Toward a Normative Conception of Difference in Public Deliberation

Abstract

The historical and conceptual exclusions of the bourgeois public sphere have prompted theorists to consider alternative models. The three non-deliberative models examined in this article reinscribe the suppression of difference of the bourgeois public sphere. A deliberative model of the public sphere can value difference if one articulates its normative grounds through thin norms and if one recognizes the appearance of deliberation across a multitude of dialectically related publics.