Das Recht zu reden: Eine sozialethische Theorie über die Präsenz von religiösen Minderheiten im öffentlichen Diskurs

2006 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-253
Author(s):  
Christoph Jedan
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Specific Group ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Stability ◽  
General Demand

How can the marginalisation of religious minorities be prevented and their presence in the public sphere enhanced? The first part of this article argues that the general demand of specific group rights for marginalised groups is self-contradictory and that it does not give sufficient attention to the specific problems of religious minorities. The older, liberal demand of protecting the rights of individuals remains the best answer. The second part of this article analyses Rawls’ political liberalism as a contribution to the debate on the role of religious minorities. The third part states that a wider view than Rawls’ ‘wide view of public reason’ is needed to adequately balance the legitimate demand of religious minorities to be present in the public debate and concerns about the stability of a deliberative democracy.

scholarly journals In Defense of Moderate Inclusivism: Revisiting Rawls and Habermas on Religion in the Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Jonas Jakobsen ◽  
Kjersti Fjørtoft
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Reasons ◽  
Do So

The paper discusses Rawls’ and Habermas’ theories of deliberative democracy, focusing on the question of religious reasons in political discourse. Whereas Rawls as well as Habermas defend a fully inclusivist position on the use of religious reasons in the ‘background culture’ (Rawls) or ‘informal public sphere’ (Habermas), we defend a moderately inclusivist position. Moderate inclusivism welcomes religiously inspired contributions to public debate, but it also makes normative demands on public argumentation beyond the ‘public forum’ (Rawls) or ‘formal public sphere’ (Habermas). In particular, moderate inclusivism implies what we call a ‘conversational translation proviso’ according to which citizens have a duty to supplement religious with proper political arguments if – but only if – they are asked to do so by their co-discussants. This position, we argue, is more in line with the deeper intuitions behind Rawls’ political liberalism and Habermas’ deliberative model than is the fully inclusivist alternative. Keywords: conversational translation proviso, deliberative democracy, ethics of citizenship, Habermas, moderate inclusivism, public reason, Rawls

Political Liberalism, Deliberative Democracy, and the Public Sphere

1998 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Charney
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Associational Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Liberal Conception ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Domain I

Theorists of democracy emphasize the importance of a public sphere, distinct from the apparatus of the state, where citizens can freely associate, deliberate, and engage in collective will formation. Discourse ethicists and deliberative democrats locate the public sphere within civil society and the manifold associations that comprise it. For Seyla Benhabib, the public sphere is constituted by the anonymous “public conversation” of civil society. By contrast, John Rawls has a much more limited conception of the public sphere. For Rawls, public reason, which establishes norms for democratic discourse, applies to a limited domain. I defend Rawls's view against the charge that it depends upon an untenable distinction between the public and nonpublic spheres. I argue that Rawls's more limited “liberal” conception better guarantees the heterogeneity of associational life in civil society. I then argue that Rawls violates his own principles by partially collapsing the public-nonpublic distinction with potentially illiberal consequences.

scholarly journals Post-Sekularisme, Demokrasi, dan Peran Publik Agama

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Petrus Tan
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Role ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Relationship

<p><em>This article tries to elaborate the relationship between post-secularism, democracy and the public role of religion. The facts of religion’s global revival show the failure of secularization thesis about the disappearance of religion from the public sphere. In political philosophy and social sciences, this phenomenon is called post-secularism. In this article, post-secularism is understood as a phenomenon of religion’s revival in the public sphere or the legitimacy for public role of religion. This understanding is especially necessary  to encourage religion in addressing political, social and humanitarian issues. However, this understanding does not ignore the fact that religion often becomes a scandal and terror for democracy. Therefore, in this article, post-secularism also needs another understanding, namely as "awareness of a reciprocal learning process" between religion and secularity, religious and secular citizens, faith and reason, religious doctrine and public reason. The last model of post-secularism is urgently needed in Indonesia.</em><strong><em></em></strong></p><p><strong><em>Key words</em></strong><em>: Post-secularism, secularization, religion, democracy.</em></p>

Divine Democracy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Vatter
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Carl Schmitt ◽  
Jacques Maritain ◽  
The Public ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Theological Foundations ◽  
The Public Sphere

The ‘return of religion’ in the public sphere and the emergence of postsecular societies have propelled the discourse of political theology into the centre of contemporary democratic theory. This situation calls forth the question addressed in this book: Is a democratic political theology possible? Carl Schmitt first developed the idea of the Christian theological foundations of modern legal and political concepts in order to criticize the secular basis of liberal democracy. He employed political theology to argue for the continued legitimacy of the absolute sovereignty of the state against the claims raised by pluralist and globalized civil society. This book shows how, after Schmitt, some of the main political theorists of the 20th century, from Jacques Maritain to Jürgen Habermas, sought to establish an affirmative connection between Christian political theology, popular sovereignty, and the legitimacy of democratic government. In so doing, the political representation of God in the world was no longer placed in the hands of hierarchical and sovereign lieutenants (Church, Empire, Nation), but in a series of democratic institutions, practices and conceptions like direct representation, constitutionalism, universal human rights, and public reason that reject the primacy of sovereignty.

Tolerance and Accommodation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori G. Beaman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Religious Diversity ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter problematizes the notions and language of tolerance and accommodation in relation to religious diversity, and traces their genealogy both as legal solutions and as discursive frameworks within which religious diversity is increasingly understood in the public sphere. The problem they pose is that they create a hierarchy of privilege that preserves hegemonic power relations by religious majorities over religious minorities. Tolerance in this context might be imagined as the broadly stated value that we must deal with diversity and those who are different from us by tolerating them. Accommodation might be seen as the implementation of this value—that in order to demonstrate our commitment to tolerance we must accommodate the ‘demands’ of minority groups and those individuals who position themselves or align themselves with minorities.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa: Thoughts on its 25-Year-Long Legacy of Judicial Activism

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-33
Author(s):  
Lucky Mathebe
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Crime And Punishment ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Marginalised Groups

After almost 25 years of what could justifiably be called transformative change in South Africa, a truism is that the country’s new legal order, established by the Constitution in 1993 and 1996, provides the critical foundation of peace and security upon which its freedom has been built. The Constitutional Court was one of the most important of the new democratic institutions in the shaping of the country’s position as a constitutional democracy, upholding the values for which millions of people, black and white, had fought. This article is a brief reflection on the role of the Court in establishing the meaning of this democracy and giving it effect. The main goal of the article is to understand how the Court’s new jurisprudence works in particular contexts, how its work is related to crime and punishment, and what it means for the rights of marginalised groups in society. Using the examples of the Court’s decision in Makwanyane on the death penalty, and the Court’s decision on the findings of the Public Protector’s report on Nkandla, the article finds that the Court’s new jurisprudence takes quite a different view of legal developments in South Africa, insofar as the jurisprudence entrusts broad discretion to the Court and emphasises the need for sustained leadership of the Court to advance the battle for fundamental human rights, the rule of law, and democratic accountability.

scholarly journals The Clash of Cultures of Radical Enlightenment and Humanism Open to Transcendence. The Perspective of Pope Benedict XVI

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 460
Author(s):  
Janusz Węgrzecki
Keyword(s):  
Positive Answer ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Pope Benedict Xvi ◽  
Benedict Xvi ◽  
Radical Enlightenment ◽  
Clash Of Cultures ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Role Of Religion

The article analyzes the content of the Pope’s speeches discussing, reconstructing and interpreting the concept of two dominant western cultures and their mutual relationships to the perspective of Pope Benedict XVI, who calls them the culture of radical enlightenment and the culture of humanism that is open to transcendence. The article identifies fundamental contentious issues including: anthropological issues, human dignity, political anthropology, freedom, reason, its rationality, and the role of religion in the public sphere. Thus, the article provides a positive answer to the question of whether the perspective of the clash of cultures outlined by Samuel Huntington can be cognitively used in interpreting the contrast of cultures presented from the perspective of Pope Benedict XVI. However, contrary to Huntington, who describes the clash of western cultures with other, non-western cultures, Pope Benedict XVI claims that there is a clash between two dominant western cultures.

The gender dimension of the 2020 Belarusian protest: Does female engagement contribute to the establishment of gender equality?

2021 ◽  
pp. 2336825X2110291
Author(s):  
Vasil Navumau ◽  
Olga Matveieva
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Depth Interviews

One of the distinctive traits of the Belarusian ‘revolution-in-the-making’, sparked by alleged falsifications during the presidential elections and brutal repressions of protest afterwards, has been a highly visible gender dimension. This article is devoted to the analysis of this gender-related consequences of protest activism in Belarus. Within this research, the authors analyse the role of the female movement in the Belarusian uprising and examine, and to which extent this involvement expands the public sphere and contributes to the changes in gender-related policies. To do this, the authors conducted seven semi-structured in-depth interviews with the gender experts and activists – four before and four after the protests.

scholarly journals Contested Numbers: Census Controversies and the Press in 1960s Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Gerardo Serra ◽  
Morten Jerven
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
The State ◽  
Population Census ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Press ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This article reconstructs the controversies following the release of the figures from Nigeria's 1963 population census. As the basis for the allocation of seats in the federal parliament and for the distribution of resources, the census is a valuable entry point into postcolonial Nigeria's political culture. After presenting an overview of how the Africanist literature has conceptualized the politics of population counting, the article analyses the role of the press in constructing the meaning and implications of the 1963 count. In contrast with the literature's emphasis on identification, categorization, and enumeration, our focus is on how the census results informed a broader range of visual and textual narratives. It is argued that analysing the multiple ways in which demographic sources shape debates about trust, identity, and the state in the public sphere results in a richer understanding of the politics of counting people and narrows the gap between demographic and cultural history.

scholarly journals Introduction: Publics and Participation in Early Modern Britain

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. M. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Modern Britain ◽  
Institutional Variation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Important Shift

AbstractThe deconstruction of what is termed “the public sphere” in recent decades has resulted in an important shift in scholarly attention towards networks and forms of association. This article explores how greater sensitivity to the unstable and ephemeral nature of “publics,” combined with a stronger awareness of the role of cultural exchange, has undoubtedly enriched our understanding of early modern politics. Some analytical precision has, nonetheless, been lost. A justifiable emphasis on the artificiality of the territorial borders that have defined units of enquiry has occurred at the expense of deeper consideration of the cultural boundaries that dictated the terms on which people could participate in and shape public discourse. Study of the British archipelago can offer new ways of thinking about these problems. Linguistic and ethnic differences, the search for religious concord as well as the reality of confessional division, institutional variation, and the consequences of London's increasing dominance of the archipelago, are key facets of the reassessments undertaken here. The article concludes by reflecting on how interactions between varieties of “public” and other forms of association can nuance our understanding of early modern state formation.

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