‘gates’ of a news medium” (McQuail 1994: 213).Based on the notion thatEU constitution makingallows for a variety of contending and even mutually exclusive interpretations, different newspapers’use of framesmay result in very differentpracticesin providing forums fortransnational debate. But is there also an empiricalconnection between a normative commitment to postnational democracy andmore livelytransnational debate?[12]In other words: do newspaperswith postnational orientationslive up to normative expectations about providing forums for transnational debate?
Contribution to European Public Sphere Research
The study’scontribution to the literature on the European public sphere consists primarily in bringing together twostrands of scholarship that have previously co-existed more or less in isolation from one another. One key area of interest motivating this studyobviouslystems from the field of political philosophy, where debates on the preconditions for democracy both within (e.g. Forst 1993) and beyond thenation state(e.g. Habermas1998; Bohman 2007a) have been met with questions as to whether or not a European public sphere is theoretically imaginablein principleeven inthe presumed absence of a European collective identity (e.g. Eriksen 2005; Eder & Kantner 2002). On the other hand, this study isalsoinformed byanempirically oriented researchagendawithin media studies in political science and/or sociology. In this research, attention has been paid primarily to the Europeanization of public communication in a number of member state public spheres,measured primarily in terms of the Europeanization of“meaning structures”(i.e. similar use of frames) and/or the Europeanization of“interactive structures”(i.e. communication across borders) (Trenz 2007). Despite an enormous output in terms of cross-country comparativemedia-contentanalyses,the public sphere/political community relationship has not been explored sufficiently.[13]The latter has remained the domain of political philosophy and drawn on arguments familiar from the liberal-communitarian debate[14]of the 1980s and 1990s, whereas empirical studies on transnational debate in the presumed European public sphere at best touch on issues of European identity construction in passing. The ambition and contribution of this study is therefore to fill this gap by reconnecting empirical European public sphere research with a political-philosophical question that continues to haunt debates over whether or not democracy in a deliberative sense is possible at all within the European Union.
ResearchDesign
What role have daily newspapers played in providing forums for transnational debate? Is a normative commitment to postnational democracy also matched by a higher relative degree of transnational communication in debates onEU constitution making?Thisquestion is exploredby contrasting (1) the results of an interview study of newspaper journalists’ normative preferences on European integration and EU democracy with (2) the results of a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of opinion articles stemming from debates on the constitution-making process in the newspapers analyzed. The newspapers studied here come from Sweden and Germany, and were selected so as to reflect similar orientations on a left-right scale of the political spectrum.[15]For the Swedish part, these includeSvenska Dagbladet(Stockholm, conservative),Dagens Nyheter(Stockholm, liberal), andAftonbladet(Stockholm,social-democratic/left).For the German part, they includeFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung(Frankfurt, conservative),Süddeutsche Zeitung(Munich, liberal), anddie tageszeitung(Berlin, left/alternative).
(1) In the first part of the analysis, the study draws on 21 semi-structured interviews with the respective newspapers’ EU correspondents, correspondents in certain other EU states[16], and editorialists in the respective newspapers’ home offices in Stockholm, Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich. Respondents were selected on the basis of their participation in the debates analyzed.[17]They were asked to reflect about the historical development of the EU both from an empirical and from a normative point of view,andmore specifically to develop their normative preferences for the future of European integration. In that context, respondents were asked to relate tothreedifferentscenarios for the future of European integration, i.e. whether they would describe the EU as being en route to becoming (or remaining) (a) an intergovernmental problem-solving organization, (b) a supranational federation based on communal values, or (c) a rights-based, postnational union (Eriksen & Fossum 2004; Eriksen & Fossum 2007). In addition, they were asked to comment onthe extent to which they welcome or reject such developments.[18]The analytical purposeof the interview study is to establish (a) whether and to what extent the analyzed newspapers do in fact have any coherent perspective on European integration and the future of EU democracy. To the extent that this is the case, we further want to establish (b) how these perspectives can be defined in relation to our ideal-typical prescriptions for EU democracy: do the analyzed newspapers express a preference for intergovernmental/delegated, supranational, or postnational democracy? In this context, it is not individual journalists’ perspectives per se that we are interested in, but instead the views of individual journalists as carriers of their respective newspapers’ perspectives.[19]
(2) Themedia-contentanalysis is based on a sampleof over 600 opinion articles from the debate on theEU constitution makingprocess as it has taken place in the newspapers studied (see appendix 4). Themedia-contentanalysis includes articles sampled for three periods of the debate, specifically (a) the constitutional process’sagenda-setting phasecharacterized by the so-calledfinality debatefollowing the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer’s ‘reflections on the finality of European integration’ at Humboldt University in Berlin in May 2000; (b) theconstitutionalratification-crisis debatearound the French and Dutch referenda on the Constitutional Treaty in the spring of 2005; and (c) theconstitutionalrelaunchdebatein the spring of 2007, following the Berlin Declaration at the 50thanniversary celebrations for the Treaties of Rome.
Themedia-contentanalysis is based on a standardized codebook developedexclusivelyfor this project (see appendix 2), bututilizes some of the typologiesdeveloped for recent work on ‘media-discourse analysis’ conducted within work package 5 of the RECON project (Civil Society and the Public Sphere) as well as for a project on building the EU’s social constituency (Vetters et al. 2006; Trenz et al. 2007).[20]Themedia-contentanalysis is based on three analytical tasks, i.e. to assess the“Europeanization” of meaning structures and interactive structures in the selected debates (Trenz 2007). First, themedia-contentanalysisexplores(a)whether newspaper framing follows national or cross-national patterns.This part of the analysis indicates to what extent and in which ways debaters in the selected newspapers (and countries) actually speak of the same thing when they discuss theEU constitution-makingprocess. Next, themedia-contentanalysis assesses the transnational character of the respective debates by analyzing(b) the inclusion of non-domestic speakersas authorsin domestic debates, andby analyzing(c) engagementwithnon-domestic speakers in the debate, i.e. the inclusion of non-domestic speakers asobjects of critiquein domestic debates.
All three analytical taskslocate a European public sphere where spaces for transnational debate emerge. A European public sphere as a communicative contextdoes notemergewhen the same issues are merely discussed at the same timein parallel, but rather when the domestic public sphere becomespermeableto the contributions of non-domestic speakers (Conrad 2007; cf. Wimmel 2004, 2006): European-level law-making has to be subjected to European-level opinion and will formation. Consequently, any assessment of transnational debate has to focus on the extent to which non-domestic speakers come in as authors in domestic debates. Second, it has to analyze the argumentative tools which are used in evaluating and engaging with contributions by non-domestic speakers. Are they merely observed and left alone, or are they also engaged in debate?[21]
Overview of Chapters
Following this introductory chapter,chapter 2presents a thought experiment about how a European public sphere can be imagined.Thechapter develops an argument as to why political debate on EU issues taking place in separation may producepublicityas one of the key functions of the democratic public sphere,but contends thatmutually closed-off communicative spacescannot provide theformofsharedcommunicative space that would constitute a common European public sphere.Only when a European public sphere constitutes itself at the European level can it serve as a communicative counterweight to the institutions of the EU political system.
Chapter3offers an elaboration of the study’s theoretical argument. Specifically, it formulates an ontological critique of the way the public sphere/political community relationship has been conceptualized in previous work on the European public sphere. Drawing on the intellectual legacies of social constructivism,Habermasianconstitutional patriotism and Deweyan pragmatism, the chapter advances a view of public spheres and political communities not only asco-constitutiveandco-original, but also asprocessesconstituted by and developing in the practice of thinking and talking about them.
Chapter4serves as a methodological introduction and presents thestudy’s analytical framework. Specifically, the chapter demonstrateshowthecombination of an interview study and amedia-contentanalysis ofdebates onEU constitution makingin daily newspapers can contribute to a reconceptualized understanding of the public sphere/political community relationship. Once again,the argument isbased on the view that agency matters in setting the agenda for transnational debate as much as it does in setting the agenda for recognition of potential deliberators as affected parties.
Chapter5is the first of four empirical chapters andpresentsthe findings oftheinterview study with editorialists and correspondents of the six newspapers analyzed.In relation to three imaginable future scenarios,the chapter establishes thedifferent newspapers’ perspectives on European integration and the future of EU democracy as they have been formulated bytheinterview respondents. The chapter concludesby formulating a normative and empirical expectation regarding the quantityand quality oftransnationaldebateto beobservedin the six newspapers analyzed: how lively should transnational debate be in light of newspapers’ contending views of EU democracy?
Chapters6through8present the results ofthemedia-contentanalyses of newspaper debates duringthethreeselectedphases of theEU constitution makingprocess.
Chapter9is a concluding chapter, revisiting the initial theoretical perspectives on communication and community in the public sphere/political community relationship.The chapter reviews the findings oftheempiricalanalysis and reconsiders their implications for the possibility of a European public sphere: is a transnational communicative context possible in the absence of a thick sense of collective identity?
2Communicative Spacesbetween Communication and Community
A Thought Experiment
Consider a thought experiment:a university lecturer divideshis class of sixty studentsinto three groups and has themdiscuss the theme of‘the EU public sphere deficit’ at the same time, but in three separate rooms,without any interactionacross groups. The doors to the respective rooms remain closed.Upon reconveningthe whole group of sixty students, the lecturer hasone spokesperson from each group report the outcomes of the respective discussions.Onegroup focused on the issue of language diversity in the EU, arrivingat the conclusion thatthe prospects for European-wide public debate are currently impaired bythe absenceof a shared European language, but stating thatEnglish may one day emerge as a European lingua franca to make European-wide public debate more inclusive than it could be today.
The second groupalsoaddressed the issue of language diversity, but emphasized a different aspect: the emergence of English as a European-wide first foreign language could certainly facilitate public debateat the elite level, but only at a dramatic democratic price. Since most people wouldnotbe able to learn English well enough to participate in political debates, any step away from a commitment to language diversity would only serve exclusionary purposes and further exacerbate the already apparent democratic deficit.
The third groupdisregarded language diversity and emphasized issues of collective identity instead: since Europe is made up of so many different national cultures, identities and traditions, it is difficult to imagine the realization of the normative ideal of democratic deliberation beyond thenation state. Europeans, the third group’s spokesperson indicated, lack the sense of collective identity that could furnish them with shared values to relate to in settling normative disputes.
The pointwith this thought experimentis metaphorical:ifthe doors toourthree rooms remain closed, the three rooms constitute three separate communicative spaces between which no interaction is possible. And while it is conceivable at least in principle that individuals from any of the three classrooms could also follow and participate in the discussions going on in the other two rooms, the three rooms constitute no broader, shared communicative space.
The metaphor of the three separate communicative spaces illustrates the difficulties we encounter when attempting to specify which form of communicative space is normatively desirable and empirically viable as a public sphere (or as some form of functional equivalent thereof) in a multinational, multilingual context such as the European Union:canwe imagine (and do we want)an all-encompassing European-levelcounterpartof existing national public spheres (cf. Kielmansegg 1996), or rather an “interdiscursive” space of communicative spaces (Eder & Kantner 2000, 2002; cf. Schlesinger & Kevin 2000), a “transnational community of communication” (Risse 2004, Risse &Van de Steeg2003), a “Europeanized discursive public sphere” (Wimmel 2006), or still something else?Fundamentally, questions about the possibility and desirability of a European-level communicative space are about the element ofseparationbetween the three metaphorical communicative spaces: how closed are the doors to these rooms in fact? How open should they be?What chancesare there formembers of other communicative spaces to participate? And not least:whyand how do such issues matter to European integration?
For the time being, consider a slight modification to our thought experiment. Imagine thatthere are no doors separating the three rooms from one another.The members ofthethree groups are now free to move from room to room to formtheirown understanding of how the given problem is perceived in the other two groups, and possibly to return to their owngroupand report about what they have learned from the other discussions. Of course, this would come at a price. Maybe they wouldneedto know a foreign language to understand what the other groups talk about. But in principle, it is now possible for individuals to move around and form an opinion on the discussions in the other groups. Mostimportantly, each group is now free to send observers into the other classrooms to retrieve information and report about the discussions in the other groups.
Consider also a second modification tothisthought experiment. Imagine, in addition, thatonegroup invites speakers froma secondgroup to explain their views on thematterat hand. And imagine, finally, thatthespeakersfrom thissecond groupwould laterreturnto thefirstgroup and presenttheirown group’s rebuttal to the claims raisedby the first group. In this scenario, there would be direct channels ofcommunication across classrooms:a direct exchange of ideas across groups that would in turn constitute a shared communicative space.
What Kind of European Public Sphere?
Thesehypothetical scenarios relate to different ways of thinking aboutthe European public sphere deficit asa democratic dilemma that has emerged basically as a side-effect of European integration. The supranationalization of EUdecision makinghas not been matched by a parallel transnationalization of forms (and forums!) for European-level opinionand willformation: opinionand willformation on EU politics is traditionally said to have remained at the national level, indicating that no European public sphere exists and giving rise to speculations that no such European-level forum for opinion formation may be possible (Gerhards 2000). To what extent such assertions are empirically and normatively tenable is the subject of an ongoing academic and to some extent even popular debate. To what extent any such claimsmatter,furthermore, is a question of democratic theory and specifically a question of what kind of democracy is to be considered desirable at the EU level. Why opinion formation anddecision makingshould occur at the same level is a normative question intimately connected to the very conceptualization of democratic politics, rendering it highly contested among advocates of contending visions of democratic politics in general, and of the role of the public sphere in particular (cf. Marx-Ferree et al. 2002). The normative desirability of a European public sphere (or of any functionally equivalent communicative space) can thus by no means be taken for granted. But where democracy is viewed as theinterplaybetween the political system and the “wild complex” of the public sphere (Fraser 1992), i.e. betweenadministrativeandcommunicative powerformed in mutually complementary spheres of social and political life (Habermas 1992), an EU-level public sphere forms an“infrastructural requirement”of EU democracy (Trenz et al.2009). So what form of communicative space is possible at the European level that can serve as a public sphere (Eriksen 2005)?
The scenarios in our thought experiment are illustrations of how an EU-level public sphere has been imagined until today. More precisely, they are illustrations ofthekinds of communicative spacesthathave been imagined to perform the functions of what is referred to more broadly and more ambiguously asÖffentlichkeit[22]in German usage. All three scenarios are illustrations of methodological approachesthat share discourse-theoreticalroots.However, they differ with regard to the empirical conditions considered necessary and sufficient to constitute a European public sphere as aninterdiscursiveor in various waystransnationalcommunicative space.
Our initial scenario of three parallel discussions taking place behind closed doors relates to Eder & Kantner’s early formulation of “interdiscursivity” (Eder & Kantner 2000; 2002). Eder & Kantner originally believed thatÖffentlichkeitin the sense of publicity, i.e. in the sense of subjecting politicaldecision makingto the critical scrutiny of a public, is constituted already if thesame issuesare discussed at thesame timewith thesame criteria of relevancein the different national public spheres. Consequently, they believed that even in the absence of direct communicative exchange across borders and across national public spheres, the very function that discourse theory ascribes to the public sphere—to produce communicative power to be used as a counterweighttothe political system’s administrative power—could be performed even in the absence of a genuineor literallytransnational communicative aspect. Our initial scenario thus represents the synchronous discussion of the same topic in separatecommunicative spaces. By extension, it represents the production of publicity even in the absence of direct interaction across communicative spaces. Eder & Kantner’s emphasis was on the question of whether or not individuals from different (e.g. national) communicative spaces canin principlecome together and deliberate on issues of shared concern. In this regard, Eder & Kantner’s contribution to European public sphere debates can be seen rather as a rejection of communitarian claims to the impossibility of communication across difference rather than as a conceptualization of any genuinely transnational communicative space (cf. Kantner 2004;Van de Steeg 2003).From the vantage point of communicative power formation, however, our thought experimentsuggests that separate communicative spaces are bound to fail in producing communicative power in the sense of European-level public opinion and will formation.
Others have found Eder & Kantner’s original notion ofÖffentlichkeit through interdiscursivitynormatively unsatisfactory to the extent that it fails to demonstrate how aninteractivetransnational communicative context can be imagined. While nationalpublicsgeneratepublicityin the way Eder & Kantner imagine, nosharedcommunicative space in the sense of a transnationalization of interactive structures emerges (Van de Steeg2003; Wimmel 2004, 2006). In other words, it is not enough to look for a European public sphere by analyzing the Europeanization ofmeaning structures. In addition, a European communicative space that could function as a public sphere would therefore have to be Europeanized both in terms ofmeaningstructuresandin terms ofinteractivestructures (Trenz 2007): the same issues have to be discussed throughout Europe, but also cross-border patterns of communicative interaction have to become more prominent.Only in this way can communicative power formation occur at the European level.
The first modification of our thought experiment is one way of imaginingthe European characterof interactive structures: individuals are now provided with the opportunity of moving from one room to another to listen to the arguments presented in those other communicative spaces. But interaction is still limited to mere observation; active participation is not yet possible. In the context of European public spheres, this scenario corresponds to the passive observation of discussions in the media in other national public spheres. This form of observation is highly conditional, requiring not least certain foreign language skills, but also a broader understanding of the political and cultural context of such ongoing discussions. This function is usually performed by the mass media themselves. Foreign correspondents usually play the role of selecting what is newsworthy and of condensing the available information in a way that domestic readerships can relate to/understand. In short, foreign correspondents play a translator’s role in the literal sense of translating from a foreign to the domestic vernacular, but also in the metaphorical sense of providing relevant background knowledge.
The second modification of our thought experiment relates to whatwewill refer to as thepermeabilityof national public spheres(Conrad 2007). When given issues of EU politics are framed as shared concerns, are non-domestic speakers as affected parties also given voice in the ongoing debate? Metaphorically speaking, are speakers from the other communicative spaces also invited to present their arguments in the domestic communicative space? In journalistic practice, this would occur through the provision of space on the editorial and/or opinion pages of a given newspaper.
Both of these modifications to our initial thought experiment—passive observation and providing voice—metaphorically represent elements that are standard practice in newspaper journalism. As such, they point to specific ways in which to imaginenot onlythe Europeancharacterof meaning structures, but also of interactive structures in an emerging European transnational communicative space. Communicative processes in national public spheres are open at least to the passiveobservationof external actors. In newspaper journalism, the observer role from our thought experiment is usually played by foreign correspondents (Wimmel 2006: 21f.). Active participation in the sense of voicing own opinions in another communicative space, on the other hand, is considerably more restricted. It is conditional on the approval of particular actors. In the case of newspapers, it is up to the responsible editor to select which domestic and non-domestic speakers should be given voice on a given topic.
Crucially, public spheres as communicative spaces are difficult to imagine in complete isolation. Even where an active exchange of ideas across communicative spaces is difficult to achieve, the publicity of public communication enables also otherwise uninvolved bystanders to observe and form an opinion about the arguments presented in any given discussion. The initial scenario of mutually isolated communicative spaces cantherefore be dismissed as a model for a European public sphere. But is mutual observation of the arguments presented inotherwiseisolated communicative spaces, such as presented in the no-door scenario, a normatively satisfactory conceptualization of a shared communicative space? The notion of a shared communicative space also necessitates more active forms of communicative interaction across communicative spaces, such as outlined in the third scenario. This argumentrequiresthe introduction of a fundamental reason why a shared European communicative space is normatively necessary and empirically plausible.
The Public Sphere Deficit: A Democratic Deficit?
On its own, our thought experiment says little about the context in which most European public sphere debates take place, namely as part and parcel of what is considered the EU’s democratic deficit. Where a vital public sphere is considered a crucial precondition for democratic politics, the perceived absence of at least a functional equivalent of a European public spheresuggestsa fundamental problem in the EU’s democratic infrastructure. At the same time, even the quest for a “functional equivalent” is conceptually problematic because the public sphere’sdemocraticrole only describesonesuch function. Different theoretical traditions assign very different and even mutually contradictory functions to the public sphere.Assigning the publicspherea primarily democratic rather than, say, an identity-shapingor interest-mediating function(as in communitarianand liberalunderstandings, respectively) is by no means theoretically innocent.
The perceived public sphere deficit in EUdecision makingis a democratic deficit most clearly in relation toHabermas’sdiscourse theory ofdemocracy(Habermas 1992).[23]So far, the public spherehas been introducedas an implicitly uniform communicative space, a singular forum very much like the metaphor of a classroom in which all debate takes place. But the public sphere is obviously much more, making the term “public sphere” at best a “bad translation” (Kaelble2007) of the much broader German concept ofÖffentlichkeit.Habermas refers “in an emphatic sense” to the spatial connotation of the publicsphereas a communicative space constituted in “communication among actors coming forward from their private environments to deliberate on issues of general interest” (Peters 1994: 45, author’s translation[24]), as well as topublicsas the kind of social collectives that are constituted by participation in this kind of communicative interaction (ibid.).[25]Following Bernhard Peters, Habermas argues that the concept itself refers neitherpurelyto the functions nor to the content of day-to-day communication, but much rather to thesocial spaceconstituted in communicative action (Habermas 1992: 436)[26]. In this sense, the public sphere is as much a social space as it “depicts a relationship between the speakers and the audience that is created by social actors experiencing the by-products of cooperation and the inclusion of affected parties” (Eriksen 2004).
The kind of communicative interactions that are viewed as constitutive of public spheres can take different forms. Most concretely, a public is constituted already through day-to-day public encounters between individuals, such as inHabermas’sexample of a coffeehouse situation: whenever private individuals come together in public to deliberate on shared concerns, they constitute an “episodic public” that is part of the wider communicative context of the public sphere(cf. Gerhards & Neidhardt 1991: 50f.). Beyond such concrete communicative interactions in the form of an episodic public, Habermas distinguishesorganized event publicssuch as larger-scale meetings, public debates, all forms of demonstrations, and so on. At the most abstract level, finally, the public sphere is constituted by the entirely abstract speaker-audience or author-reader relationships that are established through the mass media (Habermas 1992: chap. 8).
Habermas reminds us of the public sphere’s abstract spatial connotation by drawing our attention to the architectural metaphors through which we make sense of the concept: we speak of arenas, forums or stages even when referring to the public sphere in its more abstract forms (cf. Kantner 2004: 55). We view the public sphere as an onstage dialog between two or more speakers, taking place in front of an audience in some form of arena or forum, even if this dialog only takes place in the metaphorical arena of the mass media (Habermas 1992: 437).
In its conceptual history, the idea of the public sphere as an arena or forum comes from the ancient Greek understanding of theagora, the market square,as a site for deliberation on “res publica”, i.e. matters of public concern (cf. Arendt 1958/2002: chap. 2). Consequently, the spatial connotation of the public sphere is based foremost onHabermas’shistorical reconstruction of the emergence (and decline) of the ideal-typical bourgeois public sphere in the 18thand 19thcenturies (Habermas 1962/1990). AsHabermas’sreconstruction illustrates, the public sphere—as it emerged out of the public gatherings of private individuals to form literary and subsequentlypoliticalpublics—was constituted by face-to-face encounters between individuals gathering in an actual,concreteplace, i.e. in the literary salons of the time.
In modern, complex and large-scale societies, mediated public communication and abstract speaker-audience or author-reader relationships have come to be understood as virtually synonymous with the idea of the public sphere per se(Gerhards & Neidhardt 1991), foremost because communicative power in any meaningful sense can only be generated bysuchvirtually all-encompassing arenas.When we speak of the lack of a European public sphere, we therefore refer to the lack of ashared spacefor European-wide opinion formation rather than to the lack oftransnational (or national) publics articulating their views about European politics.[27]This further underlines the problem of separate communicative spaces: unlessmember state public spheresopen up to one another,they will fail to become arenas for European-level public opinion and will formation. As such, they will remain weak in generatingcommunicative powerto be used vis-à-vis the European institutions. The European public sphere deficitthereforeamounts primarily to acommunicative power deficit, resulting froma lack of mediated public communication about European-leveldecision making.
Preconditions for Transnational Debate:Two Clichés
But under which conditions is European-level public opinion and will formation possible?On this point, academic debates on the European public sphere deficit are characterized by two contending clichés, corresponding to two fundamentally contrasting views on the possibility of a European public sphere as well as more relevantly to two contending readings of democratic politics. According to the first cliché, a European public sphere is impossibleinter aliadue to the insurmountable barrier of language diversity in the EU. Europe is nocommunity of communication. Inasmuch as Europeans cannot speak to one another other than through the medium of a foreign language, “the most banal fact is at the same time the most elementary” (Kielmansegg 1996: 55; author’s translation): without a sharedlingua franca, there can be no communicative spacesharedby all Europeans that could serve as a public sphere in the EU. This,Kielmansegg argues, is “not a ‘technical’ problem because it has no ‘technical’ solution” (ibid.,author’s translation).[28]Beyond the language issue, this view is often connected to a communitarian-inspired emphasis on pre-political collective identities as preconditions for public spheres (Kantner 2004; Eriksen 2005).Settling normative disputes through reasoned consensus, in this view, is possible only to the extent thattruth-seeking (rather than merelycompromise-seeking) argumentation can appeal to an established pre-political, cultural background consensus, i.e. to an intersubjectively shared notion of the constitutive, fundamental values of a given community.
