© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

2020
J. Servaes (ed.), Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2014-3_13

14. The Relevance of Habermasian

Theory for Development and
Participatory Communication
Thomas Jacobson1
(1) Department of Media Studies and Production, Lew Klein College of
Media and Communication, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA,
USA

Thomas Jacobson
Email: [email protected]

Abstract
This chapter examines Jurgen Habermas’s theory of communicative
action as a theory communication for development and social change.
In the main his theory has focused on analysis of industrial or
postindustrial societies, but it is also relevant to the study of
development and social change. This relevance extends beyond
questions related to the public sphere. Habermas’s work involves a
general theory of social evolution. This he shares with early
modernizationists along with his defense of at least some of the
enlightenment traditions they shared. At the same time, the theory of
communicative action has deep and systematic differences from
modernization theory. Its critical theory shares with the many critics of
modernization theory a deep apprehension regarding the negative
effects of scientism and uncontrolled market rationality. It is
fundamentally critical of the functionalist reason underlying early
modernization research. Its theory of the lifeworld provides an
elaborate framework for analyzing cultural change. It offers a
sophisticated defense of universalizable human rights that eschews the
idea of a priori universal rights. In sum, the theory defines development
and social change as a process of increasing dialogical, and
participatory, communication in all sectors of society. The chapter
reviews modernization theory and its weaknesses, outlines the theory
of communicative action, and then considers Habermas’s theory as an
approach to the study of development and social change. A concluding
chapter suggests research opportunities using the communicative
action framework.

Keywords Habermas – Modernization – Communicative action –

Development

14.1 Introduction
The relevance of Jurgen Habermas’s work to studies of development
and social change has been noted in a number of respects within the
literature on communication. Chiefly these apply his theory of the
public sphere to democratic and participatory processes in the global
south. While these studies are productive, the relevance of Habermas’s
theory to development studies is broader than this. His theory of
communicative action as a whole embodies a systematic theory of
social change that is historical and evolutionary (Habermas 1984,
1987). It addresses the challenges of cultural change, institutional
growth, economic fairness, and other matters of importance to
development studies, and it does so within a unified theoretical
framework.
The core of his theory is relevant to studies of development
communication not only because of its broad scope. It is also relevant
because the theory of communicative action identifies the chief driving
force of development, in relation to economics, law, democratic politics,
socialization, and more, as a participatory form of communication. For
Habermas, development and social change is essentially a process in
which communication, in the form of communicative action, plays an
increasingly central role in all social subsystems across modern
historical time.
 In the paper that follows, the theory of communicative action is
treated as a theory of development and social change, focusing on its
analysis of communicatively driven social evolution. The paper begins
in Part I with a sketch of modernization theory. This material is well
known, but a selective review will help to make clear the relevance of
Habermas’s theory to a wide range of social and analytic subjects, as
well as differences between his work and modernization theory. The
theory of communicative action itself is presented in Part II. A number
of criticisms are reviewed, some general and others pertinent
specifically to development studies. Afterward follows a comparison of
modernization theory and the theory of communicative action, in Part
III, identifying ways in which the two theories are similar and more
importantly ways in which they are different.
Parts II and III are organized in a tripartite fashion. Each is divided
into three parts by identifying what Habermas calls, following Max
Weber, three cultural value spheres (Habermas 1984, pp. 143–273):
science and technology, law and morality, and art and literature. A
concluding section offers suggestions for research.
14.2 Part I: Modernization Theory
Modernization theory was based in considerable part on the work of
founding sociologists such as Emile Durkheim, Ferdinand Tonnies, and
Wax Weber (Black 1966). Perhaps the most influential of the founding
sociologists was Weber. He more than anyone is identified with the idea
that modernity proceeds through the institutionalization of rational
ways of thinking, resulting in social specialization and
bureaucratization. He characterized progress as evidence of a “great
rational prophesy.”
The 1950s saw these classical characterizations of the birth of
modern society clothed in the biologically based metaphor of evolution.
The evolution of social stratification was viewed naturalistically in
terms of biological differentiation. Naturalistic as it was, this evolution
was considered inevitable. As Marion Levy explained, “The patterns of
the relatively modernized societies, once developed, have shown a
universal tendency to penetrate any social context whose participants
have come in contact with them…” (Levy 1967, p. 190). The result of
this penetration was global cultural assimilation. Modernization was
expected to reduce the variety of local cultures expressed across
societies and move them toward a common vision. “As time goes on,
they and we will increasingly resemble one another … because the
patterns of modernization are such that the more highly modernized
societies become, the more they resemble one another” (Levy 1967, p.
207).
Within this teleological model of change in societies as a whole,
individual studies addressed subsystems within societies. The most
widely influential of these studies early on was Walter Rostow’s study
of economic development, including his proposal of a series of five
stages through which traditional societies must move in order to
achieve self-sustaining economic “takeoff” (Rostow 1960). Closely
associated with this economic growth, as a necessary input to
production, was an increased incorporation of technology and scientific
rationality. Following Weber, and speaking of modernization as an
emerging universal culture, Lucien Pye explains, “It is based on a
scientific and rational outlook and the application in all phases of life of
ever higher levels of technology” (Pye 1963, p. 19).
 Evolution in economy and the technification of culture required
concomitant evolution in social structure. Most generally, modern
economic institutions were characterized by the differentiation and
specialization of social roles (Levy 1967). Because self-sustaining
growth requires market economies and these in turn require
democracy, modernization theory also included in its studies of
differentiation the emergence of politically specialized democratic
institutions. Almond and Verba viewed democratization as a necessary
component of modernization and saw it as moving from traditional
authoritarianism toward a world culture of democratic participation,
what they called “the participation explosion” (Almond and Verba 1963,
p. 4).
To occupy roles in these new economic and social institutions, a
new kind of individual person was required, one that was less bound to
tradition and the stasis of traditional society. In order for individuals to
escape rural torpor, move to urban areas, and become involved in a
modern workforce, Daniel Lerner argued that traditional mentalities
had to change. Individuals had to learn how to “… see oneself in the
other fellow’s situation” in order to be able to envision new and
desirable ways of life (Lerner 1958, p. 50). Only then could one be
expected to want to “achieve” – an attitudinal condition studied by
David McClelland (1961). Given importance assigned to economic
growth, rational thought, and individual achievement, the modern
individual came to appear in the form of a modern factory worker
(Inkeles and Smith 1974, p. 19).
Communication processes were focal in a considerable amount of
research. Lerner’s singular contribution was to study relations among
literacy, media participation, and political participation. He was among
the earliest to recognize that for economic and social institutions to
change, change was required in individual knowledge, attitudes, and
aspirations. Representing deliberations of the Committee on
Comparative Politics, Lucien Pye was another early exponent of a
communication-based approach. “A scanning of any list of the most
elementary problems common to the new states readily suggests the
conclusion that the basic processes of political modernization and
national development can be advantageously conceived of as problems
in communication” (Pye 1963, p. 8).
 In general, Lerner’s and Pye’s approaches to conceptualizing
communication corresponded with others in the transmission school of
communication research. Harold Lasswell’s definition of
communication held that it was, “Who says what to whom through
what channel with what effect” (Lasswell 1948). This expressed normal
science in communication at the time. The media centrism of this
approach to the study of communication was evidenced in the title of
Wilbur Schramm’s major work on development communication, Mass
Media and National Development (1964), as well as in Everett Rogers’
widely influential research on the diffusion of innovations (Rogers
1963).
The modernization process turned out to be more complicated and
more difficult than assumed in early theoretical statements.
Economically, Rostow’s anticipated takeoff into sustained growth
turned out for the majority of developing nations to be a takeoff into
sustained debt (Korten 1995). Socially, newly modern institutions were
often troubled by authoritarianism, corruption, and exploitation. At the
level of individual experience, Lerner noted as early as 1976 that the
“tide of rising expectations” he had foreseen was in many places
turning into a “tide of rising frustrations” (Lerner and Schramm 1976).
Studies of the demise of modernization theory have included a wide
range of theoretical perspectives. Dependency, neo-dependency, and
then world systems theory analyzed the political economy of global
economic structures (Amin 1997; Chew and Denemark 1996; Frank
1984; Wallerstein 1979). Postmodernism and cultural studies have
addressed cultural power (Escobar 1995; Spivak 1987; Chambers and
Curti 1996). Rural participation studies have highlighted the need for
local self-determination (Cernea 1991; Brohman 1996).
The theoretical variety found in the development literature can be
found in communication research as well. Studies of political economy
have explored distortions in information flows resulting from corporate
power (Schiller 1976). Awareness of the importance of culture is
reflected in calls for multicultural approaches to development policy
(Servaes 1998). Participatory communication emphasizes dialogic
processes in grassroots and community organizations (White et al.
1994; Servaes et al. 1996). Neo-modernizationist research addresses
information campaigns and program evaluations without reference to
the broad theoretical claims made earlier (Hornik 1988).
This brief account of modernization theory provides only a sketch of
theoretical trends and is not intended to represent the full variety of
modernization theory or its criticism. It allows one observation and
sets the stage for one claim.
The observation concerns the breadth of social processes that are
inevitably involved in development and social change and the relative
paucity of contemporary theories addressing this breadth.
Development studies over recent years have placed a worthy emphasis
on participatory processes and on a lack of participation in much
development work. However, this emphasis on participation focuses on
local social change processes and to some extent on political
participation. The understanding of large-scale social change requires,
in addition, the analysis of large-scale institutions, including
institutions responsible for economics, law, change in social norms,
federated political systems, global institutions, and more. The claim is
that the study of communication for development and social change
must address all these.
Very few theories address the full breadth of these issues in a
systematic way. Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach is one of the few.
Habermas’s is another. Although it is not primarily oriented to
development studies, Habermas’s theoretical framework addresses a
wide range of the social processes required for development. It does so
systematically and critically.
14.3 Part II: The Theory of Communicative
Action
Major differences between the theory of communicative action and
modernization theory can be seen in their different appropriations of
Weber’s work. Noting its 1950s origins, Habermas explains that
modernization theory had taken up Max Weber’s program but
associated it with social-scientific functionalism. “The theory of
modernization performs two abstractions on Weber’s concept of
‘modernity.’ It dissociates ‘modernity’ from its modern European
origins and stylizes it into a spatio-temporally neutral model for
processes of social development in general” (Habermas 1995, p. 2).
With this observation Habermas begins by criticizing both Weber’s
account of modernity and its functionalist employment by
modernization theorists. At the same time, he wants to retain some
elements of Weber’s approach and of the enlightenment legacy
generally. White summarizes Habermas’s position. “One of the
underlying goals of Habermas’s work has been to construct a middle
position between an uncritical, endorsement of modernity and a
‘totalized critique’ of it” (White 1987, p. 128). This middle position
rests on an analysis of Weber’s historical view of societal
rationalization and the position that Weber’s treatment of societal
rationalization relied on a one-sided conceptualization of reason
generally.
It is in relation to this critique of reason that Habermas offers a
communicative theory of reason upon which is built a new treatment of
societal rationalization . A review of Habermas’s treatment of social
evolution therefore requires an understanding of his theory of
communicative reason.
The theory assumes a certain linguisticality of experience
(Habermas 1984, pp. 94–95). Language is more than a tool. It embodies
beliefs and preunderstandings below the level of conscious reflection
before it is used in any tool-like respect. Nevertheless, against this
background of preunderstandings, language is used to communicate in
more or less deliberate ways. And this use rests on three reciprocal
assumptions (see Fig. 1). Any communicator assumes of his or her
interlocutor that they are (1) speaking the truth, (2) acting
appropriately in light of social norms when speaking, and (3) speaking
truthfully or sincerely (Habermas 1984, p. 99).

Fig. 1 Empirical concepts – validity claims and speech conditions

These “validity claims” of truth, rightness, and truthfulness,

respectively, are each treated as necessary. They do not always obtain
insofar as any of the claims can be false during an actual, given
interaction, and yet their existence as behavioral operating
assumptions is considered necessary for any kind of communication at
all, even deceitful communication.
If an implicit validity claim is challenged explicitly, then discussion
can be attempted in order to resolve the disagreement. The relevant
claim can be said to have been “thematized.” Discussion, or discourse,
may then follow in order either to justify or to disprove the claim.
Discussion oriented toward understanding is characterized by the
willingness of participants to meet certain speech conditions. They
must allow a symmetric distribution of opportunities to contribute to
discussion. They must be willing to entertain any proposition raised
during discussion. And they must be willing to offer justifications for
their own claims when asked to do so.
Within the framework of these validity expectations, communicative
action is treated as interaction involving the willingness to justify
validity claims, or as “action oriented toward understanding.” When
action is oriented toward success rather than understanding, or when
the speech is manipulative, then it is treated not as communicative but
as strategic action (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Kinds of social action. (Modified from Habermas 1979, p. 209)

I shall speak of communicative action whenever the actions of

the agents involved are coordinated not through egocentric
calculations of success but through acts of reaching
understanding. (Habermas 1984, pp. 285–286) [original
emphasis]

This formulation of communicative action provides the basis for

Habermas’s account of reason. Enlightenment thought generally holds
reason to be a property of individual consciousness, characterized by
its dispassionate and instrumental grasp of truths about an external
world. This treatment is assumed among both the classical sociologists,
including Weber, and later modernizationists. A communicative
approach, alternatively, treats reason not as the individual’s
instrumental grasp of the external world but as a process through
which individuals interact to coordinate action with regard to the
world.
 Action coordination takes place with regard to different kinds of
affairs, as indicated by the kinds of validity claims involved. And it
requires different forms of discussion, or discourse, appropriate for
each. Claims pertaining to truths about the world must be adjudicated
using theoretical discourse, ultimately including the tools of
observation, testing, and so on or reference to them. It should be noted
that truths about the objective world are not considered to be absolute,
but rather are defined in terms of a pragmatist epistemology
(Habermas 2003). Claims pertaining to agreements within the social
world must be handled with normative discourse of an ethical, moral,
or political nature. Claims pertaining to the subjective world of
individual sincerity can only be addressed using expressive discourse
and, in the end, can only be justified through consistent performance of
expressed positions (Habermas 1984, pp. 19–22).
Although they are usually implicit, or unconscious, these claims play
an essential and pragmatic role in all social interaction. Assumptions
regarding truth make it possible for individuals to interact in relation to
the objective world. Assumptions regarding rightness make it possible
for individuals to interact in relation to the social world. And those
regarding truthfulness make it possible to interact in relation to
subjective experience. These “world relations” enable individuals to
coordinate their actions with regard to these different spheres of
existence. And they do so through the option of giving good reasons for
claims, in anticipation of the success of the better argument, regardless
of the kind of discourse employed (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 Validity claims, world relations, and cultural value spheres

Given the different forms of discourse appropriate for each, then,

these world relations require different forms of rationality. Reason is
not a unitary skill, but is multiple. Or, in specific, it is tripartite. And
reason is not only cognitive in an instrumental or scientific sense. It is
also employed cognitively in matters related to social and subjective
affairs, assuming communicative forms appropriate to each.
Returning to the question of the rationalization of society, the
theory of communicative reason provides a foundation upon which
social rationalization need not be understood as bureaucratization
through the application of scientific reasoning and technology. More
broadly, social rationalization can be seen as tripartite. The emergence
of modernity comprises the application of reason within three different
“cultural value spheres:” science and technology, law and morality, and
art and literature. “With science and technology, with autonomous art
and the values of expressive self-presentation, with universal legal and
moral representations, there emerges a differentiation of three value
spheres…” (Habermas 1984, pp. 163–164) [original emphasis]. Each
cultural value sphere performs characteristic functions and
accumulates knowledge and tradition. Habermas treats this in terms of
the “differentiation of the structural components of the lifeworld.”

14.3.1 Cultural Value Sphere: Science, Technology, and the

Objective World
In modern scientific cultures, the economic sphere became more
autonomous as instrumental rationality produced tools suitable for
facilitating increases in productive capacity. Government became more
autonomous as the state took on its own management, freed from the
meddling of external social forces such as the aristocracy and the
church. For the cultural activities of the arts, accepted artistic practices
and autonomous standards of aesthetic appreciation evolved. In each
case, one sphere might be informed or affected by the others, but the
most effective mode of discourse for each is that in which its
characteristic form of communicative rationality holds sway. Each
operates “according to its own logic.”
More generally, Habermas speaks of the rationalization of the
lifeworld. And he emphasizes the manner in which the broader
conceptualization of reason employed makes possible a more adequate
grasp of the historical evolution of the legal, moral, and aesthetic
characteristics of modern society, in addition to those associated with
science and technology.

The release of a potential for reason embedded in

communicative action is a world-historical process; in the
modern period, it leads to a rationalisation of life-worlds, to the
differentiation of their symbolic structures, which is expressed
above all in the increasing reflexivity of cultural traditions, in
processes of individuation, in the generalisation of values, in the
increasing prevalence of more abstract and more universal
norms, and so on. (Habermas 1992a, p. 180)

This triadic approach to social rationalization in modernity

differentiates the theory of communicative action from Weber’s work,
from modernization theory, and from previous approaches to
modernity generally. And it is the chief means by which Habermas has
attempted to develop his critical theory of society. For it provides an
account of society in terms of which modernity’s chief problem can be
analyzed. This problem is theorized as the “colonization of the inner
lifeworld.”
The lifeworld as a whole includes activities dedicated to the
transmission of cultural norms, to the integration of social institutions,
and to the formation of identity. These activities are values-oriented,
and their discussion requires communicative action utilizing all forms
of discourse. Colonization occurs when instrumental reason is
inappropriately used in place of more appropriate discourse in the
attempt to fulfill such lifeworld functions. It occurs when, for example,
science and/or bureaucracy is used in place of family interaction to
make determinations on matters of child rearing. It occurs when
market values come to determine the direction of aesthetic and artistic
trends. And it occurs when bottom-line reasoning moves from the
business to the editorial side of pressrooms.
The colonization thesis identifies the negative aspects of
instrumental rationality, of social differentiation, and of confusing
complexity in such a manner that they can be treated not as incidental
misfortunes of modernity but as systematic expressions of unbalanced
development. Colonization is the result of a “selective pattern of
rationalization,” in which normative and aesthetic spheres of society
have not been sufficiently worked up and have been distorted by
outsized growth in the importance accorded to technical and
administrative reason (Habermas 1984, p. 240).

14.3.2 Cultural Value Sphere: Law, Morality, and the Social

World
The view that spheres of society become increasingly differentiated
while interacting with and mutually affecting one another predicates,
or grounds, Habermas’s classification of historical stages into three
periods. These include pre-conventional, conventional, and post-
conventional stages of social evolution. Through this classification of
stages, a framework for the analysis of social evolution is created that
he treats as a “… directional variation of lifeworld structures …”
(Habermas 1987, p. 145) [original emphasis].
In pre-conventional societies, the organization principle is reflected
in kinship systems. In these, natural, social, religious, and artistic norms
are interwoven within mythic systems. Conventional societies have
class stratification as their organizing principle, where the production
and distribution of wealth shifts away from regulation by family lineage
and into the hands of centralized authority. The justification of this
situation takes place through “dogmatized knowledge,” in which the
authority of king, pharaoh, or Caesar is proclaimed. Post-conventional
society begins to emerge with what we know as the rise of modernity.
The force of dogma wanes. The basis of legitimation for social practices
is raised for examination free from otherworldly justifications.
It is only in the post-conventional stage of social evolution that
communicative action becomes more fully institutionalized. For in this
stage it is necessary. The complexities of later mercantile and capitalist
economies required relative independence among the value spheres. In
each sphere, new social arrangements can only be legitimately ordered
through communicative action among affected social members without
undue interference from the other spheres. Insofar as such new
arrangements required modification of traditional practices, it became
necessary that discourse be undertaken in the manner of a “reflective
appropriation of tradition.” This reflective appropriation is a collective
social process in which choices are made about desirable forms of life,
i.e., what to abandon through change and what to retain. In democratic
societies, many such decisions as are of public concern are intended to
be expressed politically. Here, input into governance requires the
formation of public opinion. To differentiate it from the mere answering
of opinion polls, Habermas treats this opinion formation process as
being highly discursive in nature, referring to it as “collective will
formation.” Thus, communicative action emerges socially in the form of
a public sphere (Habermas 1989).
To be clear, processes of reflective appropriation take place within
public spheres both at the general level of a political public sphere and
in more specialized spheres of science, law, and the arts, as well as
within various social and cultural groups. In all cases, the discursive
nature of the process is essential. In the political public sphere,
discursive will formation is required to legitimize newly emerging
political arrangements. Freeflowing discussion is required, taking into
account the full range of possible concerns. Unless these concerns are
all addressed, along with the interests of those who express them, then
any decision will be considered illegitimate by those excluded. This
makes modern life highly dependent on communication. Increasing
freedom from the unreflective practices of tradition increases the social
need for “interpretive accomplishments.” Finally, if these
accomplishments are to become socially embodied in a fair and lasting
way they must be validated within the institutions of law and justice.

14.3.3 Cultural Value Sphere: Art, Literature, and the

Person
The freeing up of communicative practice that results from structural
differentiation takes place not only at the societal and institutional
levels. It also affects processes of identity formation and individual
socialization.

Under the functional aspect of mutual understanding,

communicative action serves to transmit and renew cultural
knowledge; under the aspect of coordinating action, it serves
social integration and the establishment of solidarity; finally,
under the aspect of socialization, communicative action serves
the formation of personal identities. (Habermas 1984, p. 137)
 Communicative action can be seen as operating both downward and
upward, relating micro- and macro-level social processes. Microlevel, or
individual behavior, is analyzed in terms of George Herbert Mead’s
symbolic interactionism (Morris 1962). For the requirements of
communicative understanding are ultimately defined not in terms of
sentential or grammatical sufficiency but rather in terms of the ability
to coordinate social action.
Following Mead, the self is constructed insofar as it sees itself
reflected in the behavior of others and in turn reacts to what it has
seen. This is a process in which role taking is learned, in the ability to
assume and to consider the perspective of the other. The emerging
ability of an individual to coordinate action for the self and with the
other comprises the development of ego identity. Through the course of
maturation, in this sense, the ability to consider the perspectives of
others is widened, resulting in a “decentered” ego.
As the process of identity formation takes place, so too takes place
the process of socialization. Insofar as maturation takes place within
the lifeworld of a given linguistic community, the interactions through
which identity is formed reproduce among other things the sanctions
and prohibitions of the community’s values. Thus it is that the self
becomes imbued with the particular values of a community at the same
time as it learns who it is and how to behave (See Habermas 1987, p.
142).
A common attribute of both the individual and the social expression
of values is moral/ethical maturation. Following Mead, the self is highly
dependent early on. But eventually the self learns to operate in relative
independence. Through stages of cognitive development, the self is
increasingly differentiated off from significant others as it gains its own
identity. And, as Habermas argues using Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1984)
work, this is associated with the development of moral reasoning. First
the self understands only the imperative of submission due to
dependency. Then it learns the nature of norm conformative group
expectations. Eventually the self learns to evaluate group expectations
autonomously. And thus, the ego becomes socialized within a
community’s lifeworld but at the same time becomes relatively
independent in terms of its ability to assume ethical and moral
positions. This includes the expectation that others will behave the
same and thus allow such autonomy universally. This final state is that
of an ethically mature individual.
The theory of communicative action provides here the anchor for a
discourse theory of ethics that emphasizes the universality of discourse
assumptions but denies the existence of universal substantive rights.
The group expectations comprising a community’s values may extend
globally, and may thus embody positions on questions such as human
rights. These rights are not universally valid a priori in the sense of
natural law, but they may always be universalizable in the sense that
they can be valued globally (Habermas 1990, 1993).
Finally, it is in the value sphere of personality and subjectivity that
aesthetic expression finds its home. As social conditions change rapidly,
the individual experience of such change can find its most singular
expression through art, as long as norm conformity is not absolutely
required. Fears, promises and interpretations of change can be
explored and shared. Along with the rise of governments whose
authority was legitimated independently from religious institutions,
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the world of art and
aesthetics also began to evolve its own, autonomous domain. Thus,
modernity has been characterized, in part, by the appearance of artistic
expression freed from domination by outside concerns.
On one hand, the differentiation of artistic practices away from
those of the church and state represents a gain in freedom for the
individual artist. On the other hand, this differentiation expresses itself
in benefits at the social level as well. Art becomes a means for collective
social reflection on evolving social conditions, through aesthetic
criticism and public appreciation. According to Habermas’s analysis, in
premodern eras values changed in an unconscious, naturalistic manner.
Alternatively, in modernity, values can be held up for conscious, public
evaluation. Values become “discursively fluidified.” This makes
individual aesthetic experience available for circulation through the
spheres of law and morality and science and technology.

To the extent that art and literature have become differentiated

into a sphere with a logic of its own, and in this sense have
become autonomous, a tradition of literary and art criticism has
been established which labours to reintegrate the innovative
 aesthetic experiences, at first “mute,” into ordinary language,
and thus into the communicative practice of everyday life.
(Habermas 1992a, pp. 168–169)

All of this illustrates the sense in which communicative action is not

simply an abstract, formal process. It is not a rarefied form of
interaction between hypothetical individuals, but is rather a form of
behavior that is presumed in daily interaction between parents and
children, teacher and pupil, performer and audience, and among
scientists, artists, and members of all groups who cooperate in the
normal production and reproduction of society. And it emphasizes the
manner in which social values are not mere attitudes or opinions. Social
values are reflections of social structure, deeply built into identities
formed during early socialization though subject to change through
maturation. They are also the subject of aesthetic reflection, subject to
public expression in a manner that both represents the social status
quo and also facilitates social change.

14.3.4 Criticism
Of the many debates in which Habermas has been engaged while
elaborating this theory, a small number must be addressed in the
review undertaken here. I will briefly mention one standard objection
related to the charge of idealism and then turn to somewhat lengthier
treatments of objections particularly relevant to development debates.
One of the most common criticisms of the theory of communicative
action is that it is idealistic and that it suggests people always try to
understand one another. Both Foucault’s analysis of power/knowledge
and Lyotard’s treatment of agonistics argue that power is inextricably
bound up with interaction and that mutual understanding is seldom if
ever at the heart of intentions (Foucault 1980; Lyotard 1984). From
Habermas’s perspective, this is an over reading of the theory, which
aims to understand the basis upon which rests the possibility of
communication of any kind. As noted, the theory identifies a variety of
action forms, including as strategic action, some of which are agonistic.
As Bernstein explains, the theory of communicative action is intended
not to dispute the prevalence of power or difference, but rather to
outline a program of research into difference without, “… ignoring or
repressing the otherness of the Other” (Bernstein 1992, p. 313).
Other charges against Habermas’s system are reflected in debates
regarding the nature of national development processes. One is the
charge that the theory of communicative action is ethnocentric. On this
account, the ideal speech situation treats as universal values that in
truth are only Western. Richard Rorty, for one, holds that Habermas’s
project falls prey to the same foundationalism characteristic of Western
philosophy generally (Rorty 1985). The idea of reason alone, no matter
how communicative, is enough to reveal the cultural particularity of
Habermas’s system.
This is one of the most difficult charges for Habermas’s system to
answer. The problem is indeed recognized. Speaking with regard to his
discourse ethics, Habermas says that any system must do more than
just “…reflect the prejudices of a contemporary adult white male
Central European of bourgeois education” (Habermas 1990, p. 197).
Following the simple fact of recognition, his counterargument
emphasizes the idea that the content of any discourse relies on the
background of preunderstandings and values embodied in lifeworlds.
Any challenge of a validity claim, and any attempt to redeem that claim,
takes place within the lifeworld of actual participants. And the content
of lifeworlds is not universal but is rather particular. Habermas
differentiates the universality of the kinds of claims that are assumed in
communication from the content of communication. “… the validity
claimed for propositions and norms transcends spaces and times, but in
each actual case the claim is raised here and now, in a specific context,
and accepted or rejected with real implications for social interaction”
(Habermas 1992b, p. 139).
The content of communication embodies particular cultural values
that play a fundamental role in communicative exchange. This is a
central tenet of the theory, and therefore the charge of ethnocentrism
must focus on the presumption of validity claims rather than on
cultural content. To this extent, the theory answers its critics. But the
idea that validity claims are universally presumed among
communicators is an ambitious one nevertheless.
Another charge related to development debates concerns
ethnocentrism and universalism in a different way. This charge holds
that structural differentiation of the lifeworld can no more be universal
than anything else and that all social structures are equally deserving of
respect, differentiated or otherwise. Habermas argues that
differentiated social and cognitive structures are the hallmark of
modernity’s universalism. He also maintains that structural
requirements do not determine cultural content and traditions that a
society may wish to retain within such differentiated structures can be
freely chosen. Therefore, the theory is culturally relativistic. However, it
is clear that differentiation is not entirely independent of content.
Tradition must be abandoned wherever it blocks differentiation. And
this raises the problem of ethnocentrism in another light.
Consider theocracy. The theory of communicative action cannot
count as modern the undue intrusion of religious reasoning into
governance. Modernity requires the separation of church and state
through a constitutional form that guarantees freedom of religious
choice. This requirement in effect determines that religiously based
states cannot be fully modern.

The universalist position does not have to deny the pluralism

and the incompatibility of historical versions of “civilized
humanity”; but it regards this multiplicity of forms of life as
limited to cultural contents, and it asserts that every culture
must share certain formal properties of the modern
understanding of the world, if it is at all to attain a certain
degree of “conscious awareness.” (Habermas 1984, p. 180)

Yet another place where the theory’s universalism may be found

objectionable, on related grounds, is in its treatment of historical
stages. Habermas formalizes his conceptualization by drawing from the
developmental psychology of Jean Piaget (1970). He does not intend to
suggest that individual psychological processes can be used to explain
social processes. But he does want to borrow, at an abstract level,
Piaget’s model of developmental stages. In Piaget’s model, each stage of
an individual’s cognitive development is able to process more
complexity than its previous stage, and thus some stages presuppose
others (Habermas 1984, pp. 66–74). Similarly, Habermas argues that
history’s logic is developmental. Social stages presuppose certain other
stages. But this logic does not require that development be inevitable,
as it generally was in modernization theory. Progress gained can be
lost. It might be, “…eroded – even finally crushed” (Habermas 1992a, p.
196).
Neither is progress treated very hopefully. The consumer society
envisioned by modernization theory seemed to promise much, a land of
plenty, the good life. Alternatively, Habermas sees modernity simply as
the enhanced capacity for responding to survival challenges. Quality of
life, as inferior or superior, is not at issue. “For example, medieval
societies, notwithstanding higher degrees of oppression than modern
or primitive societies, could in certain circumstances be clinically
healthier than either of them” (Habermas 1992a, pp. 204–205). Nor,
finally, and to make the point clear, does progress imply happiness.
“Emancipation – if we are to give this word a meaning that is foolproof
against all misunderstanding – makes humanity more independent, but
not automatically happier” (Habermas 1994, p. 107).
14.4 Part III: Communicative Action and
Development
These reviews of modernization theory and the theory of
communicative action provide the basis for an instructive comparison
of the two. Similarities are evident at the most general level. Both seek
to explain the evolution and characteristics of modern nations within a
historically globalizing framework. They both try to relate individual
and social processes, and both employ a notion of progress. Both
address processes of change in tradition, social norms, and political
systems. However, there are also significant differences between them
at the general level.
Modernization theory was bipolar, involving two opposing stages,
i.e., tradition and modernity, while the theory of communication action
sees the emergence of modernity through three stages, including pre-
conventional, conventional, and post-conventional stages.
Modernization was in the main naturalistic, referring to the theory of
biological evolution for its model of growth through differentiation,
growth which was treated as being inevitable, while the theory of
communicative action does not. Habermas consciously eschews the
biological metaphor for social change while embracing a form of
historicism (Habermas 1979, pp. 167–178).
Modernization theory began as a study of economic growth and
later recognized the interdependence of economic, social, and cultural
institutions. Nevertheless, modernization theory remained an
economically centered theory, not only because economic growth was
the major concern of involved governmental and financial institutions
but also because the theory never fully abandoned its economistic
origins. The theory of communicative action, alternatively, begins with a
model of social evolution having three distinct and essential social
spheres. The importance of economic growth is not denied, but it is
removed from the central role it previously occupied. Evolution in the
normative and subjective spheres is seen as being as important as
evolution in economics.
In modernization theory, communication’s role is to facilitate social
evolution through attitude change. As students of Weber’s thought,
Lerner, Pye, and others shared the assumption that modernity was
enabled primarily through the application of instrumental reason. This
approach to rationality fits well with a transmission theory of
communication. But it is fundamentally different from a linguistically
oriented approach to rationality emphasizing at the outset that
communication and reason are intersubjective. Only with an
intersubjective, or linguistic, starting point can attitudes, motivations,
and identity be adequately explained in relation to social and cultural
institutions.
The theory of communicative action does see communication as
serving the spread of rationality. However, it refers not to instrumental
rationality but rather to a tripartite scheme of communicative reason.
This tripartite scheme is understood using a theoretical reconstruction
of the conditions necessary for any kind of communication and includes
the presumption of an inescapable and largely unconscious orientation
toward mutual understanding. Because this orientation is always
already assumed by all, it constitutes a steady pressure for its own
historical embodiment in social institutions, in each of the lifeworld
spheres. Communication is thus elevated from its role as an assistant to
economic growth through the creation of scientifically rational
attitudes. It becomes instead the main explanatory construct for social
evolution in all three value spheres.
Given an intersubjective account of reason, a new approach to
problems in each of the three cultural value spheres is possible. We can
now turn to the differences between modernization theory and the
theory of communicative action in relation to each.

14.4.1 Cultural Value Sphere: Science, Technology, and the

Objective World
Modernization theory treated the emergence of a modern global
culture as a consequence of the spread of rationality. In the marriage
between technology and economy, reason was seen as leading the way
to a future of material well-being. By treating individuals largely as
rational consumers and economy as a matter of rational markets, social
processes were flattened. Other social elements were analyzed insofar
as they supported this flattened account. On one hand, market
dysfunctions were almost invisible. On the other, traditional cultures
were relegated to the dustbin of history. The theory of communicative
action redresses the focus on economy and instrumental rationality
with its triadic treatment of society, enabling criticism both of market
dysfunctions and excessive reliance on such a narrow conception of
rationality. And it does so in a manner similar to critiques of
modernization theory.
While the theory of communication action does not address
economics in the manner of dependency theory, its thesis on lifeworld
colonization does provide its own justification for critical economic
analysis under the rubric of the “suppression of generalizable
interests.” Habermas has reworked dialectical materialism in order to
take into account methods employed by the modern state to diffuse
contradictions, methods not foreseen by Marx (Habermas 1979, pp.
130–177).
For Habermas, the mechanism of social control is not ideology, but
systematically distorted communication, and the result is not false
consciousness, but fragmented, colonized world views. Instrumental
reason operates in such a manner as to justify the emphasis on
scientistic economic expertise, which in turn mystifies power relations
through the use of specialist jargon and non-discursive information
diffusion. The apparent mystifications of market behavior represent
one example. The rush of diffusion expertise witnessed in the South
exemplifies another.

14.4.2 Cultural Value Sphere: Law, Morality, and the Social

World
Modernization theory’s account of rationality rendered it unable to
accord culture sufficient importance. Because modernization theory
assumed that traditional values would simply disintegrate, its account
of social progress could assume that values from the West would fill the
cultural void left by this disintegration. However, once it is recognized
that tradition cannot be simply abandoned, then a process in terms of
which culture is carried forward and hybridized must be specified. Here
the theory of communicative action uses the lifeworld as the
background of tradition, and change becomes a matter of “selective
appropriation of tradition.” As a social process this can be done
accidentally and unconsciously, or it can be done reflectively through
recognized institutions and social practices. Elements of tradition and
change can be carried forward intermixed. Insofar as this reflection
requires institutionalization, it is likely to arise not only in political
discourse but also in law and the arts.
The matter of public discourse receives very little treatment in
modernization theory. In Lerner’s work, media and political
participation require media consumption along with the formation and
expression of public opinion. But the formation of opinion is treated
largely as a private matter, as an acquired skill of individuals, and public
expression is treated as little more than voting and answering opinion
polls. Public discourse and the mechanisms that facilitate discourse are
never mentioned.
In his analysis of the public sphere, Habermas argues that
commercial values have severely jeopardized the ability of mass media
to facilitate collective will formation and public opinion. This
“transformation of the public sphere” had already taken place in the
North well before the time of political decolonization in the South.
Therefore, the media institutions implanted in the South during and
after the colonial period had already in a sense been lifeworld
colonized. Thus, in the case of the South, lifeworld colonization didn’t
grow from inside as it did in the North. But Northern lifeworld
colonization processes can reasonably be seen as having taken place in
the South as well, imported as a form of neocolonialism.
The process of cultural change is much more complex than was
suggested by the attitude change models employed in modernization
theory, and if it is to be democratic, it requires discursive processes
involving the public at large, taking place in all lifeworld spheres.

14.4.3 Cultural Value Sphere: Art, Literature, and the

Person
Modernization theory’s account of the person was individualistic.
Drawing lightly on Freud, and more heavily on the Protestant Ethic,
modernization theory produced a theory of the person that was
anemic. Insofar as it was removed from its local and cultural context,
the ego ostensibly became susceptible to Western influence. Attitudes,
it was assumed, could readily be changed and modernized. Given the
assumption that tradition could be abandoned wholesale, possessive
individualism could be expected to immediately take on an attractive
hue (Macpherson 1962).
As it turns out, wholesale abandonment of tradition was never a
realistic option. Frantz Fanon (1967) analyzed the identity choices
facing local blacks in colonized North Africa. Particularly insofar as race
and class were concerned, healthy models of identity were unavailable.
And thus, using Northern models, there emerged indigenous classes in
which presentation of self became tantamount in Fanon’s eyes to self-
betrayal. On another continent, Paulo Freire’s teachings on teaching
illustrated the submersion of the self that results from systematic
oppression (Freire 1968, 1973). And novelists from Chinua Achebe to
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala to Salman Rushdie have explored the cultural
gaps and disjunctions individuals must somehow transverse while
making their way among cultures.
Compared to present need, the theory of communicative action’s
treatment of personality is thin too. It does not explore these problems
from the subject’s viewpoint in empirical detail. But it does provide a
framework within which such viewpoints can be explored. The fact that
Third World populations were driven off their farms and into factories
is not news, but analysis of lifeworlds in the global South provides some
leverage in understanding social problems. Social policy must monitor
the health of lifeworlds and minister to them through a variety of
mechanisms including cultural policy. Habermas points out:

… Central concepts such as the happiness, dignity, integrity of

the person are now changing as if before our very eyes. Diffuse
experiences, which crystallize out under transformed life
circumstances produced by changes in social structure, find
their illuminating, suggestive, visible expression through
cultural productivity. (Habermas 1992a, p. 169)

Habermas speaks here of conditions of the North. But in the South

too, culture is changing as if before our eyes. Cultural policies must be
used to carry a heavy burden in attempts to facilitate reflective
appropriation of tradition in ways that facilitate health through the
expression of subjective experience.
14.5 Research Opportunities
Debates over the nature of development and social change have over
recent decades problematized the manner in which modernization
theory analyzed social processes. The theory of communicative action
offers an alternative approach for the study of many of these.
One line of inquiry could examine the theory’s claim regarding the
universality of lifeworld differentiation. If cultural value spheres must
differentiate in modern societies, then science, government, and
religion are expected to stay in their own backyards. Consider the
possible impact of religion on governance. Does democracy require that
the separation between religion and the state take the specific form
that it has in Europe? Or, is it possible that a dialog between religious
values and government might take various forms? Habermas seems to
be suggesting as much in his recent thinking on religion (Habermas
2008, 2010).
Another line of inquiry could address the universalistic claim found
in discourse ethics. Habermas’s intent is to provide a minimal theory of
ethics, one that makes the thinnest claims necessary to support a
universalist account of justice, a “moral standpoint.” He is well aware of
the problems attending this project but has not yet addressed them in a
multicultural setting, preferring so far to address them abstractly,
within the framework of his own theory and that of philosophical
ethics. The development context provides a setting that is particularly
suitable for such multicultural inquiry.
The universalist element offers something akin to the right to
communicate (Fisher and Harms 1983). The relativist element of
discourse ethics is found in the idea that validity claims are necessarily
embodied in statements whose content comes from the lifeworlds
within which these statements are made and thus are culturally and
historically specific. Given this account, substantive rights principles
can be universal only insofar as they come to be generally recognized
through adoption, as what Habermas calls “generalizable” rights or
interests. Research could be undertaken to explore how rights become
generalized and how particular cultural forms articulate with new
rights as they emerge historically, including communication rights
(Jacobson 1998).
 The theory of communicative action of course provides an approach
to evaluating the health of public discourse. Libertarian press theory
places its guarantee of democracy in private ownership of the press
(Siebert et al. 1963). Habermas’s treatment of the public sphere,
alternatively, places it in collective will formation. His recent work
explores collective will formation in the context of industrialized
nations, emphasizing the reliance of such will formation on discursive
processes anchored in public lifeworlds (Habermas 1996). In the
Southern context, emphasis on lifeworld integrity would suggest that
local cultural forms should be integrated with modern press
institutions. Development journalism (Shah 1996) and Third World
applications of the more recently evolved “public” journalism could be
examined in this light (Merritt 1995). Traditional forms of collective
communication expressed in theater, music, and storytelling can be
employed in the discussion of community issues (Brokensha and
Werner 1980).
In the sphere of personality, the theory of communicative action
suggests a number of research possibilities. Cultural hybridity resulting
from globalization of cultural products is plainly important, but its
effects are difficult to evaluate. Individual and social adoption of
globally circulating aesthetics can be judged to be either positive
expressions of free choice or negative expressions of market
domination. But it is more difficult to explain why some are adopted
and others are not. The theory of communicative action provides its
own approach for the study of such processes. On one hand, where
trends represent the market-driven circumvention of public will, these
trends could be considered to be a form of lifeworld colonization. On
the other hand, where such trends represent public will regarding
normative and aesthetic matters, they must be accepted as reflective
appropriation.

14.6 Conclusion
The vision of modernization shared among students of national
development in the postwar period has long faded in scholarly
research. But current theories do not offer a systematic analysis
incorporating what has been learned across fields of application and
levels of analysis. The theory of communicative action addresses this
situation with a critical theory of society. The terms of progress have
been changed from that offered by modernization theory.
Modernization is seen not as economic development driven by
instrumental rationality. Instead, modernization is treated as lifeworld
rationalization in a manner that accords equal importance to in the
spheres of economy and culture, social equity, and personal
emancipation. The terms for criticism of unbalanced development have
changed as well. Rather than class-based analysis, as in dependency
theory, a theory of lifeworld colonization is highlighted that identifies
dysfunctions affecting all classes of society, in terms of distortions of
communicative practice. Cultural critique is retained in a way that
relies on insights shared with postmodernism, but holds on to the ideas
of justice and progress nevertheless.
These analyses, of progress, of unbalanced development, and of
culture, are all based on the role Habermas assigns to communication,
or communicative action, in social change. In his approach to
development, advances in social institutions, whether economic,
political, or cultural, increasingly occur through processes of collective
reflection.
The outcome of research into his universalist claims will determine
the uses to which Habermas’s theory can be put in the long run. He
hopes to blunt charges that the staged theory of history is eurocentric
by holding onto the relatively modest claim that stages represent
neither inevitable change nor happiness, but only enhanced survival
capability. He hopes to blunt charges against ethical universalism by
holding onto the relatively modest claim that there are no a priori
universal rights, but only the presumption of reciprocity underlying
speech that explains the intuitive appeal of justice and so on.
If Habermas’s formulations are to be taken as he intends them, then
his critical theory of society provides the basis for a theory of justice
that is universal, a theory of politics that is participatory, and a theory
of the self that foregrounds personal emancipation. If these
universalistic formulations are denied, then the theory nevertheless
provides an elaborate framework for analysis of these subjects and
their related institutions simply as products of the evolution of
Western-styled societies. The structures and values they embody would
then be taken only to represent options from which Western nations
are choosing and others can choose to adopt, and hybridize, or not. In
either case, the framework provides an intricate approach to studying
long-standing problems in global development: at once critical,
hermeneutic, and modernist.

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