Transnationalizing the Public Sphere

A growing body of media-studies literature is documenting the existence of discursive arenas that overflow the bounds of both nations and states.

In that theory, a public sphere is conceived as a space for the communicative generation of public opinion, in ways that are supposed to assure (at least some degree of) moral-political validity.

Together, these two ideas­–the validity of public opinion and citizen empowerment vis-à-vis the state–are essential to the concept of the public sphere in democratic theory. Without them, the concept loses its critical force and its political point.

Nevertheless, we should not rush to jettison the notion of a "transnational public sphere." Such a notion is indispensable, I think, to those of us who aim to reconstruct democratic theory in the current "postnational constellation."

Let me begin by recalling some analytic features of public-sphere theory, drawn from the locus classicus of all discussions, Jürgen Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Habermas’s inquiry proceeded simultaneously on two levels: 1) the empirical-historical-institutional level and 2) the ideological-critical/ideal-normative level.  On both levels, the public sphere was conceptualized as coextensive with a sovereign territorial (nation-)state. 

Empirically, then, public sphere theory highlights historic processes, however incomplete, of democratization of the Westphalian-national state.

The Peace of Westphalia, also known as the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück, refers to the series of treaties that ended the Thirty Years' War and officially recognized the Dutch Republic and Swiss Confederation. The Spanish treaty which ended the Eighty Years War was signed on January 30, 1648. The treaty signed October 24, 1648 was between the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, the other German princes, representatives from the Dutch republic, France, and Sweden. The Treaty of the Pyrenees, signed in 1659, ending the war between France and Spain, is also often considered part of the treaty. It is often used by historians to mark the beginning of the modern era.

All parties would now recognize the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, by which each prince would have the right to determine the religion of his own state, the options being Lutheranism or Catholicism (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio).

It is often said that the Peace of Westphalia initiated modern diplomacy, as it marked the beginning of the modern system of nation-states (or "Westphalian states"). This interpretation comes from the treaty's role as the first acknowledgment of each country's sovereignty. Subsequent European wars were not about issues of religion, but rather revolved around issues of state. This allowed Catholic and Protestant powers to ally, leading to a number of major realignments. It also cemented Germany's internal divisions, preventing it from uniting into one nation-state. It is the Peace of Westphalia that is most often pointed to as the foundation for studying international relations.

That this Peace and Amity be observ’d and cultivated with such a Sincerity and Zeal, that each Party shall endeavour to procure the Benefit, Honour and Advantage of the other; that thus on all sides they may see this Peace and Friendship in the Roman Empire, and the Kingdom of France flourish, by entertaining a good and faithful Neighbourhood.

That there shall be on the one side and the other a perpetual Oblivion, Amnesty, or Pardon of all that has been committed since the beginning of these Troubles, in what place, or what manner soever the Hostilitys have been practis’d, in such a manner, that no body, under any pretext whatsoever, shall practice any Acts of Hostility, entertain any Enmity, or cause any Trouble to each other; neither as to Persons, Effects and Securitys, neither of themselves or by others, neither privately nor openly, neither directly nor indirectly, neither under the colour of Right, nor by the way of Deed, either within or without the extent of the Empire, notwithstanding all Covenants made before to the contrary: That they shall not act, or permit to be acted, any wrong or injury to any whatsoever; but that all that has pass’d on the one side, and the other, as well before as during the War, in Words, Writings, and Outrageous Actions, in Violences, Hostilitys, Damages and Expences, without any respect to Persons or Things, shall be entirely abolish’d in such a manner that all that might be demanded of, or pretended to, by each other on that behalf, shall be bury’d in eternal Oblivion.

Madness, Religion and the State in Early Modern Europe

A Bavarian Beacon

Series: New Studies in European History

David Lederer

In the late nineteenth century, spurred on by public curiosity, the theosophical movement and esotericism, liberal intellectuals conducted important historical studies of witchcraft, demon possession and exorcism. One scholar, Andrew D. White, an American diplomat and first president of Cornell, campaigned vehemently to limit sectarian influence at the fledgling university. He employed a historical argument to rail against religious interference in the sciences. White published his complaints in a blistering attack on the stifling influence of Christianity, disparaging spiritual physic as fetishism and a theological retardant to the evolution of medicine and psychiatry.⁴ White and other liberal cultural historians took it for granted that modern psychiatry emerged ex nihilo from the scientific revolution, but only after Europeans abandoned medieval superstition to embrace reason.⁵

For these scientific positivists, our ability rationally to comprehend the human psyche rested entirely upon one major historic prerequisite – the utter detachment of secular thought from religion by the Enlightenment.

Fourteen Notes on the Very Concept of the Cold War (An Essay for H-Diplo)
by Anders Stephanson, Columbia University

Lloyd Gardner's "Long Essay/Cold War Esay" (Originally a review of John Lewis Gaddis's book We Now Know)
by Lloyd Gardner, Rutgers University

George F. Kennan, 1904-2005 (An Essay for H-Diplo)
by Anders Stephanson, Columbia University
posted to H-Diplo on 21 April 2005

Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism. How Americans are Seduced by War
a review for H-Diplo by David Kaiser, Naval War College
posted to H-Diplo on 22 April 2005

Stephen Cohen, "Did the Cold War Really End?" [PDF]
Remarks delivered at the Cold War Conference at the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow on
March 1, 2006.
posted to H-Diplo on 21 March 2006

Lloyd Gardner on Richard Hofstadter's 1964 Harper's Magazine essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" [PDF]
posted on H-Diplo on 29 April 2006