Jürgen Habermas

Political Modernity

The project of modernity

• Against faith in the nation state• cosmopolitan solidarity as the fulfilment of the

“enlightenment project”• universalistic elements of right swamped by the

particularistic self-assertion of one nation against another

• but ‘best suited to the identity of world citizens, not to that of citizens of a particular state that has to maintain itself against other states’.

• cosmopolitanism as the logical culmination of the principles of right on which enlightenment was founded.

Political Modernity

Multi-layered global order– reformed basis of solidarity within the nation state– development of transnational forms of political

community such as the European Union – consolidation of international institutions, movements

and laws regulating relations between states and guaranteeing the rights and freedoms of global citizens.

– multi-layered order not only something desirable but actual development in the modern world

End of Nationalism

• ‘nationalism’ is regressive credo that unreflectively celebrates the history, destiny, culture or blood of a nation.

• historical strength of nationalist sentiment due to its capacity to bind individuals around shared symbols and ideologies

• formation of the modern nation state dependent on the development of a national consciousness

Death of Nationalism

• Some form of national consciousness required if citizens are to do what is required of them for the common good, e.g. maintenance of public services through taxation or acceptance of democratic decisions as legitimate.

• nationalism once provided valuable moral resources for anti-imperialist struggles or the building of welfare states but can no longer meet normative requirements of our age.

constitutional patriotism

• type of national consciousness appropriate to nation-states seeking to inspire rational loyalty on the part of their citizens.

• refers both to shared attachment towards universalistic principles and shard attachment towards particular national institutions.

• constitutional patriotism nurtures attachment to one’s own country and to humanity

• integrates pluralistic and multicultural national communities on a rational and lawful basis

• antidote to all forms of (ethnic) nationalism.

Constitutional patriotism

• reflective form of loyalty to the constitutional principles of the state

• relativises our own way of life• grants strangers the same rights as ourselves • enlarges tolerance and respect for others• recognises the necessity of nation-states but also the

heterogeneity of their populations• inclusive of all citizens regardless of race, colour, creed,

gender, language, religion or ethnicity • political community of equal rights-bearing individuals

united by a shared attachment to constitutional practices and values.

constitutional patriotism

• The key political struggle of our age is between those who believe that their nation should be based on universal constitutional principles and those who still base their nation on ethnic or other culturally specific membership.

Germany

• Germany appears as the exemplary nation since it has ‘learnt from history’ the dangers of nationalism and is ready to adopt a ‘postnational’ form of political community

turn to Europe

• transnational political community as functional equivalent or at least necessary supplement to the nation state in a postnational age

Turn to Europe

• transnational polities more capable than national governments of – constructing ‘life-world’ response to the

systemic forces of globalisation, – integrating ‘mixed’ populations with a self-

awareness of cultural diversity– overcoming the kind of nationalism that led to

two world wars and National Socialism – separating citizenship from the idea of the

Volk

Reconstructive approach to Europe

• European ‘shared values’, ‘form of life’, ‘model of society’, ‘civic tradition’, ‘particular ethos’ …

• Europe is ‘more than a market… it stands for a model of society that has grown historically’ (Habermas 2006a: 8-10).

• ‘post-traditional’ model of society • nothing to do with the Carolingian heritage of the

founding fathers of Europe with its explicit appeal to a Christian West

• acknowledges its own equivocal history and learns from experience

• Europe capable of ‘critical appropriation of ambiguous traditions’

Co-originality of Rights and Democracy

• constitutional patriotism has a rational content in part because it rests on the twin pillars of human rights and democratic participation

• attachment to political procedures that offer citizens the chance to be at the same time recipients and authors of the laws that govern them

Co-originality of rights and democracy

• Within nation-state co-originality is actualised by

• constitutional regulation of power• guarantee of basic rights• representative assembly• professional civil service• impartial judiciary • healthy civil society and public sphere.

co-originality of rights and democracy

• Can co-originality hold when we move from national to transnational frame of reference?

• charge that transnational institutions cannot replicate the democratic legitimacy possible at the national level

• transnational organisations said to exhibit “democratic deficit” and have little legitimacy in the eyes of citizens

Democratic Deficit

• Habermas accords a role not only to political participation but to ‘expectation of rationally acceptable results’

• complex view of democratic legitimacy • loosens conceptual ties between democratic

legitimacy and familiar forms of state organisation

• But dilemma: larger units of political decision-making required to control global economic forces are likely to have less democratic legitimacy

Cosmopolitan democracy

• create institutions that enable the voice of individuals to be heard in global affairs irrespective of their resonance at home

• reform of the UN, the WTO and other global bodies and a parallel series of democratic institutions including an assembly of representatives whom the people can elect through international political parties

Cosmopolitan democracy

• Habermas objects that the political constitution of a world society lacks the character of a political state and is wrong model for thinking about world order.

• ‘Any political community that wants to understand itself as a democracy must at least distinguish between members and non-members’

• Cosmopolitan democracy is too much like a world state

constitutionalisation of international law

• involvement of IL not only in conflicts between states but also in conflicts within states – in response to civil wars, the breakdown of government and major human rights abuses

• IL not only claims ‘soft’ influence over states to take human rights into account but demands compliance

• IL leaves no clear nucleus of sovereignty states can invoke • Dependence of IL on state consent diminished• IL increasingly authoritative (ius cogens) • Non-state actors (international courts and tribunals, transnational

executives, NGOs and MNCs) as major players in IL processes • IL has become the stuff of public debate since 1989

constitutionalisation of international law

• Good reasons for citizens to endorse the constitutional principles of IL

– foster human rights and protect welfare– enable co-operation and build up trust between peoples – protect minorities within states and curtail abuse of power by states– further rights of people to self-government and freedom from external domination– generalise norms of democratic legitimacy– compensate for deficits of national processes of decision making when they lead

to outcomes unacceptable from a global point of view– form world organisation with the power to impose peace and implement human

rights– look to the construction of international rule of law based on principles of equal

sovereignty, human rights and the authority of international law itself– include prohibitions on torture, genocide, crimes against humanity,

disappearances …

constitutionalisation of international law

• Good reasons for states to support CIL– it sets rules (regulation)– it reduces resistance (power)– it preserves order (stability)– it justifies power (legitimation)

Idealisation ?

• constitutionalisation of international law changes law from an instrument of power into ‘the crucible in which quasi-natural power relations could be dissolved’ (Habermas 2006: 149).

Habermas: representation of the cosmopolitan condition

– transition from classical IL to cosmopolitan law, i.e. from IL based on the sovereignty of states to cosmopolitan law based on rights of citizens

– image of a wholly legalised international order to come

– main problem of present is restricted reach of global remedies: the ICJ lacks compulsory jurisdiction, the ICC lacks a definition for the crime of aggression, the Security Council is legally unrestrained, UN lacks its own army and legal mechanisms for deciding when to use it

– When these restrictions are overcome, law will be able to control politics ??

Humanitarian Military Intervention

• Kosovo war: ‘confronted with crimes against humanity, the international community must be able to act even with military force, if all other options are exhausted’

• Iraq war: ‘if the regime of international law fails, then the hegemonic imposition of a global liberal order is justified, even by means that are hostile to international law’