Public Debate

Abstract

AbstractResearch on public debates is especially interested in the interpretation of rules in the public sphere, the behaviors and arguments of certain actors, constellations of actors (for example discourse‐coalitions), and the issues that are discussed in the public arena. This holds true for the nation‐state concept of public debates as well as for the idea of a global public debate. Ideas on how to transfer the original nation‐state model to a transnational and even global scale are widespread and heterogeneous: the common core concept is that public spheres in modern societies are no longer differentiated by national borders but by issues and the debate of certain issues in specific arenas. On the one hand, such issues could be located on a smaller level (local, regional); on the other the hand, some issues are predestined to integrate different nations or a continent in one debate, for example the European debate about the enlargement of the European Union or the Lisbon‐Contract. These examples show that issues dealing with the institutions of the EU in particular have the ability to establish a transnational debate within that continent.