Abstract
In this article, I argue that Habermas’s method of rational reconstruction faces limitations when it comes to analysing newly emerging and contested political practices. As rational reconstruction aims to criticize existing practices by determining their normative meaning as reflected in the participants’ idealizing presuppositions, it reaches its limits where emerging and contested practices make it impossible to identify a shared self-understanding and a single participants’ perspective. Using the example of membership politics, I argue that this is often the case where nationally constituted forms of politics become controversial or are fundamentally questioned. Building on the work of Benhabib and Fraser, I develop an alternative reconstructive method of plural reconstruction, which modifies the basic premises of rational reconstruction, adjusting it to emerging and contested political contexts.
Highlights
The method of rational reconstructionReconstructive methods can be described as ‘a form of critique that aims to employ normative potentials [that] transcend the agreed-upon norms of a society, but are, in some way or another, already “immanent” in social reality’ (Stahl 2013, 534)
In this article, I argue that Habermas’s method of rational reconstruction faces limitations when it comes to analysing newly emerging and contested political practices
If we describe this approach in general terms, we can say that the first step of a plural reconstruction consists in redescribing the political context under investigation with a particular focus on emerging and contestatory practices
Summary
Reconstructive methods can be described as ‘a form of critique that aims to employ normative potentials [that] transcend the agreed-upon norms of a society, but are, in some way or another, already “immanent” in social reality’ (Stahl 2013, 534). If we take the ‘post-sovereign’ reality of today’s membership politics into account, including elements such as protests against existing policies, we might find a rational core that does not affirm the ideal of unilateral self-determination of nation-state peoples Even though such a move would be in line with Habermas’s method, it raises difficult questions regarding the status of emerging and contested practices. The method of rational reconstruction faces a dilemma: Either we reconstruct a narrowly circumscribed social practice, which can lead to a problematic status quo bias, or we reconstruct a broader social practice including emerging and contested elements, undermining the method’s key ideas about a shared practice with constitutive assumptions and a single participants’ perspective Against this background, I turn to Benhabib’s and Fraser’s contributions to membership theory to develop an alternative reconstructive approach
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