The Inclusion of the Other

edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff Since its appearance in
English translation in 1996, Jürgen Habermas's Between Facts and Norms has
become the focus of a productive dialogue between German and Anglo-American legal
and political theorists. The present volume contains ten essays that provide an
overview of Habermas's political thought since the original appearance of Between
Facts and Norms in 1992 and extend his model of deliberative democracy in novel ways
to issues untreated in the earlier work.Habermas's theory of democracy has at least
three features that set it apart from competing positions. First, it combines a
concern with questions of normative justification with an empirical analysis of the
social conditions necessary for the realization of democratic institutions. Second,
at the heart of his model is the assertion of an internal relationship between
liberalism and democracy. On this account, the rights of the individual that are
central to liberalism can be guaranteed only within a constitutional framework that
at the same time fosters democratic rights of political participation through the
public sphere. Finally, Habermas defends a conception of universal human rights that
is not only sensitive to cultural differences but also calls for legal and political
institutions that facilitate the cultivation of cultural and religious identities
within pluralistic societies.These essays demonstrate the extraordinary power of
Habermas's theory of democracy through a further engagement with Rawls's political
liberalism and through original contributions to current debates over nationalism,
multiculturalism, and the viability of supranational political
institutions.