During the 1960s the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas introduced the notion of a "bourgeois public sphere" in order to describe the symbolic arena of political life and conversation that originated with the cultural institutions of the early eighteenth-century; since then the "public sphere" itself has become perhaps one of the most debated...

Introduction: Beyond Habermas? From the Bourgeois Public Sphere to Global Publics Christian J. Emden and David Midgley Part I: Public Opinion in the Democratic Polity Chapter 1. Public Sphere and Political Experience Lord (Richard) Wilson Chapter 2. Public Opinion and Public Sphere Gordon Graham Chapter 3. The Tyranny of Majority Opinion in the Public Sphere Gary Wihl Part II: Knowledge and the Public Sphere Chapter 4. Epistemic Publics: On the Trading Zones of Knowledge Christian J. Emden Chapter 5. The Public in Public Health Anne Hardy Chapter 6. Geeks and Recursive Publics: How the Internet and Free Software Make Things Public Christopher Kelty Part III: Democracy, Philosophy, and Global Publics Chapter 7. Mediating the Public Sphere: Digitization, Pluralism, and Communicative Democracy Georgina Born Chapter 8. Critique of Public Reason: Normativity, Legitimation, and Meaning in the Public Sphere Steven G. Crowell Chapter 9. On the Global Multiplicity of Public Spheres: The Democratic Transformation of the Public Sphere? James Tully Contributors Bibliography Index

“Informed, informative, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and reflecting an expansion based or inspired in part upon the earlier work of Habermas, this superb anthology of impeccable scholarship is a seminal and highly recommended body of work. Enhanced with the inclusion of an extensive bibliography, notes on the contributors, and a comprehensive index, Beyond Habermasis an essential addition to academic library philosophy collections.”  ·  The Midwest Book Review “This is an interesting collection of essays by a set of prominent and important scholars. Most of the essays respond to Habermas’ early book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. They do so, however, in a wide variety of fields… It is a huge benefit, in that the reader is not fed a diet of restricted and distorting examples, as is so often the case when political theorists debate the notion of the public space or the public voice.”  ·  Andrew Norris, University of California, Santa Barbara