The ambivalences of a Project of radical democratization by means of Habermas' theory of public sphere

• Grant number: 23/09306-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: November 01, 2024
• End date: April 09, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Political Theory
• Principal Investigator: Rúrion Soares Melo
• Grantee: Talita Cristina de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 19/22387-0 - Crises of democracy: critical theory and the diagnosis of present time, AP.TEM

Abstract

The present work, attached to the project FAPESP nº2019-22387/0, Crises of democracy: Critical theory and the diagnosis of present time, understands that the phenomena, conceived as crises of democracy, reveal the complexity of the challenges posed to the Democratic Rule of Law as regards to the risks and limits of its accomplishment, specially when it is analyzed both emancipatory and regressive aspects of liberal democracies, that is, when it is considered the ambivalences which are embedded in the projects of radical democracy. Our hypothesis grasps the ambivalences as an unequivocal and inevitable outcome of the Democratic Rule of Law once it aims at reconciling normative claims and the empirical reality. Furthermore, we believe that these ambivalences tend to increase in a context labelled by the technological revolution of the means of communication and information. That is why we wonder at which extent a "new structural transformation of the public sphere" is related to phenomena of political regression such as the rise of far-right on a global scale. To do so, we take as our theoretical reference the oeuvre of German philosopher and critical theorist Jürgen Habermas specially in its matured stage. Our proposal engages in a procedure of immanent reading which tends to emphasize the category of public sphere, in its late version, as well as the analysis of political process with special regards to its conflicts and power relations.