Abstract
There are at least two ways in which environmentalism can influence
democratic politics. The first and most prominent way is to take the
strong sense of purpose that guides the environmental movement and
attempt to participate in and disrupt current parliamentary
decision-making bodies. The second and largely obscured way is to focus
on the explicitly political content of the desire to represent nature in
public discourse and by doing so potentially add to the numerous
contemporary challenges to present day pseudo-democracy. Arguments in
this paper are in support of the second option. Specifically, it is
argued that the present tendency to turn to the political sphere as a
space or discourse of authority rather than a sphere of active
engagement amongst those committed to resisting the present reduction of
politics to administration is hindering the liberatory potential of
environmental politics. Furthermore, it is suggested that green
political thought's common partnership with deliberative approaches
to the present condition of plurality assists the movement side as
opposed to the political side of environmentalism. To offer an
alternative political avenue the approaches to politics articulated by
agonistic pluralists Chantal Mouffe and Hannah Arendt are explored and
supported as access points to environmental inclusion in political
communities committed to celebrating rather than dealing with present
conditions of plurality.
L'environnementalisme peut influencer les politiques
democratiques d'au moins deux facons. La premiere, et la plus
courante, est de se servir de l'importante motivation qui guide le
mouvement environnemental pour tenter de participer aux organisations
parlementaires decisionnelles, pour les desorganiser. La deuxieme, a peu
pres inconnue, est de mettre l'accent sur le contenu explicitement
politique du desir de representer la nature dans les discours publics
et, ce faisant, en multipliant possiblement les nombreux defis associes
a la pseudo-democratie actuelle. Cet article presente des arguments en
faveur de cette deuxieme facon. Plus precisement, on y soutient que la
tendance actuelle de se toumer vers la sphere politique en tant que lieu
au discours d'autorite au lieu de se tourner vers la sphere de
l'engagement actif de ceux qui s'obstinent a resister a la
presente limitation de la politique a de l'administration limite le
potentiel liberateur des politiques environnementales. De plus, il est
suggere que l' association de la pensee politique verte et des
approches deliberantes dans les conditions actuelles de pluralite aide
le mouvement, contrairement a l'aspect politique de
l'environnementalisme. Afin d'offrir une alternative
politique, les approaches politiques articulees par les pluralistes
agonistiques Chantal Mouffe et Hannah Arendt sont explorees et soutenues
en tant que points d'acces a l'inclusion environnementale dans
les communautes politiques qui celebrent l'etat actuel de pluralite
au lieu de le combattre.
Key Words:
Environmentalism, movement, politics, agonism, radical democracy
If the word of god can no longer be heard, we can start giving our
voices a new dignity. If our actions no longer have to be justified
before a tribunal external to ourselves -- history, Doctrine, the party
-- we can begin to come to terms with the limitations from which we
think and act, and even respect our mistakes (Laclau 1990: xvi).
We do not boast that we possess absolute truth; on the contrary, we
believe that social truth is not a fixed quality, good for all times,
universally applicable or determinable in advance...Our solutions always
leave the door open to different and, one hopes better solutions
(Malatesta 1965 [1921]: 269).
In a recent article in the journal Environmental Politics, Douglas
Torgerson (2000) argues that one of the biggest problems with green
political thought is that while the language of politics is consistently
used it is rarely, if ever, defined. The result is an unfortunate
reduction of intrinsically valuable politics to instrumentally necessary
movements. The former is oriented toward becoming a part of the
democratic forces of freedom and equality or what Hannah Arendt (1963:
1) has called the most ancient cause of all, "the one, in fact that
from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of
politics, the causes of freedom versus tyranny." This
non-instrumental aspect of green political thought relies on
conversation and debate within what Torgerson (1999: 129) has called the
green public spheres where "the very process takes on value for
those who participate in it." Within these sphere(s) of discourse
green political theorists begin to realise their own particularity in
relation to oth er green theorists, and if opened to a wider audience,
their own particularity in relation to broader democratic goals of
increased freedom and equality. The purpose of this discursive sphere is
not to achieve a desired end point but to understand others'
positions and engage in creative conversation with those others.
"The promise" of this type of intrinsically valuable politics,
Torgerson (1999: 130) explains, "gains credibility as a historical
possibility for the simple reason that a discourse has emerged, making
it possible to formulate and discuss ideas that industrial discourse
formerly excluded or marginalized." The latter is necessarily
concerned with achieving desired ends, be they the creation of the
conditions for harmonious relationships with non-human nature, or less
lofty desires for access to decision-making bodies in order to ensure
concerns for the non-human are taken into account by those authorised to
directly influence or make policy. These end-focused approaches rely on
knowledge usually pre-constituted in places free from public debate or
interaction with others who can challenge the singularity and inevitable
limitation of the knowledge generation. The substantive, instrumental,
and end focused environmental movement -- regardless of its apparent
benign purposes -- tends to justify its actions through reliance on
knowledge emerging from a perverted version of a green public sphere.
The claim that substantive end-focused goals of green political
theorists have outweighed less urgent and immaterial arguments
surrounding a "rethinking of political action," is not
controversial, and should come as no surprise.
In the face of very real threats to ecological well-being, it seems
irrational or irresponsible not to push for a more ecologically benign
society (Carter 1993) by any means available. In fact, it appears, as
Michael Saward (1993: 65) points out, that "our choice is no choice
-- survival or self-administered destruction." The real significant
point in Torgerson's (2000: 1) argument lies in his recognition
that even with the focus on purposeful movements there is a challenge
to, and rethinking of, political action "already present in green
politics." By recognising this, he is able to convincingly argue
that without allowing the political side of environmentalism to appear
and act within green political discourse, an endorsement of the
environmental position (1) can easily lead to the endorsement of a new
fundamentalism. This partnership eliminates the opportunity for
participation in the "forces of freedom" replacing discussion
and debate with the need for well administered and managed individuals,
groups and societies. Without space for critical engagement and
interaction amongst environmentally, and, more broadly, democratically
concerned citizens, there appears to be little chance of resisting the
inevitable move towards greater dependence on the new elites and new
authoritative languages needed to legitimise green positions in elite
decision-making and managerial bodies.
As the critique of political action is already present, the
blurring of these two distinct aspects of green political thought --
politics and movement -- has consequences well beyond the boundaries of
environmentalism. (2) The costs are also of a democratic nature as
general challenges to present day politics, which are implicit in
environmental discourse, are replaced with strong directional strategies
that call for "extended management, but disregard[s] intelligent
self-limitation" (Sachs 1999: 67). These strategies either bypass
political critiques or replace democratic ideals of freedom and equality
with disciplinary requirements necessary for the realisation of end
desires for harmonious relations between humans and non-humans. These
two options have always guided the reform/revolution, shallow/deep,
environmentalism/ecology debates and unfortunately still haunt present
day environmental politics.
Before the threat of this reduction can be fully recognised and/or
accepted by those participating in green politics, it is essential to
offer a clear definition of what a substantial commitment to democracy
requires and consequently what a commitment to democratic politics means
for those concerned with "green" issues.
So the question to be asked of those who wish to be democratic
environmentalists is: What makes a healthy democracy? For a good answer
to the question we can turn to democratic historian Anthony Arblaster.
He argues:
Democracy is likely to remain not only a contestable concept, but
also a 'critical' concept: that is a norm or ideal by which
reality is tested and found wanting. There will always be some further
extension or growth of democracy to be undertaken. That is not to say
that a perfect democracy is in the end attainable, any more than is
perfect freedom or perfect justice. It is rather that the idea and ideal
is always likely to function as a corrective to complacency rather than
a prop to it (Arblaster 1987: 6).
This way of approaching democracy, if read carefully, clarifies
that a healthy democracy requires spaces of disturbance, destruction and
creation all of which -- according to Torgerson -- may well be latent
within green political thought. It also implies that democracy is not
about managing and dealing with complexities or pluralities but about
nurturing, adding to, and celebrating them. Thus if green political
thought wishes to become a part of the democratic "forces of
freedom," it must unleash, and focus on, the 'critical'
nature of the arguments already present in green political thought.
Stated slightly differently, if those committed to improving the
relation between humans and non-humans are also committed to a free and
equal democratic society they must acknowledge the radically democratic
and political challenge of their arguments. They must also be very
careful not to end up either adding legitimacy to present
pseudo-democracy or replacing the empty space of power (necessary for
the continuation of democracy) with a new ecological meta-narrative that
citizens must adapt to.
I am most concerned with revitalising the under-theorised, yet
crucial, political aspects, and democratic potentials of green political
thought. Therefore this paper focuses on the agonistic approaches to
politics offered by Hannah Arendt and Chantal Mouffe. I believe the
approach to politics articulated by these two theorists offers the best
arguments in defence of politics -- not as a means to an end, but as an
intrinsically valuable end in its self. What makes the agonistic
approach so noteworthy is that all those who support it "take
pluralism seriously" (Mouffe 2000: 98). By doing so they also take
democracy seriously and recognise that democracy is always something to
come and is therefore a good that exists only "as long as it cannot
be reached" as "perfect democracy would indeed destroy
itself" (Mouffe 2000: 137). What this implies is that the
democratic ideals of individual freedom and collective equality create a
paradox whereby the full realisation of either necessarily means the
destruction of the other. There is never an acceptable/permanent balance
between freedom and equality therefore there is never an acceptable
democracy. For agonistic democrats democracy is active and the action
that makes up the political public realm will always concern the field
of power created around the tension filled and never resolvable struggle
between opposing yet constituting struggles between freedom and
equality.
While Arendt and Mouffe are not without differences and
disagreements concerning how to practice within this field of power they
share an allegiance to the intrinsic value of politics and the
irreducible need for diversity and antagonism. A particularly
significant difference lies in Mouffe's support for liberal
democracy. As she argues in her early work with Ernesto Laclau the task
of the left is not to "renounce liberal democratic ideology but on
the contrary, to deepen and expand it in the direction of a radical and
pluralist democracy" (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 176). Arendt, of
course, was a staunch critic of liberalism and saw the rise of
liberalism as the cause of the rise of mass society and mass democracy
as well as the rise of the social -- all of which she believed colonised
the political sphere and drained it of its characteristics as free,
creative and plural.
For the purpose of the arguments in this paper, however, their
similarities are more relevant than their differences. In particular,
their similarities in relation to plurality, freedom and creativity
distinguish these two agonistic theorists from the more common and
dominant deliberative approach to politics. The relevance of this
distinction will be explained shortly. In essence, the argument is that
the deliberative approach, with its focus on achieving rational and
legitimate consensus, offers access to the environmental movement but
denies access to the more substantive critiques of politics that are
found within the non-instrumentalist side of green political thought.
Understanding Politics and its Liberatory Potential
What is called for; it might be argued is an enlightened suspicion
of enlightenment, a reasoned critique of Western rationalism, a careful
reckoning of the profits and losses entailed by "progress."
Today, once again, reason can be defended only by way of a critique of
reason (McCarthy in Habermas 1984: viii).
Politics and democracy need to be defined not in order to give true
or historically accurate definitions that would necessarily be accepted
by all those concerned with revitalising the political side of green
political thought. Rather, clarification is needed to give some sense of
why it is necessary to differentiate between what democratic politics is
and what democracy and politics can or ought to be. Thus, in this
section I support and offer particular definitions of politics that are
informed by a strong commitment to plurality, anti-authoritarian action,
and radically democratic desires.
However, before I continue, it is necessary to point out that I do
not intend to make light of the relevance or need for the movement side
of environmentalism. Furthermore, while I certainly find dangerous
similarities in the increased focus on democratising environmental
management and the reduction of politics to decision-making, I do not
mean to suggest that improvement in control, careful use and coping --
as alternative approaches to management (see Bavington, this volume,
Hudson, this volume) -- may not be important. Rather, my intention is to
rescue environmental politics in particular, and liberatory politics in
general, from a tendency in both green political thought and radical
democratic theory to reduce the wonderful tension in the un-decidable
terrain of pluralist society to a problem to be dealt with, put aside
and/or legislated. (3) While I strongly support the expansion of the
political and the need to subject many more realms of society to the
gaze of politics, the focus here is on explaining what makes politics
distinct. My intention is to separate politics from end-focussed
movements, participatory approaches to management and green goals for
harmonious relations between humans and non-humans.
The Arendtian Promise
Torgerson addresses the question of how to revitalise the political
side of green politics with reference to Hannah Arendt's work. As
he notes, her work has been described by Dana Villa as representative of
"the most radical rethinking of political action in the twentieth
century" (2000: 2). Although I do not think Torgerson allows the
full potential of an Arendtian approach to politics to emerge (5) I
share his desire to stimulate conversation between green politics and
Arendtian approaches to politics. In particular, I find Arendt's
portrayal of the content of political life one of the most wonderful and
articulate defences ever made. She argues that political life consists
of:
the joy and the gratification that arise out of being in company
with our peers, out of acting together and appearing in public, out of
inserting ourselves into the world by word and deed, thus acquiring and
sustaining our personal identity and beginning something entirely new
(Arendt 1968: 263).
She also recognises, however, that as wonderful as political life
is it has its limitations and should not be asked to accomplish more
than it is capable of. As she explains, "it is only by respecting
its own borders that this realm, where we are free to act and to change,
can remain intact, preserving its integrity and keeping its
promises" (1968: 264). This latter point is often forgotten but is
essential for understanding both the limitations and potentials of a
commitment to Arendtian politics. Vitally, the political performance
that occurs within political acts and deeds is to be "judged only
by the criterion of greatness because it is in [political action's]
nature to break through the commonly accepted and reach into the
extraordinary, where whatever is true in common and everyday life no
longer applies because everything that exists is unique and sui
generic" (Arendt 1958: 184).
This does not mean that concerns for the well being of non-human
nature can have no place in political discourse -- although Arendt may
have argued so. It means that if green issues are to be a part of
political discourse, they must emerge from the public realm of opinion
rather than the closed realms of science or private knowledge
construction; they must be subject to a plurality of voices, none of
which are essentially green, and none of which permanently place green
issues above other equally relevant concerns. Furthermore, s/he who
introduces concerns for green issues -- if they are not to trump the
opinion-formation of the acts and deeds of political discourse -- must
actively listen to the voices and concerns of others in order to allow
the public sphere to give rise to the unexpected. It is arguable that it
is only by participating in such freedom focused and antiauthoritarian
spheres that the inevitable limitation and particularity of
environmental positions can be recognised and allowed to emerge as part
of broader democratic initiatives and actions. But first they must
accept that the political performances that initiate political
interaction can have no necessary or intended purpose beyond the joy
that is gained by being free (6) to discuss, listen to, debate and
interact with others so the green issue must emerge out of the pubic
sphere.
No doubt such a non-instrumental and informal view of politics will
be viewed with great scepticism by those concerned with the numerous
very real threats facing present day liberal democracies. Nonetheless,
even sceptics must accept that "valuing political action for its
own sake at least defends against modernity's anti-political
tendencies" (Torgerson 2000: 12). Likewise, it suggests that the
wonderful conversations and debates that consistently go on between
concerned individuals do have democratic value and should be recognised
as important contributions to any democratic society. (7)
However, as necessary as it is to understand the relevance of the
a-typical and radical approach to politics offered by Arendt, the most
important point, especially concerning green political thought, is her
recognition of the limitation of politics. Arendt's arguments in
defence of political purity do not suggest that there is no role for
movements -- only that those involved in end-focused movements, who turn
to the political sphere for legitimacy or authority, miss the
specificity of the political realm and thus ask more from politics than
it is capable of offering. (8) By doing so they threaten to replace
"the freedom of the political realm [that] begins once necessities
are dealt with" (Arendt 1968: 118), with issues that require
immediate attention. Rather than being discussed, such issues must be
solved immediately. They subsequently compromise the political process -
a concern that Habermas also acknowledges.
The extent of the threat becomes most clear when we consider that
for Arendt:
without action to bring into the play of the world the new
beginning of which each man [sic] is capable by virtue of being born,
"there is no new thing under the sun"; without speech to
materialize and memorialize, however tentatively, the "new
things" that appear and shine forth, "there is no
remembrance"; without the enduring permanence of a human artefact,
there cannot "be any remembrance of things that are to come with
those that shall come after" (Arendt 1958: 183).
It is thus not so much that Arendt was not interested in necessary
issues -- only that she felt they were administrative tasks rather than
political ones and that the way to approach political tasks and
administrative tasks are distinctly different. For Arendt, politics must
not be seen as a necessary burden or duty to be grudgingly accepted, nor
can it be allowed to become a tool used to achieve substantive ends or
solve immediate concerns. An Arendtian approach to politics, therefore,
requires maintaining a strong distinction between joyous environmental
politics and necessary environmental movements.
As much as this argument in defence of a pure political sphere has
led to numerous critiques (e.g. Pitkin 1981, Benhabib 1992, Sandilands
1999) it is an argument -- with a few significant variations -- shared
by many political theorists, including both Chantal Mouffe and Jurgen
Habermas.
Mouffe's Possible Impact
For Mouffe, political discourse must not be subject to any undue
constraints such as a desire for a final resolution or the
prioritisation of any particular type of language. "The aim of
democratic politics," she argues, "should be to provide the
framework through which conflicts can take the form of an agonistic
confrontation among adversaries instead of manifesting themselves as an
antagonistic struggle between enemies" (2000:134). This framework
requires respecting the concerns of others and translating an
'other' from an enemy-to-destroy into a worthy adversary to
listen to, learn from and debate with. The desire of the interaction has
nothing to do with the conclusion but is rather focused on the tension
and the constitutive nature of that tension which is never absent from
social relations in a pluralist society.
"Taking pluralism seriously," explains Mouffe (2000: 98),
"requires that we give up the dream of a rational consensus which
entails the fantasy that we could escape from our human form of
life." Not only should we not try to reduce plurality, but we
should also recognise the fact that democracy requires plurality. Like
Arendt, Mouffe celebrates pluralism and offers a radically democratic
strategy that opens up the potential for representations of nature to
participate in and disturb political discourse that does not require a
permanent reduction of nature's wildness. The focus on permanence
is key, for as Arendt (1958: 11) rightly points out "whatever
touches or enters into a sustained relationship with human life
immediately assumes the character of a condition of human
existence." This is why representations of nature need to be
accepted as temporary and limited actions, and should, whenever
possible, enter human discursive spaces from political spheres organised
around the democratic ideals of freedom and equality.
Mouffe along with her colleague Ernesto Laclau clarify why this is
so important in their argument that:
The idea of nature is not something that is already there, to be
read from appearances of things, but is itself the result of a slow
complex historical and social construction...the fact of its being a
stone depends on a way of classifying objects that is historical and
contingent. If there were no human beings on earth, those objects that
we call stones would be there nonetheless; but they would not be
'stones', because there would be neither mineralogy nor a
language capable of classifying them and distinguishing them from other
objects (Laclau and Mouffe in Laclau 1990: 102).
Mouffe made clear her anti-essentialist and non-fixed positions
early in the development of her political theory (Laclau and Mouffe
1985). She continues to argue that plurality, discourse and political
interaction create and add to the numerous subject positions that
constitute a never complete individual. This makes any essentialist and
permanently fixed position a fallacy at best and a political imposition
at worst.
Mouffe's (1999: 754) distinction between politics and the
political offers a useful way of understanding the relevance of a
non-fixed and anti-essential point and the need to recognise and nurture
the irreducible nature of pluralism and antagonism. It shows the always
incomplete nature of democratic engagement and thus the inability to
reach decisions that can be acceptable to all those affected. She
argues:
By "the political" I refer to the dimension of antagonism
that is inherent in all human society, antagonism that can take many
different forms and can emerge in diverse social relations.
"Politics" on the other hand, refers to practices, discourses
and institutions that seek to establish a certain order and to organise
human coexistence in conditions that are always potentially con flictual
because they are affected by the dimension of "the
political"(Mouffe 1999: 754).
She continues: "it is only when we acknowledge this dimension
of the political and understand that politics consists in domesticating
hostility, only in trying to defuse the potential antagonism that exists
in human relations, that we can pose the fundamental question for
democratic politics" (Mouffe 1999: 754). The question, she argues,
is not how to arrive at an inclusive rational consensus as the
deliberative democrats' attempt. Such an ideal is impossible and
can only lead to exclusions that are practically evident, yet
theoretically obscured, within the abstract idealism of any such
conclusion-focused theory. The question is, rather, how to create never
entirely achievable "unity in a context of conflict and
diversity" (1999: 754).
Conflict is obviously much more a focus for Mouffe than Arendt. For
Mouffe, the inevitable instigation of political conflict, if it is to
become agonistic rather than violent, requires politics to order those
antagonisms. That ordering happens almost spontaneously when people
gather together -- neither with, nor against each other -- for the
purpose of understanding and enjoying each others company. The same
ordering is just as naturally ignored when individuals with fixed and
essential positions enter into oppositional debate in order to achieve
ends that mean one side of the argument wins and the other looses.
The inability to recognise this political condition Mouffe (2000:
96) believes, has led to people "increasingly searching for other
forms of collective identification, which can very often put into
jeopardy the civic bond that should unite a democratic political
association." The threat of this sort of identification is not lost
on the environmental community, which has tended to operate free from
other groups and individuals similarly resisting un-just relations of
domination. Thus, it is in considering this question and accepting that
"[w]e can never be completely satisfied that we have made good
choices since a decision in favour of some altemative is always at the
detriment of another one" (Mouffe 2000:135) that green political
theorists must engage if they are willing to accept the arguments
articulated by agonistic pluralists. It is also in light of this
question that environmentalists can support Torgerson's claim that
politics and movements must be distinguished and that Habermas's
deliberative democr atic approach fails to allow the democratic
potential of the present condition of plurality to emerge.
The Habermasian Persuasion
I have alluded throughout this paper to an enticing dealing with
tendency within democratic theory that offers green political theorists
access to political discussion without having to accept the required
separation from truth and trump status. Commonly referred to as
deliberative democracy, this approach to the contemporary condition of
fragmentation, particularity, and a general mistrust in meta-narratives,
emerged from the recognition that traditional and present day democracy
cannot deliver on its promises of collective equality, individual
freedom or inclusive participation. While this belief in the failure of
present day democracy is shared with Arendt's and Mouffe's
agonistic approach, the reaction to liberalism's failure to come
through on its promise of collective equality and individual liberty is
distinctly dissimilar. Briefly, Habermas has struggled throughout his
career to uncover and hold onto both the epistemological
(rationalist/universalist) and political (liberal democratic) aspects of
the modernist project.
His particular concern is with ensuring inclusivity and reasoned
discourse that will allow the political public sphere to reach rational
consensus on issues of public import. While aware that the ideal speech
situation required for such a result is not entirely realisable, he and
other deliberative democrats, nevertheless continue to support the
attempt to achieve ideal speech acts as a "good enough"
regulative ideal. Habermas explains:
Once participants enter into argumentation, they cannot avoid
supposing, in a reciprocal way, that the conditions for an ideal speech
situation have been sufficiently met. And yet they realise that their
discourse is never definitively 'purified' of the motives and
compulsions that have been filtered out. As little as we can do without
the supposition of a purified discourse, we have equally to make do with
'unpurified' discourse (Habermas 1990: 323). (9)
Thus Habermas's (1996a: 24) primary goal is the creation and
institutionalisation of legitimate procedures that allow for the
unforced force of the better argument to emerge from open un-coerced
discourse amongst publicly interested citizens.
To achieve this, Habermas takes the wildness, unpredictability and
plurality of the informal or weak public sphere and suggests that if the
latter is organised around guidelines that leave it free from the need
to make decisions, the weak public sphere can achieve the sort of
un-coerced interaction that can reach public opinion.
This creative task, he correctly sees, is beyond the capability of
the decision-making bodies of the parliament or the formal apparatus of
the state. Yet what he fails to see due to his desire to achieve
rational consensus is that this sphere has potential well beyond the
creation of public opinion and the legitimation of liberal democracy. In
fact, the radically democratic and explicitly political potential of the
weak public sphere lies not in its legitimising but in its
de-legitimising potential, a latent potential clearly present in any
public sphere filled with diversity, antagonism, freedom, and creative
politics. This myopia is remarkably similar to the failure within green
political thought to adequately theorise the political potential of the
democratically 'disturbing' arguments. Similar to green
politics the absence has hindered the weak public sphere potential to
become a contributor to the forces of freedom.
This limitation becomes most apparent when we look at the two ways
one is to participate in Habermas's weak public sphere. The first
is through the signal function, which "acts as a warning system
with sensors that though unspecialised, are sensitive throughout
society" (1996b: 359). The role of the participant here is to
communicate or uncover problems that can then be "processed by the
political system." The other prescribed role of the weak public
sphere is the job of "effective problematisation" of the
signalled issues. The amateur participant is to "convincingly and
influentially thematise" issues of public import by
"fumish[ing] them with possible solutions, and dramatis[ing] them
in such a way that they are taken up and dealt with by parliamentary
complexes" (Habermas 1996b: 359).
Both of these tasks remain oriented toward influencing the state
and are intended to filter out those arguments that will not fit within
the constraints of the strong public sphere. The latter is
"arranged" prior to the need to decide and has particular
rules that are to be followed for "justifying the selection of a
problem and the choice among competing proposals for solving it."
The structures are organised around the "cooperative solution of
practical questions, including the negotiation of fair
compromises." As such their role has "less to do with becoming
sensitive to new ways of looking at problems than with justifying the
selection of a problem and the choice among competing proposals for
solving it" (Habermas 1996b: 307).
The parliamentary/strong public sphere is to react to the public
opinion developed out of the weak public sphere by convincing the
administrative sphere to institutionalise final decisions. It is clear
that Habermas's unquestioned assumption is that the goal of
political action is rational consensus that can be legislated by
unquestioned parliamentary bodies. In fact, Habermas (1984: 19) believes
"no one would enter into moral argumentation if he did not start
from the strong presupposition that grounded consensus could in
principle be achieved," and then institutionalised through
parliamentary procedures. So for Habermas "a public sphere of
rational debate [is] the only possible foundation for democratic
politics in the contemporary world" (Kulynych 1997: 320).
Crucially, at least for the purpose of this paper, even in its
creative or weak stage, the public sphere is a purposeful and useful
tool that -- if organised rationally -- can best deal with the problem
of plurality. Unlike Mouffe and Arendt, Habermas does not see plurality
as a constitutive and irreducible aspect of radical democracy. Due to
this Mouffe (2000: 99) believes the deliberative approach misses the
specificity of the political since it is "unable to acknowledge the
dimension of antagonism that the pluralism of values entails and its
ineradicable character." Rather Habermas sees democratic procedures
organised around achieving legitimate decisions acceptable to all those
affected by the outcome as a way of gradually eliminating unnecessary
tensions.
It is obvious how appealing such an approach would be to
environmentalists convinced of the unquestionable legitimacy of their
argument. The predetermined and rational environmental positions could
be represented and, if done so adequately, would inevitably lead to
decisions in favour of nature. The unforced force of the better argument
that emerges from an ideal speech situation would surely lead to
environmentally acceptable outcomes. Habermas's theory is useful
for resituating politics in informal/weak public spheres or lifeworlds
that are made up of "open and inclusive network[s] of overlapping,
subcultural publics having fluid temporal, social and substantive
boundaries" (1 996b: 307). However, his theory reduces the
liberatory potential of weak/informal public spheres to mere means to
future ends. The result is an inevitable addition to the legitimacy of
liberal democratic systems of command (rulers) and control (ruled). The
political challenge necessary for an active and healthy democracy is
allowed sp ace, but is filtered out. It will not fit easily into
predetermined structures that require allegiance to, and thus no
challenges of, liberal democratic institutions. While Habermas rightly
views the wild public sphere as an "anarchic structure..
.vulnerable to the repressive and exclusionary effects of unequally
distributed social power, structural violence, and systematically
distorted communication" (1 996b: 308), he does not speculate how
this may be a real threat to present day liberal/managerial democracy.
(10)
Furthermore, like many movement-focused environmentalists who limit
their political activity to achieving environmental representation in
decision-making bodies, Habermas does not acknowledge the many ways that
the structures of the parliamentary/strong public spheres themselves
represent a type of structural violence that externalises the explicitly
political and disturbing potential of wild antagonism. (11)
There is a long history of environmentalism that suggests
participating in, and helping create, public opinion intended to
influence state actions and decisions, is not at all fruitful. Such
actions may succeed in bringing relations of domination and oppression
out of obscurity. However, they often end up reducing potentially
radical critiques of hierarchy, capitalism and statecraft down to
single-issue movements dealt with, by and through, those responsible for
the problem in the first place. Indeed the fact that "ecological
dislocations have their principle sources in social dislocations"
(Bookchin 1994: 3) is necessarily bracketed out by the sort of single
issue liberal politics that demands compromises and struggles for crumbs
within a political and economic system essentially unresponsive to
substantial demands.
My reason for including Habermasian politics is not to argue that
he is mistaken or misguided in his thoughts concerning the liberatory
potential of the weak public sphere. On the contrary, when politics and
movement are not recognised as distinct, and when rational consensus is
the desire for political involvement, there is a need to contain the
differences and tensions of pluralist society. There is no better
procedure for such containment than Habermas'
procedural-deliberative democracy. That is, Habermas's
procedural-deliberative democracy is probably the best filter to use in
order to attain the closest thing to rational consensus. Indeed when a
decision must be made, the constraints he puts on discourse are logical
and fair,