COMMENT ON NANCY FRASER’S ‘RETHINKING THE PUBLIC SPHERE’

Nancy Fraser tries to re-analyze Habermas’ conception of public sphere in this essay for she considers that Habermas has not provided the concrete form of public sphere in his theory which is distinct from the bourgeois conception of public sphere.

Later in this essay, she critizes the bourgeois conception of public sphere itself. She argues that in bourgeois’ conception which stresses the necessity of full accessibility, the subordinated class could not gain such kind of accessibility because of gender, ethnicities or even property qualifications. The ideal public sphere in her opinion is an arena in which all the interlocutors should be included regardless of birth and fortune. However, in this conception, inequalities are not deleted but bracketed. Although the idea of bracketing the inequalities has a good aim to create an arena of dialog and discourse in equal basis but in reality this process is used in the benefit of the dominant group.

In a stratified society the subordinated groups of society tend to develop unequally valued cultural style and it marginalize the contributions of members of subordinated groups. The informal pressure power from the subordinated groups’ cultural style later amplified by the peculiar political economy of the bourgeois public sphere. The media to circulate public view usually owned or affiliated to the bourgeois group which in result would create limitation of accessibility for the subordinated groups. The political autonomy is under question in this concept. Liberalism stresses the important of a very strong political autonomy to organize a democratic form of political life in the basis of socio-economic and socio-sexual structures that generate systemic inequalities and then try to find a way to separate political institutions that are supposed to instantiate relations of equality from economic, cultural, and socio-sexual institutions that are premised on systemic relations of inequality.

Nancy Fraser argues that the ideal of participatory parity is better achieved by a multiplicity of publics rather than by a single public. In stratified society, it would be much better to accommodate plural participation in contestation for public space rather than a singular participation because in singular public, the right of the subordinated group most likely would be put aside. As the result of this disadvantageous treatment to the subordinated group, in some cases they constitute alternative publics to formulae their oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs. Nancy Fraser calls this public as subaltern counterpublic. However, sometimes these subaltern counterpublics become anti-democracy and anti-egalitarian but still they help to create and expand discursive space. Subaltern counterpublic has two functions in stratified society. It would act as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment, and it also functions as bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed toward wider publics. As Habermas said in his book that however limited a public may be in its empirical manifestation at any given time, its members understand themselves as part of a potentially wider public. In egalitarian public still it cannot consist of a single, comprehensive public sphere. Egalitarian public would only exist with the participation of groups with diverse values and rhetoric to create plurality in public arenas. In principle, coexistence of social equality and cultural diversity is possible.

In Habermas theory, public could mean as (1) state-related, (2) accessible to everyone, (3) of concern of everyone, and (4) pertaining to a common good or shared interest. And Nancy Fraser proposes two more notion of public which are (5) pertaining to private property in a market economy, and (6) pertaining to intimate domestic or personal life, including sexual life. The matter which concern of everyone as a notion of public sphere may not be the same in outsider’s perspective and the participant’s and only participant could determine which will become their concerns. However, boundaries between which is a matter of common concern and which is not are not given. The boundaries are set out by discursive contestation in regard that no topics should be ruled off limits in advance of such contestation. Civic-republican is a view in which the discussion is restricted to the ‘common good’ and in which discussion of ‘private interest’ is ruled out. By ruling out ‘private interest’, it is limiting deliberation to talk framed from the standpoint of a single, all-encompassing ‘we’, thereby ruling claims of self-interest and group interest out of order. Without knowing in advance whether the outcome of a deliberative process, it would be no warrant fro putting any strictures on what sorts of topics, interests, and views are admissible in deliberation. Nancy Fraser suggested suspecting the consensuses come out of this process since the process is tainted by the effects of dominance and subordination. In the last two sense of public, the participation of the subordinated group could be easily oppressed by labeling them as private matter rather than as public matter without any discursive contestation.

Nancy Fraser considers bourgeois model of publics as weak publics since its deliberative practice consists exclusively in opinion formation rather than decision-making. Also bourgeois could transform publics into state by threatening the autonomy of publics. Under this condition, the possibility of a critical discursive check on state would be lost. Sovereign parliament is the example she gives as strong publics where as sovereign parliament acts as a public sphere within state and it could encompasses both opinion and decision making. In strong publics, public opinion could be transform into authoritative decision since it is strengthen by the capability of it representing body. The problem aroused from this condition is the relation between strong and weak publics. There is no certainty of the accountability where an institutional arrangement should be established to ensure the accountability of democratic decision-making bodies to weaker publics.

Again as Habermas suggests in his theory, Fraser also deals with a hypothetic society. Although she predicts that a stratified society where openness and full accessibility will be achieved with regard of existence of multiculturalism and multi-identities will exist in short time but at this moment such society does not exist. The contestation of public sphere in reality has existed for a long time. In my point of view, she only focuses her theory in the example of modern western society. If she conducts a comprehensive research among traditional society, she might find a form of society where gender equality exists. In many paternal system of traditional society, women have relatively equal right either in material possession or expression.

I would like to give example of traditional society of Angkola in Indonesia. Angkola is a paternal society, however, to reach any decision or consensus among members of society it should be decide in a kind of advisory institution, Dalihan Na Tolu, which consists of three elements of society, men, women, and youth. Every member in the assembly has equal right to express their opinion to encompass the decision. In this society, women also have the right of material possession and heritage of family wealth.

In modern capitalist society, segregation of class obviously observed since wealth increased power and possibility to reach the media of expression. Fraser also states that media might encompass public opinion but we cannot put aside the fact that in some cases many public members may neglect this kind of influence when it concern of public matters. Also most of people will pick information from any given medias, according to their suitability and believe. It is important for state to acquire the right to relatively restrict matters which emerge from ‘private room’ into public space. Because some issue might cause more chaos rather than benefits in term of common good.