In search of a strong European public sphere: some critical observations on conceptualizations of publicness and the (European) public sphere

The present-day popular advocacy of the 'European public sphere' is not only a normative-theoretical endeavour, but largely also an expression of the general (political) dissatisfaction with a neoliberal domination of economy over other political issues essential for democratic citizenship in the 'New Europe', or a reaction to an imbalance between the intense economic and rather sloppy political integration, and the democratic deficit in the decision-making. The idea of a pan- European post-national political public (sphere) contains an enlightened humanist ideology focused on its emancipatory potential, but it may also denote the fabrication of a fictitious Europe of elites without citizens if not deep-rooted in the concept of the 'strong' public sphere. The genealogy of the 'public (sphere)' demonstrates that the contemporary concept should be considered neither selfevident nor coherent. The article relates the concept to its late-18th-century ancestors and delineates main currents of thought in the subsequent two centuries. The concept of the weak public sphere dominates both in theory and in empirical research, and thus also in many contemporary media-centred studies of the/a 'European public sphere', which tend to reduce its definition to 'the lowest common denominator'.