A3 The Europeanization of the Public Sphere and the Role of the Mass Media

Chair: Slavko Splichal (University of Ljubljana)

Globalization not only limits the scope and reach of actions of national governments but also endangers its power to mobilize citizens for political participation. Nation-states are becoming pawns on the global chessboard forced to renounce parts of its own autonomy and legitimacy. Due to the decrease in power relative to transnational and international actors, and the increase in intergovernmental agreements that remove decision making from democratic opinion formation, national power actors increasingly have to search for new modes of legitimation, and civil society for new modes of communicative actions. The advocacy of the Europeanization of the public sphere is both a normative-theoretical endeavour and an expression of the general (political) dissatisfaction with a neoliberal domination of economy over democratic citizenship in nation-states, creating an imbalance between the intense economic and rather restrained political integration on the regional/global level, and the democratic deficit in decision-making.

In its 2006 White Paper, the European Commission attributes "a sense of alienation from 'Brussels'" that has been identified among European citizens to "the inadequate development of a 'European public sphere' where the European debate can unfold". On the one hand, the idea of a European (post-national) political public sphere contains an enlightened humanist ideology focused on its emancipatory potential but, on the other hand, it may also denote the fabrication of a fictitious "public sphere" dominated by elites without citizens if not deep-rooted in the concept of the "strong" public sphere. Simultaneously, national politicians who resent surrendering sovereignty to European bodies can usually count on national public opinion. The central question to be discussed in the panel is, to what extent processes of Europeanization of the public sphere--if they are taking place--depart from the past nation-state model supposedly hidden in the original concept of the public sphere and public opinion, and what is the (changing) role of the media (both traditional and new) as pillars of a "Europeanized" public sphere.