Inclusion of the Other (PDF)

The Inclusion of the Other contains Habermas's most recent
work in political theory and political philosophy. Here Habermas
picks up some of the central themes of Between Facts and
Norms and elaborates them in relation to current political
debates.

One of the distinctive features of Habermas's work has been its
approach to the problem of political legitimacy through a sustained
reflection on the dual legitimating and regulating function of
modern legal systems. Extending his discourse theory of normative
validity to the legal-political domain, Habermas has defended a
proceduralist conception of deliberative democracy in which the
burden of legitimating state power is borne by informal and legally
institutionalized processes of political deliberation. Its guiding
intuition is the radical democratic idea that there is an internal
relation between the rule of law and popular sovereignty. In these
essays he brings this discursive and proceduralist analysis of
political legitimacy to bear on such urgent contemporary issues as
the enduring legacy of the welfare state, the future of the nation
state, and the prospects of a global politics of human rights.

This book will be essential reading for students and academics
in sociology and social theory, politics and political theory,
philosophy and the social sciences generally.