Communicative Legitimacy: Habermas and Democratic Welfare Work [1st ed.] 9783030549480, 9783030549497

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-x
Introduction: Legitimacy Deficit (Anita Kihlström)....Pages 1-18
A Social Paradigm (Anita Kihlström)....Pages 19-27
Communicative Legitimacy (Anita Kihlström)....Pages 29-72
Conclusions: Legitimacy Challenges (Anita Kihlström)....Pages 73-89
Back Matter ....Pages 91-94

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Communicative Legitimacy Habermas and Democratic Welfare Work Anita Kihlström

Communicative Legitimacy

Anita Kihlström

Communicative Legitimacy Habermas and Democratic Welfare Work

Anita Kihlström Gothenburg, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-030-54948-0 ISBN 978-3-030-54949-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54949-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Lukas, Maja and Olivia

Acknowledgments

The potential of democratic welfare work can benefit the development of its system as well as its ambition to respect individuals and human rights. To support it, however, an overall perspective is needed, which Habermas’s theories of communicative action, law and morality offer. By focusing on the legitimacy of welfare, such a perspective can indicate existing deficits and show how they can be corrected. This book wants to give the reader a clear and factual description of the structure of the perspective and its application in welfare practice. Writing it was a long and complicated process, but always stimulating and interesting, not least because Habermas’s texts challenged the experiences I had in practical social work while also providing a breathtaking insight into the deepest issues in the social sciences. For processing that, I especially want to thank Dr. Hans-Edvard Roos, Department of Sociology, Lund University, Sweden. His excellent theoretical reflections, his knowledge of Habermas’s writings and his outstanding ability for mutual communication and association made my work lively and inspiring. Also thanks to Professor Carsten Otte, now retired from the University of Applied Sciences, Mannheim, Germany. His kindness in continually informing me of Habermas’s scientific work from a German perspective developed my understanding of national and cultural differences. Many thanks also to colleagues at my Department of Social Work in Gothenburg, especially to Assistant Professor Dr. Jörgen Lundälv and

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lecturer Per-Olof Larsson, which reflected on my draft. I am also fortunate to have a wise old colleague, Dr. Gunborg Blomdal Frei, who made me aware of the need for a short title. Finally, thanks also to Palgrave Macmillan, where Sharla Plant saw the potential in the book, and Poppy Hull as well as Naveen Dass offered excellent guidance in reaching the final product. However, you also need someone who always believes in your capacity. That person is my daughter Karolina, who I thank from my heart.

Contents

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Introduction: Legitimacy Deficit 1.1 An Illustration 1.2 A New Dependency 1.3 Communicative Challenges 1.4 Purpose and Outline of the Book References

1 4 8 11 13 16

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A Social Paradigm 2.1 What Is the Social? 2.2 Threatening, Empty, Civilizing or Playful? 2.3 A Risk for Oversocializing? 2.4 The Social as Regulating Communicative Actions 2.5 Summary References

19 20 21 23 23 26 27

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Communicative Legitimacy 3.1 Intersubjectivity as Mutual Understanding 3.2 From Everyday Life to Systems 3.3 Morality and Law 3.4 Welfare Administrations 3.5 Summary References

29 31 38 45 58 68 70

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CONTENTS

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Conclusions: Legitimacy Challenges 4.1 Help and Control 4.2 Solidarity and Justice 4.3 Individual Freedom and Collective Will 4.4 Recommendations for Welfare Work Professions References

Index

73 74 77 82 86 88 91

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Legitimacy Deficit

Abstract The chapter describes the nature of legitimacy problems in democratic welfare work and how global economics, bureaucracy, system efficiency and individualization reinforce them. These processes increase the individuals’ dependence on the systems and the demands on professionals to develop better communicative skills to deal with the problems. Habermas’s theories of communicative action, law and moral provide tools for identifying and rectifying these legitimacy deficits. An illustration from the practice shows how the analysis reveals critical moments in the interaction between clients and professionals. Earlier attempts by Lipsky to handle legitimacy and later criticism of bureaucracy from Rockman, Honneth and others are also presented as well as the basic requirements for a communication that can meet these challenges. Keywords Legitimacy deficit · Jürgen Habermas · Communicative action · Bureaucracy · Globalization

Do citizens trust your welfare work? Does it keep its promises to the citizens and are they met with dignity, respect and ability to respond to the various interpretations that may arise? These issues concern the legitimacy of welfare work, which in short means a consensus-based authority to apply laws and regulations democratically. To succeed, professionals1 need

© The Author(s) 2020 A. Kihlström, Communicative Legitimacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54949-7_1

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to develop capacity to meet new communicative requirements of globalized and individualized service users.2 These challenges are the main theme of this book. The analyses are made from the communicative action3 perspective (Habermas 1981), which show how to reveal a deficit of legitimacy, as well as clarify approaches that reconstruct and strengthen it. The perspective differs significantly from those inspired by bureaucratic or psychodynamic approaches, which have been the usual models of interaction in welfare work. Those approaches focus on the individual either as object or subject. In the bureaucratic perspective, the individual’s position is determined by the functions of the system, expressed in its roles, goals and directions, while neutralizing subjective experiences (Denhardt 1981; Beetham 1996). In the psychodynamic perspective one appeals to the consciousness of the individual as a solitary subject, to the individual’s feelings, desires and inclinations (Payne 2002). Thus, the bureaucratic perspective builds validity on externally accepted objective conditions, while the psychodynamic, with its purely internal access to truth, reduces validity to a subjective opinion (Habermas 1984). Both perspectives are problematic as a basis for examining legitimacy. They are too narrow and cannot identify a truth that is objectively true (truth) as well as normatively right (rightness) and subjectively sincere (truthfulness). That is, the kind of truth that underlies everyday life and legitimacy building. By contrast, the communicative perspective of action is intersubjective. It means an interaction based on subject–subject relations for establishing a mutual validated, collective truth. This model is based on new insights on the power of language: it coordinates both understanding and a rational action, which also clarifies the moral which affects the action. All in all, these open both for identification and rectification of legitimacy deficiencies (Habermas 1987). Legitimacy deficit has been discussed for a long time, but the knowledge of how to counteract it is fragmented (Denhardt 1981; Beetham 2013). This book focuses on the latter in a context of democratic welfare work, where the legitimacy deficits can be hidden behind legality, but nevertheless undermine trust (Habermas 1997; Rothstein 2017). The classic study Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service (Lipsky 1980) relates to these problems. According to the author, they appear as a paradox when the public welfare worker should treat all citizens equally while being “responsive to the individual case when appropriate” (Lipsky 2010: xii). From that it follows that “the

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exercise of discretion”4 could not be performed in accordance with the “highest standard of decision making” (Lipsky 2010: xi). By comparing various professions that involved client contacts, Lipsky saw different strategies for dealing with uncertainty in discretion situations; strategies that sought to minimize tensions and maximize approved compliance. At best, they were characterized as “public fairly, appropriately and thoughtfully” at worst they were reduced to “favoritism, stereotyping, convenience and routinizing” (Lipsky 2010: xiv). Clients were also pressured to “strike a balance between asserting their rights as citizens and conforming to the behaviors public agencies seek to place them as clients” (Lipsky 2010: xvi). However, it is important to keep in mind that Lipsky’s study is based on an American context, where, according to him, citizens are expected to show gratitude for the help offered. That side of citizenship is not so pronounced in English or Scandinavian welfare work. In this text welfare work is strongly connected to ideas about equality, recognition of all citizens and a right to say yes or no to claims, without being excluded. The communicative action perspective indicates that opinions, experiences and expectations can be clarified between the parties in the situation in question. This means that they validate the expressed claims of legitimacy and can act in accordance with them, or argue for a change that better fits the intentions of the legal social order. The process strengthens them as citizens, even though they are vulnerable as clients, and that can increase confidence in the welfare work and democracy. However, strengthening trust is complicated for many reasons. In his reflection over the study, thirty years later, Lipsky (2010) highlights some of them. He notes for example that “support for government has been eroded, and the very purpose of government is deeply contested” (Lipsky 2010: 214). This, together with budget cuts, makes it difficult to demonstrate responsiveness and accountability, which are the links between bureaucracy and democracy. Therefore he believes that accountability must mean more than just answering to people’s superiors. The key question is whether there is any “reliable relationship between what the superior seeks and what subordinates do” (Lipsky 2010: 160). Since accountability is based on a concrete relationship between people or groups, he calls for changed “patterns of behavior” among the public workers. It should hopefully include the development of professional standards and organizational incentives, but also appropriate responses to

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individual clients and their situations, which require “fresh thinking and flexible action” (Lipsky 2010: 160, 161). These are necessary but provocative ambitions in the development of welfare interactions (Denhardt 1981; Habermas 1997). Necessary, because citizens and clients demand increased participation and codetermination, not only in terms of the law itself, which they already have, but also when it is implemented in welfare. Provocative, because it interferes with the kind of instrumental5 rationalization that traditional bureaucracy maintains. Today’s young people want more freedom, respect, human rights and independence. At the same time they become more isolated, more extradited from their own abilities and more dependent on what the system offers. This paradox intensifies the need to interpret and understand the arguments that favour constructive social actions, those which are both legal and legitimate. Since a communicative action perspective is based on reciprocity, equality, non-authority and non-hierarchy, it provides opportunities to do that through the validation of arguments, rooted in the lifeworld of individuals as well as in the collective will of the welfare system. Such a process can strengthen both self-determination and self-realization, and makes the system even more efficient and credible, and as a result more democratic. So much is at stake!

1.1

An Illustration

During my postgraduate studies, I sometimes went to the Department of Social Work for supervision, and then quickly returned to my work in social welfare services. On one occasion there was an angry man with a letter in his hand waiting there for me. He was irritated and asked me where I had been, and I answered, “at the university to discuss a theory”. “What kind of theory”, he asked impatiently. “A theory of communication and action”, I answered while taking my coat off. “It makes no difference here”, he continued pessimistically. “By the way, what is it about”? “About us”, I replied, surprised by his interest, but then concerned by the situation I had ended up in. How could I save my face and apply the meaning of the theory so quickly? However, I knew his case and I also had the basic model for communicative action in my head, which was: validating the truth, the fact (the objective aspect), the rightness (the social aspect), and whether the claims were honestly meant or faked, that is the truthfulness (the subjective

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aspect), so there was no return. “We contacted you via letter and called you here because your daughter reported that you hit her”, I said quickly. “The law states that we have to investigate such information in order to protect children from being abused or hurt (the objective aspect). Do you accept such a law?” I asked, a little bit stressed. “Yes, it’s fine, but I have nothing to say, it is not relevant here.” “Anyway, your daughter has also been invited, so we can meet all concerned parties, and listen to what each of you has to say. We are not going to make any decisions until everyone has had the chance to give their opinion of what happened (the social aspect). So can’t we just sit down and talk about it?” I asked, and pointed at the sofa. “Sometimes, children fabricate incidents because they are angry, and teenagers are known to change their moods swiftly. Has your daughter ever lied?” (the subjective aspect). “Oh no, never”, he replied, almost offended. “She is honest and nice!” he said and suddenly seemed proud and strong. He seemed ready for a discussion. I suggested that we ask the daughter and her mother to join us. “Want some coffee?” Before going further it must be said that this example can raise many questions about how to talk to individuals, how to respect children’s rights and so on. But the purpose here is to show a common communicative situation that can arise in everyday work, where a professional tries to gain confidence in a process where laws and rules need to be transformed into an accepted act, legitimate for those concerned. But must a public service representative reflect on it? Is approval not already incorporated into the process? Wouldn’t it be enough with an instrumental procedure that informs us about the law and implements it efficiently and rationally? “Legitimacy means that there are good arguments for a political order’s claim to be recognised as right and just; a legitimate order deserves recognition. Legitimacy means a political order’s worthiness to be recognised” (Habermas 1979: 178). Thus, it is a process in which the claims can be contested. Obviously, such a process not only includes the substance of the matter, but also norms, moral judgements and feelings. It indicates the need for participation in “processes of opinion- and will-formation, which occurs in forms of communication that are themselves legally guaranteed” (Habermas 1997: 110, 111). In general, they take place in the political sphere. But when a society has become more complex, its welfare administration is forced to take greater responsibility for these issues. If these interactions indicate any deficit of legitimation, then the legality can also come into question. The law must be complied with, but must at the same time correspond to the individual’s expectations in question,

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concerning facts as well as norms. If events go wrong, then not only are there disappointments, but disturbances and conflicts can result, which can violate the confidence we have in the democratic system. Therefore, these challenges are important to understand in order to handle them correctly (Beetham 2013). In our example, the father could have chosen to react in several different ways; he could have agreed with the law, but refused to participate. He could have claimed that the law was wrong, or was directed to a very special group which did not include him. He could also have refused to subordinate himself to any law at all, but then, the discussion would have been pointless. It implies that the step between a legal and a legitimate order can be unpredictable and fragile! The perspective used here shows that communication is much more than just a transfer of information. The parties concerned value what is said, that is its truth, its rightness and its truthfulness. This happens mostly unconsciously, but if something feels wrong it can be highlighted, so that misunderstandings can be clarified. Thereby it generates meaning, coordinates action and balances interests. It clarifies morality preferences and refers to everyone’s equal rights. At the same time, it maintains interaction and can produce codes and systems. Thus, it also constructs social orders, which its participants can stand behind, reconstruct or reject without being subjected to violence (Habermas 1984). But if someone wants to destroy a given social order, or is scared of it, despises it, or wants to create something completely different, can the theory help to reveal such an agenda? Yes, to some extent. As already stated, communication can be used in many different ways, including a destructive one. For example, we can build up false trust to get space for our own, unspoken plans. We can dismiss the other side’s arguments as unimpressive, childish, too emotional or block them completely. We can also exploit the basic model by expressing private interests as if they were objective facts, while ignoring respect for the equal rights of others, and act only for “our own benefit”. These factors will be revealed if arguments are irrelevant in relation to the matter itself, unfair in relation to accepted norms, or meaningless in relation to how an utterance should be interpreted. However, validating arguments can obviously not change all destructive actions, but these will at least be exposed and understood. Then the opportunity will be given to question their rationality and the people responsible for them. This is important to consider, because a

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destructive strategy has a price—a lack of trust for the professionals or the system. Now, let’s return to the example! The case itself was a legal one and concerned child abuse. The father accepted the law6 and moreover, as a citizen, he was de facto responsible for following it. Unfortunately, from his perspective, it was used against him here, which perhaps made him uncertain, afraid and angry. But when he was informed about how the investigation would be conducted, and that no decision would be made in advance, he calmed down and accepted the situation. Some may think that he was trying to be smart and strategic,7 or that he was just acting, and saying whatever benefited him. However, as mentioned earlier, communicative action also includes morality and authenticity, which can partly reveal a hidden strategy. In this example, there were no such indications. Instead the man seemed frank when he said, with some pride, that his daughter was honest and generally did not lie. Thus, he referred to the moral value that says that lies are bad, which indirectly indicated that her accusation about him could be true. After that the discussion went on well. The father told us that he had been unemployed for a long time and felt increasingly stressed. The teenage girl said that she often wanted to provoke him, and once, during dinner, it went too far and the father became so upset that he lashed out and hit her. He said that he barely knows how it happened, but that he felt very bad afterwards; he was ashamed and tried to repress the incident. When we discussed the matter, the family thought that the best help would be to talk to a therapist and have some treatment that would ease the tension in the family. We agreed to that and decided to keep in touch. When summarizing the communication process with the family, we can see that they reached some kind of consensus about what had happened. The sincerity during the talk strengthened them and their moral values brought them together. Despite their difficulties, they could see the struggle of other members of their family, and thus “see the other in themselves”. They gave each other recognition. The father accepted that the girl reacted when she was hit, and he distanced himself from his behaviour. The girl also realized what her provocation had triggered and took responsibility for it. But at the same time she knew that her dad had overstepped a boundary and so she reported him to social services. She had the right to invoke her rights and she had used it. Thereby the parties

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interpreted the prescribed intention of the law in a constructive way, and thus strengthened its legitimacy.

1.2

A New Dependency

The interaction between individuals and welfare systems is not just any communication, but is regulated in different ways. In most modern welfare countries, the regulations are based on democratic values. In Sweden for example, these would be equality, freedom, justice and solidarity. In addition, the interaction must be handled with transparency, reciprocity, discussion and responsibility (Lundqvist 2001: 119).8 Nevertheless, people may experience that communication within this sphere can be insufficient or go wrong. It depends on many factors; for example a one-sided, authoritarian interpretation of the problems, rigidity when it comes to solving them, or just lack of interest. A shortage of time to present the problems, a lack of competent information of what is applicable, as well as moralizing, prejudiced and disrespectful interactions are other reasons. The representatives of the system can also neglect questions or just avoid talking to the service users. So the communication does not always move forward or result in constructive actions. Instead, the client can get a sense of being abandoned, of being unimportant, with an undermining of self-confidence as a result. Reports from the Swedish Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO 2018)9 show that vulnerable and dependent people can be particularly sensitive to these situations. They indicated a remarkable increase in interaction problems, such as the clients’ weakened position, their increased lack of participation or responsibility, and increased shortcomings in the coordination of assistance between different systems. This also puts the service user in a new and unintended situation as the messenger between the different professions. Bureaucracy is often accused for causing these shortcomings (Lipsky 1980, 2010; Denhardt 1981). Recently, in an international journal, it was argued that “everyone hates bureaucracy, even bureaucrats” (Piliavsky 2017: 107). Bureaucracy misuses power and exerts violence by forcing us into certain behaviours. Whether it is justified or not, let us briefly reflect on bureaucracy. Developed a long time ago by the German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920), bureaucracy became “a system of administration carried out on a continuous basis by trained professionals according to prescribed rules” (Beetham 1996: 3). It was designed to

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handle conflicts of interests. The officials were to be instrumentally efficient and accurate, and not take any of their own ethical or moral reasons into considerations. Against the background of the more unpredictable governance models that previously existed, undoubtedly this bureaucracy could be perceived as a tool for a more functional administration, suitable for supporting the emerging democracy. However, although originally developed for the marketplace with its demands for efficiency, bureaucracy later became an important tool for the professional control of strong, democratic states (Rockman 2011). Nowadays is it nearly “impossible to imagine effective government without bureaucracy” although its tendencies to rest too much on outdated authority begins to be problematic (Rockman 2011: 170). In a discussion organized by the University of Frankfurt in 2016, it was claimed that bureaucracy is still needed, but should be developed and redesigned for the context that it is used for, to better serve today’s society. For example, the marketplace and the welfare system need different models. When used in a welfare system, bureaucracy should comprise a moment of decent interpretation (Honneth 2016). This requires reciprocity, which opens up for a communicative legitimacy process. According to Rockman, today’s bureaucracy has internal as well as external problems. The internal ones can be formalism, which makes the bureaucracy “short of compassion, empathy, or extenuating circumstances of case equity”, and accuses the bureaucrats for being “faceless”, “nameless”, or “unfeeling” whose decisions defy “common sense” (Rockman 2011: 171). However, in some sense this can secure control, equality and accountability. Another internal problem comes from tensions between the top- and the operational-level hierarchies. Organizations with streetlevel bureaucrats are especially exposed because of challenges to find a balance between the law and people’s vulnerability. External pathologies are, for example, excess paperwork and rule restrictions. These can be frustrating, but they are also a way of avoiding accusations of favouritism or actions without legal support, which can undermine trust. Foa and Mounk (2016) found in their studies that trust in democracy had begun to fail with those who had negative experiences with its institutions. They claimed, like Beetham (1996) that distrust creates tensions, which can undermine the legitimacy of democracy. In addition to these pathologies, today’s bureaucracies, as well as the individuals they serve, are affected by globalization. Held and McGrew (2002) describe this as transcontinental flows and interaction processes

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that have become increasingly comprehensive, faster and that have deeper effects. Its processes seem to come and go in waves. According to Castells (1996), the latest wave has been the intertwining between a new information technology and a new form of global capitalism. These networks of interactions have made the economy an informational one, because they rely on the “capacity to generate, process and apply efficiently knowledgebased information”; and “global because the core activities of production, consumption, and circulation, as well as their components (capital, labor, raw materials, management, information, technology, markets) are organized on a global scale, either directly or through a network of linkages between economic agents” (Castell 1996: 66). It makes the state “increasingly entangled in the interdependencies between the global economy and global society”, which reduces its autonomy, capacity for action and democratic content (Habermas 1999: 427). These tendencies penetrate the system and can affect its entire ethos. During the golden age, the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the state could promote economic dynamism and secure social inclusion. Today it has become harder to deal with crisis situations and instead poverty, social insecurity and disintegration grow. In a changing labour market with inferior contribution systems and increased housing shortage, these will generate new difficulties for individuals to master social situations on their own. Such “dismantling” policies damage social cohesion and stability (Habermas 2001: 51). These changes also erode those public arenas where citizens’ rights and obligations are formulated. Seyla Benhabib (1992) saw at an early stage that these tendencies could make it meaningless to fight to maintain the difference between the social and the political sphere. Not because politics has become an administration or because the economy has become the hallmark of the public, but because the struggle to make something public in modern society has been forced to be a fight for justice. This makes individuals more vulnerable and dependent on social support, especially for young people, women and immigrants. These trends, also noted by the Norwegian sociologist Aakvaag (2010) in his analyses of democracy, highlights the difficulties for the poor resource groups in claiming their interests. Their position, as citizens with established rights and needs, must be more respected. He advocates for developing public spaces where neither economic purchasing power nor status are the determining factors, but instead the better argument should come first. Aakvaag is

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inspired by Habermas’s contemporary diagnosis, where democracy is the supporting institutional principle in modern societies.10 The effects of globalization on the individual have also been noticed by the English sociologists Elliot and Lemert, who speak about the “globalized individual” (2006: 172). It refers to individuals’ self-reflexivity and their adjustments to the new risks they are forced to face: reduced and disappearing stable forms of employment in working life; decoupling from supportive family networks; increased risks of confrontation with social and economic violence; differences in life-experience between those who have and those who have not, and between being included and excluded (Brodie 2008; Beck 1998, 1992). So an almost unlimited flow of knowledge and information can expose individuals to frightening and violent social risks. Elliot and Lemert wonder how individuals should deal with this paradox and “survive in worlds made deadly by social structures?” (2006: 185). Changes like these pressurize individuals to decide who they want to be and what decisions they will make. These considerations may result in what Beck has called a “do-it-yourself - biography” (Beck 1992: 135). This means to make decisions about a person’s entire form of life: education, profession, accommodation, number of children, etc. For many it is a tough and hopeless process, for others it can secure a better life. In accordance with the Swedish social policy Professor Lennart Lundqvist, these challenges between individuals and the state cannot be mastered “by independence but with reciprocity” (Lundqvist 2001: 51, my trans.).

1.3

Communicative Challenges

What is expected by a communication having ambitions to handle these challenges? Two requirements will be highlighted. First, the communication perspective must have a foundation that can support opinions and claims from the individual as well as from the system. It can ensure individuals’ request for equality, freedom, justice, solidarity and the collective social orders’ request for functional efficiency. It also ensures the possibility of switching between the two forms of expression under one and the same interaction without the mutual foundation being lost. Switching between two modes is often used in everyday life, without problems. For example, when asking for a deadline for applications, a one-way information system will function well, but in a “talk out” with a friend, or to sort out a misunderstanding, mutual communication works best. However, a

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switching competence within one and the same interaction has rarely been seen as a professional potential. Instead a solution has been to change the perspective, the situation and sometimes even the profession. The communicative action perspective responds to this first requirement through its intersubjective character, which provides a symmetrical interaction between the parties as a starting point. From that, a mutual validation can find out if an asymmetric approach would be more relevant. Then the interaction is handled constructively with respect to self-determination, self-realization and the trust in the system can be maintained. This transition to asymmetry may occur when professionals need to provide new information about laws and regulations or when a service user informs about new circumstances. One participant assigns more skill or life experience to somebody else, and thereby listens passively. Such non-authoritative, non-hierarchical transformations between symmetry and asymmetry are unproblematic. However, if forced or misused, it can undermine legitimacy. The second requirement for communication that is capable of meeting the new challenges is that it has a link to action. Communication is not only talking, it also means action. Weber defined an action as “‘social’ which, in its meaning as intended by the actor or actors, take account of the behaviours of others and is thereby oriented in its course” (Weber 1922/1978: 4). It implies an action based on the individual’s own conviction and own considerations about how to achieve a goal. The problem with this approach was that underlying values were not tested by other involved. It undermined moral responsibility and gave the action an unsocial character. By reconstructing Weber’s model into a social action based on communicative rationality, Habermas clarified the parties’ need for mutual understanding to act constructively. This validity test guides them to the most appropriate action without coercion. It also gives them the opportunity to choose between mutual reasoning or strategically addressing their own interests. Being strategic can be a communicative action as well if the parties harmonize their action plans (open strategic) for executing a specific goal “without reservation” (Habermas 1984: 294). Thus, the internal relationship between communicative action and social action enables two forms: a communicative and a strategic one. The communicative action means, as we have seen, that the participants’ actions are coordinated by mutual understanding and offer a shared definition of situations and goals. Strategic action means that the participants

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are “following rules of rational choice” and instead prioritize their own interests by a one-way influence on the other parties (Habermas 1984: 285). It makes strategic actions more directly focused on the efficacy of influencing others’ decisions, while communicative actions are filtered through a mutual validation process, which is then able to act successfully in a way that is also accepted by others. In addition, there are also non-social, instrumental acts, in which all parties are objects that can be influenced effectively. However, that is not of interest here. So it is only the communicative types of action that have a complete and strong kind of communicative rationality because they intersubjectively refer to all the three claims for validity: the truth, rightness and truthfulness. However, an open strategic action can, unlike a hidden action, be seen as a normatively reduced form of a communicative action, even if it does not refer to an intersubjective will, based on rightness in the social world. By referring to two of the three claims: the truth and truthfulness, it is a simplification and in that sense a weak communication. In practice it means that one party can accept “the seriousness ” of the utterance, its sincerity and truth, without a further validity test of its normative insights (Habermas 1998: 327). A hidden strategic action, on the other hand, is often equated with manipulation, because the client is not given the opportunity to validate the claims.

1.4

Purpose and Outline of the Book

As stated, the new vulnerability of fragmented individuals and the need for increased credibility and efficiency in the welfare system can be met if interpreted as a matter of legitimacy within the framework of communication action theory. The purpose of this book is to argue for that by making explicit which aspects of interaction are important, and how they can affect outcomes and provide professionals with science-based theory that support tools for how to dealing with these legitimacy issues in practice. However, knowledge of communication action theory may seem unnecessary if viewed as only a dialogue in general, where we communicate just because we have learned to. Nevertheless, new theories show that communication is a complex combination of advanced intersubjective processes that must be clarified, externalized and learned if it is to be professionally useful in practice. Having such knowledge is especially important for all the welfare professionals involved in direct interaction

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with citizens and clients, since they are usually criticized for unscientific methods. Or to quote Habermas and Plato: “Nothing is more practical than theory itself” (Habermas 2003: 278). For providing professionals with a scientifically-based theory that presents useful tools for their work, this description is carefully grounded in the theory of communicative action. This arises out of Habermas’s extensive analyses of the dialectic between the individual and society. As is well-known, his work amounts to a huge amount of writing, which has made it necessary to be selective. Here it means that texts about communicative action, moral values and law have come into focus. These have generated further discussions, interpretations and corrections, presented by Habermas himself and others. Some of them are also presented here, in order to make it easier to understand as many aspects as possible when implementing the theory in the context of democratic welfare work. The book is divided into four chapters. This chapter introduces the central theme: the Legitimacy Deficit, clarifying its purpose and central arguments. To bridge the theoretical character of the text, it starts with an illustration of how the legitimacy problem can be handled in praxis (here social work), followed by an analysis connecting the example to the book’s theme. The chapter also describes the new dependency and the new communication model claimed for handling the legitimacy deficit, and ends with this clarification of purpose and an outline of the book. Chapter 2, The Social Paradigm, outlines this new basis for communicative action. Since this intersubjective perspective exceeds both subjective and objective perspectives, its nature and potentials will be emphasized and externalized, especially since interest in the social has been changed, decreased, underestimated and almost wiped out over several periods. Therefore, previous reflections on the influences of Arendt, Rosseau, Baudrillard and Simmel intend to highlight its special character. Parson’s more theoretically substantiated analysis has also been necessary to describe, as it was the very basis for Habermas’s reconstruction of the social, which concludes the chapter. Chapter 3, Communicative Legitimacy, is the most extensive part, where specific key phenomena about the theory that is relevant for legitimacy, are examined: intersubjectivity as mutual understanding; the life world’s connection to the system; the relation between morality and law; and finally welfare administrations. In order to make these concepts comprehensible, Habermas’s considerations and reconstructions of them

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in relation to previous theorists like Mead, Durkheim, Schütz and others are explored. The concluding Chapter 4, Legitimacy Challenges, focuses on the risks for legitimacy deficits inside the context of welfare administrative power. It has been structured by three contradictory ambitions that consistently challenge the work: how to satisfy help as well as control; solidarity as well as justice; individual freedom alongside the collective will. The analyses show how the communicative perspective offers an approach that maintains mutual respect for both the individual and the system on the basis of democratic grounds. Although the law is the framework for that work, it also exposes how the parties interpret the morality behind it. The chapter concludes with a summary of the new knowledge that the welfare professionals need to develop to handle these challenges.

Notes 1. This concept differs slightly from the concept of expert, which refers to a general knowledge that diagnoses but often leaves the actual execution to a profession (Brunkhorst 2008; Dewe et al. 1993). 2. This concept is sometimes replaced with client, since the reference literature often uses that term. 3. It means “social interactions where language use aimed at reaching mutual understanding plays the role of acton coordination” (Habermas 2003: 110). 4. For Lipsky it means “the space in which to translate nebulous policy into practice”. In John Harris and Vicky White (2018): A Dictionary of Social Work and Social Care. Oxford University Press. 5. Instrumental action are oriented to success and means “following technical rules of action and assess the degree of efficiency of an intervention into a complex of circumstances and events”. They are not social actions (Habermas 1984: 285; 1998: 118). 6. By law is here meant positive law, which is constructed and developed on the basis of democratic principles, like equality and freedom. It “serves to reduce social complexity” and compensates “for the cognitive indeterminacy, motivational insecurity, and limited coordinating power of moral norms” (Habermas 1997: 326). The law’s consequences are predictable, giving you the chance to follow them or accept the sanctions. 7. Strategic actions are also oriented to success, but mean “following rules of rational choice and assessing the degree of efficiency of its influencing the decisions of a rational counterpart in action”. They are social actions in themselves (Habermas 1984: 285; 1998: 118).

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8. According to the author, it has not been possible to identify these process values via a consistent list. Instead, they have been filtered as the most common and overall values in the democratic debate. 9. The Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO) is a government agency responsible for supervising health care, social services and activities under the Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (LSS). IVO is also responsible for issuing certain permits in these areas. Its duties include dealing with complaints about irregularities in care (lex Sarah and lex Maria reports) and about unauthorized decisions. 10. Aakvaag compares to sociological classics who instead define the guiding principle as capitalism (Marx), formal rationality (Weber) solidarity forms (Durkheim) postmodern differentiation (Luhmann) economics and technology (Bell, Castell, Baudrillard), individualization (Beck, Giddens, Baumann, Sennett), disciplinary (Foucault), pluralism (Lyotard) (Aakvaag 2010: 6, my trans.).

References Aakvaag, G. C. (2010). Demokrati som samtidsdiagnose. Sociologisk tidskfrift, 18, 5–30. Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage. Beck, U. (1998). Democracy Without Enemies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beetham, D. (1996). Bureaucracy. Buckingham: Open University Press. Beetham, D. (2013). The Legitimation of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Benhabib, S. (1992). Models of Public Space: Hanna Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jürgen Habermas. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (pp. 73–99). Cambridge: The MIT Press. Brodie, J. (2008). The New Social “isms”: Individualization and Social Policy Reform in Canada. In C. Howard (Ed.), Contested Individualization: Debates About Contemporary Personhood. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Brunkhorst, H. (2008). Profesjoner i kommunikasjonsteoretisk perspektiv. Solidaritet mellom fremmende. In A. Molander & L. J. Terum, Profesjonsstudier. Oslo: Universitetförlaget. Castell, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Denhardt, R. B. (1981, November/December). Toward a Critical Theory of Public Organization. In Public Administration Review, 41(6), 628–635. Dewe, B., Ferchhoff, W., Scherr, A., & Stüwe, G. (1993). Professionelles soziales Handeln. Soziale Arbeit im Spannungsfeld zwischen Theorie und Praxis. Weinheim and Munich: JUVENTA Verlag. Elliot, A., & Lemert, C. (2006). The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization. NewYork: Routledge.

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Foa, R. S., & Mounk, Y. (2016). The Democratic Disconnected. Journal of Democracy, 27 (3), 5–17. Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1981). Theorie des kommunikativen Handels. Band 1: Handlungsrationalität und gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung. Band 2: Zur Kritik der funktionalistischen Vernunft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 1. Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987). The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2. The Critique of Functional Reason. Oxford: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1997). Between Fact and Norms. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1998). On the Pragmatics of Communication. Cambridge: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1999, May–June). The European Nation-State and the Pressures of Globalization. New Left Review, 1(235), 425–436. Habermas, J. (2001). The Postnational Constellation. Political Essays. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (2003). Truth and Justification. Cambridge: Polity Press. Harris, J., & White, V. (Eds.). (2018). A Dictionary of Social Work and Social Care (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordreference.com. Held, D., & McGrew, A. (2002). Globalization/Antiglobalization. Cambridge: Polity Press/Blackwell. Honneth, A. (2016). Discussion between Axel Honneth (Frankfurt/NYC) & David Graeber (LSE): Dynamics of the Administered World. On the Diagnostic and Normative Relevance of a Contemporary Critique of Bureaucracy. http://habermas-rawls.blogspot.se/2016/04/david-graeberaxel-honneth-on-critique.html. Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Lipsky, M. (2010). Street-Level Bureaucracy, 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Lundqvist, L. (2001). Medborgardemokratin och eliterna. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Payne, M. (2002). The Politics of System Theory Within Social Work. Journal of Social Work, 2, 269–292. Piliavsky, A. (2017). The Wrong Kind of Freedom? A Review of David Graeber’s The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (Brooklyn/London: Melville House, 2015). International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 30, 107–111. Rockman, B. A. (2011). Bureaucracy. In International Encyclopedia of Political Science (pp. 167–172). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

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Rothstein, B. (2017). Solidarity, Diversity, and the Quality of Government. In K. Banting & W. Kymlicka (Eds.), The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies (pp. 300–326). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swedish Health and Social Care Inspectorate (IVO). (2018). www.ivo.se/public erat-material/rapporter/vad-har-ivo-sett-2017. Weber, M. (1922/1978). Economy and Society (G. Roth & C. Wittich, Eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press.

CHAPTER 2

A Social Paradigm

Abstract This chapter explores the social sphere. For Arendt it was threatening, objectifying and controlled by no one. Baudrillard predicted its death and a progressive desocialization. Rousseau saw its positive potential, which could civilize pre-social people through education. It reduced oppression by replacing instinct with legitimized rules. Simmel called it sociability, where individuals behaved as equals and did not favour themselves at the expense of others. Parsons’ analyses were the most in-depth, however, they rested on a monological communication model which created over-socialized individuals and system dominance. Habermas replaced it with intersubjective communication, which opened the way to a legitimated order based on mutual validations of the truth, rights and truthfulness. It provided a precedent for the social towards the objective and the subjective, and thereby to a new paradigm, the social. Keywords Social paradigm · Social world · Oversocializing · Regulating

When the social dimension claims to be the basis for communication, the following question arises: What is the social? In short, the concept refers to society with emphasis on its interactive nature, often identified as a concrete place where participants behave in a pleasant way. However, here it means an abstract sphere where people interact with each other, either as individuals or in groups, in reciprocity and consideration. It is a © The Author(s) 2020 A. Kihlström, Communicative Legitimacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54949-7_2

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sphere between, and in some sense transcending, the object-oriented and subject-oriented spheres. As a dimension of everyday life it is constantly reconstructed and rationalized by individuals (Habermas 1987). Thus, including both individuals and systems, it is internally as well as externally related to communication. This definition of the social gives it a more central and basic position in comparison to previous perspectives, which mostly reduce the social to an external factor, connected to behaviours, facts or actions. This is the case in welfare work, where the potential of the social has been seen as an environment for the consciousness of the solitary subject, or as an arena where the individual can be identified as an object. Following Habermas’s analysis, the social is more than this. It is a dimension of the world formed by facts, norms, morals and emotions, whose validity is continuously tested by self-determined and self-realized individuals. In that sense, the social is a new paradigm, and its potential needs to be clarified (Habermas 1987). Before exploring this, let’s see how some previous theorists reflected in this direction.

2.1

What Is the Social?

According to Hanna Arendt in “Rise of the Social”, the phenomena can be evasive and threatening (Arendt 1958/1998). From the beginning the meaning of the social was unclear, and this became even more apparent when translated from Greek to Latin. In the Greek world, interest for the social was weak. Men (not women) were civilized and defined as political beings, as opposed to social ones, and appeared in public with words and arguments. In the household and within the family, people were natural beings who could solve their conflicts with violence. The contrasted view of Roman thought on the social referred to the basic nature of all individuals. When translated, these two ideas were mixed up, which resulted in the households being reduced to an intimate sphere and other joint commitments being transferred to the social sphere, making individuals both anonymous and neglected (Arendt 1958/1998). According to Arendt, this social sphere between the private one with intimacy, and the political one with debate, began to grow and expand in an unregulated manner. In our time it has resulted in the tendency to define individuals by how they appear there, as a mass product with work being the meaning of life. The individual is equated with the workforce and other competences, which results in things like being able to act and

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speak in a democratic way becoming less important. Work was the activity others could see, evaluate and give status to.

2.2

Threatening, Empty, Civilizing or Playful?

So what does this mean for us today? According to Hannah Arendt (1902–1979), it can explain why the social has become an instrumental sphere, governed by an “invisible hand”,1 that is, by nobody (Arendt 1958/1998: 44). Instead of encouraging the individual’s authentic actions, it has led to advocating conformity, like bureaucracy does. On a deeper level, this development has made it difficult for us to understand the difference between society’s needs of production and its needs of care. The first ensures that basic needs are met, the latter ensures togetherness, and when their boundaries have been blurred, the need for production takes over. Arendt’s concerns have almost been realized, for example in the care of the elderly. There have efforts become increasingly rationalized at the expense of time for basic needs, conversations and relationships. She therefore asks how the social can be reconstructed to better respond to a more humane society, one where people’s dependency on each other is of public significance “for the sake of life” (Arendt 1958/1998: 46). A question which is just as current today! Another quite pessimistic analysis comes from Jean Baudrillard (1929– 2007) and his text “The End of the Social” (Baudrillard 1983). As formed by abstract instances, he suspects “that the social regresses to the same degree as its institutions develop”; in short, a progressive desocialization (Baudrillard 1983: 65, 66). He investigated three statements: (1) the social is a false order, a misunderstanding not worth keeping, (2) it is a security sphere taking over from an individual’s own responsibility, (3) it represents a new information technology producing a gap between the real and its representations, which brings about a hyperactivity between codes and structures. Baudrillard found that none of these statements made the social significant enough, and therefore worth preserving. Its mission is over: dead. However, his conclusions can be called into question, not least because of their system orientation. It manifests itself in the absence of autonomous, authentic individuals with communicative power and the ability to validate information before accepting given orders. Another factor, which also undermines his arguments, is the development of social media, which today is open to an almost unlimited opportunity to express

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one’s own subjective opinions. It erodes the image of the social as an anonymous mass. Becoming social was, however, already a matter for Rousseau (1712– 1778). Through education, the wild pre-social man becomes civilized into a social human being with reflexive ability, emotions, language and behaviour that corresponds to the level of what society offered. He also advocated the development of systems that can support individuals and protect them against oppression. This power system could be governed by a specific contract that sets out the rules that everyone undertakes to follow.2 It is a type of democratization process based on collective universal will, and “shows by what path justice can replace instinct in (human) behavior” (Habermas 1979: 185). This made Rousseau the first person to work out a procedural type of legitimacy. However, according to Habermas “he mixed the introduction of a new principle of legitimation with proposals for institutionalizing a just role” (Habermas 1979: 186). This has made it possible up to the present day to treat questions of democratization as organizational ones, and to overlook that democracy is “a self-controlled learning process”, that aimed to win the “unforced agreement3 of all those involved” (Habermas 1979: 186). This self-controlled learning process is a type of balance between social actors, which the sociologist George Simmel (1858–1918) highlighted in his text On Individuality and Social Forms (1910/1971). He called it sociability, representing a special feeling, a “play-form of association”, strictly linked to the actors in question (Simmel 1910/1971: 130). It can liberate the individual from the hard friction of reality without losing any relationship to it. Sociability is about tactfulness, a sense of aesthetic form when presenting your ego, and in its best form, a democratic capacity. It is a game which you play as if everyone were equal, and without promoting yourself at the expense of others. This requirement for reciprocity makes it different from other games, because the activity or association process is important and gives the game a double meaning. You are not just playing “in a society”, you also “play society” (Simmel 1910/1971: 134). Simmel saw the dynamics of sociability, making interaction outcomes into an open question. Sociologist Olli Pyyhtinen (2010) considers Simmel’s description to be important for understanding intersubjectivity. He emphasized the reciprocity of relationships, rather than seeing the individual as either a “place where social threads tie themselves”, or as an object in a system (Pyyhtinen 2010: 39).

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A Risk for Oversocializing?

However, the most extensive analyses of interactions between the individual and the system have been made by American sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902–1979), who examined how an individual’s free moral action could be harmonized with system demands. The Norwegian sociologist G. C. Aakvaag (2004), an expert on Parsons, describes it as follows: Parsons’s first attempt shows that the values on which the individual relied could be affected to change when the action take place at the system level. Therefore, that model could not secure a free choice. Parsons made a new attempt by developing four sub-systems, each of which added a resource: money, power, influence and value obligations. Because that process created a common value foundation, it could simplify and balance the interaction in the next step, at the system level. It clarified roles and expectations, for example concerning super- and sub-ordination in relation to power. However, the roles became “institutionalized” at the system level, which only steered the action in one direction, from the system to the individual. This made the individuals “over-socialized”, which means submitting to norms, and changes freedom to dependence (Aakvaag 2004: 197, 198). From Parsons’s analyses, Aakvaag (2004) argued for a need of an intermediate, balancing language which can convey meaning in both directions. Such a model can also act as a barrier for catching the social processes that do not work systematically, for example when it comes to the need for self-determination. It can also reveal colonization occurring in an individual’s everyday life, where they are fragmentized and occupied by system logic. Aakvaag found a solution to Parsons’s dilemma in Habermas’s theory of communicative action (Aakvaag 2004).

2.4

The Social as Regulating Communicative Actions

The communicative action theory is inspired by Parsons’s analyses, which Habermas praised very highly. “Parsons’s question was the classic one: How is society as an ordered set of related actions possible at all?” (Habermas 1981: 175). According to Habermas, that question can be answered if you understand how actions can be coordinated, or how social integration and system integration are related. Habermas’s answer is through the intersubjectivity in a communication action. However, he

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found Parsons’s analyses grounded in a monological model (the subject is isolated, without a communication partner, Nørager 1987: 11), who lacked mutuality and prioritized system functionality. It indicated that the individual could not accept the system terms with free will. Parsons’s model overlooked the power of reason, embedded in the intersubjective communication of the lifeworld. Then the parties could not validate the claims nor coordinate their actions in a constructive way. According to Habermas, it is necessary to have these opportunities if one is to understand modern societies with their many different contexts. So even though Habermas considered Parsons’s analyses outstanding, he did not clarify this, which made them insufficient to include problems within modern societies (Habermas 1981, 1987). Instead of prioritizing either the systems or the individual, Habermas’s intersubjectivity focused on the social world. He define it as “the totality of all legitimately regulated interpersonal relations”, which regulates the communicative action in relation to the context in question. “A definition of the situation establishes an order.” It is a recognition giving legitimacy to values and standards in the context (Habermas 1984: 100). The process has two directions. Firstly, it tests whether the communicative actions intended for the actual context, are “in accordance with” the standards recognized as legitimate. Secondly, it tests to see if they “deserve” recognition as legitimate (Habermas 1984: 89). This creates a sense of rightness, which however can make the social world “historical”, because the validation of norms is coloured by people living in a certain epoch, or by the spirit of the time (Habermas 1993: 39). Thus, interpretations can change, depending on which unforeseeable situations history produces. However, in democracies the endeavour for a daily life that is good for everyone is, by definition, a priority. According to Habermas, the social world does not work in isolation, but needs help from the objective and subjective worlds. The objective world, described as “the totality of all entities about which true statements are possible”, can be tested, for example by scientific methods (Habermas 1984: 100). With support from these truths of facts, intentions and goals of individuals, we can link the social action to a cultural tradition, which can increase the sense of its meaning. How does the subjective world, “the totality of the experiences of the speaker to which he has privileged access” (Habermas 1984: 100) support the social? As we all know from real life, emotional expressions can affect other individuals even if the truth of the content is uncertain. However,

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truthfulness can only be validated indirectly, which means that it is only through social action that we can find out whether the sincerity was genuine or not. If not, it undermines confidence in a person’s continued intentions and social actions. So while the objective world is oriented to facts (true/false), the social is oriented to norms and moral values (right/wrong) and the subjective to feelings (truthfulness/fake). Among these three kinds of references to the “world”, the social has a key function, because it involves the context, the situation, which previous perspectives made invisible. When the context is clarified, it contributes to more constructive action. These new insights about communicative action become even more evident when comparing them with other action models. Instead of intersubjectivity, their one-sidedness “limits” an understanding of constructive social actions. Firstly, by only referring to those who focus on selfinterest, secondly, by only requesting consensus from those having already accepted the norms, and finally, by not requesting authenticity but accepting the presentation of self, as actors for an audience (Habermas 1984: 95). These shortcomings are caused by their thematizing of only one function of the language at a time, for example: realization of a goal (game theory), establishment of interpersonal relationships (role theory) or expression of a subjective experience (dramaturgical action model). Unlike them, the theory of communicative action, through its mutual intersubjective perspective, its social paradigm, thematizes these three features at the same time (Habermas 1984: 95). This means that the focus has been adapted and corrected by the participants’ arguments, and thereby strengthens integration, solidarity and legitimacy. But in these processes, the grammar structure of a developed language is also an influence. Its three components: the propositional (propose something), the illocutionary (doing something when talking) and the expressive (authentic feelings) helps to differentiate the understanding in general. When for example, you make a statement (a proposition)—the chair is red—it is quite easy for the parties to validate the chair’s objective fact, by just looking at it. The statement is perceived as meaningful but does not by itself require an action. This is, instead, the case for the illocutionary component. By saying “I’m coming on Sunday”, I create the expectation of an action, which in principle must be fulfilled (illocutionary, sometimes called performative). By promising the action, the utterance is simultaneously referred to the requirement to keep to what you promised. This moral commitment connects it to the social world,

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where individuals are internally related by norms and morals. Another language component is expressions, such as crying out. As a feeling it represent the subjective world, but is linked to something that happens in the social world, and can therefore, support the action if the expression is relevant to the situation in question (Habermas 1984, 1987: 62), for example, crying at a funeral. The social paradigm indicates that the illocutionary takes precedence. So if a person gets information about facts needed in a particular situation, or laughs at the right time, these utterances strengthen the actions in a specific social context. Thus, the propositional and expressive levels can, in a correctly interpreted situation, initiate an action. On the contrary, if the facts and the laugh are expressed in a completely wrong context, they become meaningless or merely interpreted as a subject’s confused behaviour. Then, if they really intend to initiate an action, they must be recharged, and moved to the correct normative context. In addition, the illocutionary structure, through its focus on action, can affect the individual so that he follows an expectation, a norm, of “you should” (Habermas 1987: 62). This will be clear if you consider some institutions, for example marriage. If you follow the norm that is linked to it, “do you take this Anna to be your beloved wife …” you are considered married, regardless of context. It means that the grammatical development of the language also produces propositions, which already have a built-in moral, giving them truth or power from a norm.

2.5

Summary

We have found that the social represents a dimension of the world where modern speech and actions are regulated through mutual communications. This can define the situation in question through the validation of objective facts (truth), social norms and moral (rightness) and subjective expressions (truthfulness), supported by the grammatical development of language. This intersubjective, social paradigm is the fruitful basis for understanding the legitimizing processes of welfare ambitions, expressed in the interaction between the client and the public worker.

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Notes 1. A concept Arendt borrows from Adam Smith. 2. Rousseau’s books on education (Émile, ou de l’Éducation) and the social contract (Du Contrat Social ou Principes du droit politique), were both published in 1762. 3. It is important to remember that “agreement on binding norms (ensuring reciprocal rights and duties) does not require the mutual appreciation for one another’s cultural achievements and life styles, but instead depends solely on acknowledging that every person is of equal value precisely as a person” (Habermas 2003: 292).

References Aakvaag, G. C. (2004), Frihet og orden. En kommunikasjonsteoretisk läsning. Tidskrift for Samfunnsforskning, 46(2), s 187–219. Arendt, H. (1958/1998). Rise of the Social. In The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Baudrillard, J. (1983). In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities or The End of the Social. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 522 Philosophy Hall. New York: Columbia University. Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1981). Talcott Parsons: Problems of Theory Construction. Sociological Inquiry, 51(3–4), 173–196. Habermas, J. (1984). The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 1. Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1987). The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2. The Critique of Functional Reason. Oxford: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1993). Justfication and Application. Remarks on Discourse Ethics. London: The MIT Press. Habermas, J. (2003). Truth and Justification. Cambridge: Polity Press. Nørager, J. (1987). System og livsverden. Århus: Förlaget ANIS. Pyyhtinen, O. (2010). Simmel and ‘the Social’. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Simmel, G. (1910/1971). On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

CHAPTER 3

Communicative Legitimacy

Abstract This chapter examines Habermas’s reconstruction of Mead’s analyses of socialization and coordination and why Habermas complemented them with mutual understanding into a modern, intersubjective communicative action perspective. A perspective that is characterized by equal rights to validate truth, rightness and truthfulness by saying yes or no to claims, without being excluded. Habermas linked these to the lifeworld and system, which transformed legitimated actions into rationalized legal codes and orders. Durkheim found that morality is the balancing factor in these processes, which Habermas developed and connected to law, discourses of morality and human rights. Finally, administrative power is explored. As it is mediated through role-players such as the client, the professional and the citizen, their opportunities to contribute to legitimation are analysed. Keywords Intersubjectivity · Lifeworld · Systems · Morality · Law · Administrative power

Being able to communicate and act as a self-determining and self-realizing individual is the prerequisite for a reasonable and civilized social order. Habermas attained this insight when he was a young man reading about the war trials in Nürnberg (1945–1949), and the pathological brutality his homeland, Germany, created during the Nazi era. Since then, his main © The Author(s) 2020 A. Kihlström, Communicative Legitimacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54949-7_3

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task has been to theoretically investigate whether, and how, a modern democratic society can utilize communication instead of violence to create a system that guarantees peoples’ equal rights for participation, dignity and recognition (Wiggershaus 2004). One of his most important results was the “theory of communicative action” (1981), the perspective used in this book. However, it is necessary to bear in mind that he does not claim that his theory provides a complete answer. On the contrary, he considers it to be part of a ongoing discussion which has resulted in continuous clarifications and revisions. His theory reflects the idea that everyone is of equal value, meaning everyone has the right to say yes or no to the arguments put forward. As seen, it also connects communication with action. Through language we say something and do something. The task is not only to denote the world but to reach a mutual understanding, which guides our actions more constructively in relation to individuals’ own goals, as well as to a social order based on human rights.1 This chapter will explore and explain the most significant phenomena in the theory, as well as clarify how to understand and connect them to legitimacy. Although the aim was to present them one by one, this has not proved possible, because they are so highly entangled. The chapter begins with Sect. 3.1 to clarify intersubjectivity as the ground for a mutual understanding, the very base of the communicative action perspective. With this, Habermas uncovers how communication works in modern societies. It is based on a step-by-step reconstruction of some classical theories described below. However, this part has been kept short so that we do not get lost in details. Section 3.2 then explores the lifeworld, which represents our multidimensional background knowledge that helps us to master situations, and the system with its function to facilitate everyday life actions by transforming their experiences to codes and orders. However, this part begins with a short description of social and system integration, because these two concepts are closely related to the lifeworld and systems. Section 3.3 explores morality and law, as being the key factors in balancing rights and obligations between individuals and systems in welfare societies. It also highlights the risks for moralization, the different assignments for morality and law, the legitimacy gap, the discourse theory of morals, and moral feelings and human rights as the modern universal values. Section 3.4 connects the perspective to welfare administration in which power and the roles of the client, professionals and citizen are examined.

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Intersubjectivity as Mutual Understanding

Some of the most important insights for Habermas’s construction of this concept were analyses made by the classic sociologists G. H. Mead (1863– 1931) and E. Durkheim (1858–1917). Mead contributed by showing us that gestures have a symbolic meaning, an emotional or intellectual message, anchoring communication socially. Durkheim contributed by demonstrating how a collective consciousness was connected to morality and transformed to a potential for normative truth. 3.1.1

Mead’s Intersubjectivity

Mead’s analysis, often called symbolic interaction, has long been used to clarify identity and socialization processes, while its importance for communication theory has been underestimated and not investigated. In a notable reconstruction, Habermas shows that Mead’s two concepts, summarized as socialization and coordination, must be supplemented with a third, namely mutual understanding, to clarify that statements can be accepted as well as criticized without the risk of exclusion from society, which democracy demands. Our ability to communicate through gestures means that we can express something. Other people can understand us the same way as we ourselves, as the gestures become symbols. With help from its communicative content, individuals can move into situations, and into roles, with some trust in their ability to handle situations. When parties understand an utterance or gesture in the same way, for example as sadness or joy, their experiences gain a universal meaning as objective knowledge. This allows them to go beyond their limited world and see it from the outside, by thinking that it appears in the same way for others. When that happens, the experience becomes social, shared, and “it is only against this common world that the individual distinguishes his own private experience” (Mead 1934/2015: xxxvii). That access to a common world of communicating participants is a necessary condition for becoming an individual. For Mead, as for Rousseau, this process was a learning one, an exercise in the ability to interpret and organize all the stimuli in the situation. As we know, Mead illustrated this concept with children’s play and games. In children’s play, the child takes on one role at a time, for example the parents’ role, which means that the child becomes someone confronting

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itself. By obeying the parent, the child learns that it can avoid sanctions while fulfilling the parents’ interests. The child learns a set of answers that can be generalized to a standard, which indicate a process of socialization. But it is not enough to develop “the self”; the child must also learn to handle this knowledge in a certain way. Games, with their organized roles, make the child familiar with a certain social activity. However, there must be two perspectives, the child’s and the parents’, and they have to be coordinated, based on the rules that are applied to the game-situation. In addition, the child must take an objective attitude, which makes it possible for him/her to assess the directives, and if necessary, adjust the role performance. It splits the role into that of a neutral observer, so that the interaction is now between an “I”, a “you” and a “third person”. As a result, the child can understand that a particular behaviour applies to everyone in the group, that there is a collective will, a group authority, the generalized other, who exercises both control and punishment. Thus Mead’s evolution of a “social self” can be described as a two-step process: first, where the attitudes of other individuals are set against one’s own in a particular situation, and second, where the attitude of the group, “the generalized others”, is organized (Mead 1934/2015: 154). However, according to Habermas there is a problem here, because “a general group will is not the same as the force of the generalised will of all individuals, which expresses itself in the sanctions the group applies to deviations” (Habermas 1987a: 38). He showed that this objective will-institution, in its claim for validity, could not rest on generalized imperatives, but on intersubjective recognition, on a consent from those affected by it. It also means that the asymmetry built into Mead’s socializing interaction, (child education) does not apply to adult relationships, where the starting point is democratic symmetry and equality. 3.1.2

Habermas’s Reconstruction to Mutual Understanding

Mead’s analyses interested Habermas because they show how to go beyond the focus on one individual, who reacts to stimulation from the environment, and instead claims that interaction is between at least two individuals, who react to one another and behave in relation to one another. It means that analyses of behaviour in a social group should not start from how a separate individual composes it, but from what Mead described as “a given social whole of complex activities”, into

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which we try to understand how each individual composes their behaviour (Habermas 1987a: 4). Mead also criticized behaviourism and perspectives of consciousness. He exposed the intersubjective perspective of linguistic communication, which socializes the subjects as well as coordinates their goal-directed activities. It means to follow the norms and act with others in a group by consolidating its solidarity. However, he underestimated a third function of communicative action, that of independently assessing whether these norms are acceptable or need to be changed, which is necessary if you want to respect an individual’s autonomy and rights. Habermas developed this factor and called it mutual understanding. Mead didn’t fully realize what happens when interactions like simple gestures were transformed into linguisticly conveyed and normative interactions. Habermas saw that it affects not only one party but both, which has consequences for the entire system. It affects their expressions and ways of coordinating, which ensure that behaviour in a cultural tradition. Mead described this process as an internalization, “making objective structures of meaning internal” (Habermas 1987a: 9).2 According to Habermas, this was only half the truth. When Mead interpreted the intersubjective relationship as an individual’s relation to him/herself, the process of taking an attitude to the other was reduced to a mechanism, just by implying a higher level of subjectivity. With that Mead fell back on the consciousness philosophy, although his ambition was to exceed it. Instead, the intersubjective perspective forces individuals to not only internalize themselves and turn inward, but also to reflect on themselves from the outside. Then it becomes a process of integration, and more and more a task for a language of allegations, substantiated with different types of arguments. Without taking this into account, it is impossible to explain what happens when an individual responds in an unexpected way. How does the other party take it? If a participant can answer yes or no to a question, it means they possess a language that makes it possible to specify positions, a so called “propositionally differentiated language” (Habermas 1987a: 13). Mead positioned language, like the communication of gestures at a deeper level, modally locked to specific gestures. Instead, a developed language offered different answers (proposals), when taking an attitude towards others. Firstly, when responding to one’s own gestures, which instruct the parties to internalize an objective meaning structure. They agree about the meaning of the symbols and how to respond to them. Secondly,

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when a gesture is addressed for another to interpret. It provides an answer based on the expectation that the other is a social object, who can interpret the communicative content of the gesture. Then they learn what it means to use gestures with communicative content, to have a reciprocal relationship. Habermas also identified a third way to answer. It is when the same gestures give an identical meaning, because then the parties can expect a certain response and if misunderstood, they can express disappointment. It develops rules for the use of symbols, for how “meaning conventions” take shape (Habermas 1987a: 15). Mead overlooked this step but had it in mind when he talked about the poet’s work. He/she must know the expected response for exceeding it in its art. This gap was filled by Wittgenstein’s (1889–1951) analysis of how to follow rules. He shows that this ability comes from a context. If you can follow rules there, it means that the rules have the same meaning for both parties. Thus, following a rule means following the same rule, even under “changing conditions of application” (Habermas 1987a: 17). You will understand how to play chess when you understand it as a whole. So an incorrect application can be criticized and adjusted, which is possible because of its intersubjectivity. This opportunity to assess the rule-making also ensures that a certain behaviour can be expected when going into a role, a role identity. It indicates difficulties for solitary subjects, for example isolated and lonely young people, who either lack the ability to follow a rule because they do not understand its meaning, or lack a context helping them to assess the rule. A lonely subject can never create a rule, and thus cannot develop the role identity. This insight was successfully applied in the work of criminals in Los Angeles, where police through a procedural justice tried to have the suspected role-transgressive and cross-border individuals reflecting through a mutual communication. It strengthened their understanding of roles and increased legitimation of the community’s order (SR, March 2014).3 With Wittgenstein’s analysis it was obvious that both the rule and intersubjectivity are systematically linked (Habermas 1987a: 18). This becomes clear when reflecting on significant gestures. What happens when an individual asks for help but nobody understands him/her? Perhaps we meet a misguided reaction, totally wrong in the context. Therefore, it must be possible to criticize a behaviour, to adjust it for gradually linking it to

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a certain convention or an agreed opinion, which strengthens rules and role-conforming behaviours. Mead could not fully explain that process. His model was “embedded in a regulation of behaviour that functions prelinguistically and rests finally on residues of instinct”, which was not a sustainable explanation for Habermas (1987a: 23). Thus, Mead explained how verbal understanding was possible but not how a differentiated language system, a written language or, for that matter, today’s modern grammatically structured language, can replace an older, natural system. He underestimated the individuals’ interest to understand and their need to handle new challenging, normative realities. Thus, by reducing the process to one, going directly from symbolically mediated to normative regulated action, Mead missed the step in-between, in which an independent validation of the norm was made possible by the developed language, allowing different kinds of arguments and hypothetical alternative for actions. However, Mead clarified another important point, namely that “‘the self’ is essentially a social structure and arises in social experiences” (Habermas 1987a: 40). By indicating that motives for action are symbolically restructured, he developed the relationship between “Me” and “I”. “Me” is a super ego, a fixed concept having internalized the social roles, while “I” reacts on these norms through its subjective world of experiences. This reaction can go beyond the institutionalized individual, meaning his/her reactions are not always the ones expected. According to Habermas it indicates that “I” has a capacity for self-realization, it is both “the motor force and a placeholder for an individuation that can be attained only through socialisation” (Habermas 1987a: 41). This individuation through socialization results from the double structure of the interaction making it possible to answer yes or no. When the answer is not known in advance it constitutes “I” as “uncertain” (Habermas 1987a: 59). This also forces the individual to become more and more authentic, in not losing her/himself. 3.1.3

Habermas’s Clarification of “the Generalized Other“

For Mead, this phenomenon was a group will, resting on the imperative, “thou shalt”. Habermas, on the other hand, claimed that this will was the result of an intersubjective recognition, a consent of those affected by it (Habermas 1987a: 38). With that claim, morality was also brought

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into the process. To explore it Habermas started from Durkheim’s analyses, who throughout his whole life had tried to “understand the sacred roots of the moral authority of social norms”. Durkheim presented this in 1906 with his Determination of Moral Facts (Habermas 1987a: 47). Durkheim’s work indicated a pre-linguistic root to communicative action. He suggested that moral authority could be understood as a command to obey. That made obligations become “one of the primary characteristics of a moral rule” (Habermas 1987a: 47). But how did a collective determine which rules they chose to accept, and how could they differentiate the good ones from the bad? Durkheim proved this by showing that the social environment reacted differently depending on whether technical or moral rules were opposed. In the former, the reaction came immediately by rewarding the behaviour that followed regulations. Concerning a moral rule, the reaction came by rewarding the behaviour that followed conventions. This means that it triggered a special power, an authority, entitled to approve sanctions for any breach of moral rules. His conclusion was that every morality “begins with membership in a group, whatever that group may be” and must then “not only be obligatory but also desirable and desired. This desirability is the second characteristic of every moral act” (Habermas 1987a: 48, 49). Durkeim’s “authority” means something surpassing us, within us, with “a character of a self-overcoming” (Habermas 1987a: 48). It indicates a difference between ritual behaviour and profane behaviour. The ritual is not linked to personal interests, but enters into communion with other believers, merging with the “impersonal of power of the sacred” and goes beyond what is individual (Habermas 1987a: 49). These sacraments give rise to the same ambivalence as moral authority; it scares and attracts, and keeps us at a distance, but at the same time is a loving object that attracts us. It produces and stabilizes the ambivalence that is a characteristic of a sense of moral commitment. It could mean that moral rules get their power from the sacred, which evokes adherence without sanctions. This was illustrated with Australia’s aborigines, who allowed different figures, flags, emblems, ornaments to represent the holy as if these were “collective ideals that have fixed themselves as material objects” (Habermas 1987a: 51). They symbolized a protection, a device that everyone could communicate around and they allowed the individuals to be both in themselves and beyond themselves, in a type of intersubjectivity. “It is by uttering the same cry, pronouncing the same words, or performing the same gesture regarding the same object that they become

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and feel themselves to be in union” (Habermas 1987a: 55). This collective consciousness indicates a first step in establishing a collective identity. However, when societies attain to higher levels of civilization, the use of ritual practices and narratives are not sufficient when transforming these moral obligations into an institutional system. Instead, Habermas claimed that linguistic language took over, in which the obligations have to be validated as a kind of cultural knowledge, meaning both cognitive and socially integrated experiences. A process, moreover, that takes place in everyday life. Durkheim subsumed the two process, one based on rituals and the other on the intersubjectivity of knowledge established through speech acts, under the single concept of collective consciousness. It made it unclear how the religious roots of social solidarity were transformed into institutions for validating their actions, or how collective consciousness become the normative consensus in our profane everyday life. He underestimated the consequences of linguistic mediation, making it possible to specify grounds for action for the situation in question. Durkheim missed the insight that “communicative action is a switching station for the energies of social solidarity” (Habermas 1987a: 57). It means he was, like Mead, still tied to the philosophy of consciousness, to a split in the social sphere. The development of grammatical language also supports Habermas’s insights. In referring to behavioural research, he states that pre-linguistic speech already had some diffuse connection to cognition, obligations and expression. Its cognitive function as a directive and its obligations to the collective, the ritually generated solidarity, were “split up at the level of normative regulated action” in two processes. One of them was aimed at recognizing the existing norms (legitimacy) and another one at recognizing norm-conformed motives for action (moral) (Habermas 1987a: 63). Feelings also had impact, but they were weakened when expressed in words. In addition, the grammatical language affected the concept of validity, the idea of truth. According to Durkheim, logical thinking was always impersonal. “Impersonality and stability are the two characteristics of truth”, and he asks: How they have found that out? It seemed like it was there when “they open their eyes to the world” but history shows “it has taken centuries for it to disengage and establish itself” (Habermas 1987a: 71). Habermas opposed this description by claiming that the truth only gets the impersonality of an idealized agreement, an intersubjectivity, from the normative validity. The authority of knowledge is not the same as

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moral authority. The concept of the truth is rather a combination of two agreements: one that the objective experience may represent facts, and another where such facts may be considered as truth. This combination “gets the concept of criticisable validity claim” (Habermas 1987a: 72). However, without getting lost in grammatical details, it can be concluded that the structural components of a developed language penetrate all the components of interaction, and thus contribute to increased functions of communication. In addition to reaching mutual understanding through the transmission of culturally stored knowledge, communication coordinates action through the fulfillment of norms appropriate to a given context, and supports social integration. Finally, it socializes behaviour by forming personality structures and identities. According to Habermas, it make communicative action “a suitable medium for social reproduction” (Habermas 1987a: 64). Something to keep in mind when we say that we need to talk!

3.2

From Everyday Life to Systems

Having studied some of the ideal circumstances that underlie communicative action, we shall now turn our attention to contextual factors, which can be supporting as well as limiting. They relate to integration, the lifeworld and systems. Social theory has long been trying to clarify how integration works for maintaining order in a modern democratic society. Habermas’s development of mutual understanding, complemented by the lifeworld and systems open for two aspects of integration: a social and a system. It connects two perspectives which previously had been separated. One is based on Mead’s action theory, offering social integration, and the other on system theory, having macro-sociological roots with the market as a model, which offers system integration. Linking both to the same communicative root was a challenge for Habermas, but his understanding that communicative action is a mediator between the individual’s lifeworld and the system led him forward (Habermas 1986b). Let’s follow his step-by-step reasoning! 3.2.1

Social and System Integration

Habermas described social integration as a normatively secured consensus, coordinated by mutual communication. System integration on the other hand, is secured by the regulation of individual decisions, which, by the

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help from codes can make the system independent of mutual understanding (Habermas 1986b). The social integration is thus strengthened when individuals participate in a mutual communication. The system integration is more tied to already accepted views and roles, for example as parents, and thus become eligible for functionally regulating a child’s allowance. As we know, integration can be problematic. If social integration is suppressed, then it can cause identity crises. Individuals begin to feel unsure of who they are or which group they belong to, which happens if participation in the public conversation is hindered. If system integration fails, it can cause feelings of exclusion, meaninglessness, and in the long run governance crises for welfare institutions. Individuals can however be socially integrated if they are allowed to share their knowledge, experiences and personal interpretations in the situation in question. The efficiency of the system’s integration is more interconnected with the functional arrangements of the welfare, such as a proper codified language, and giving access to, for example, insurance funds, housing allowance and membership of a union. However, codes are produced by rationalization of communication in the lifeworld, which is one of Habermas’s points. This opens them up to validation, to whether they are relevant and justified, which happens in legitimacy processes. To clarify this let’s follow his analyses of the lifeworld and systems. 3.2.2

Everyday Horizons, the Lifeworld

In the early 1900s, several theorists reacted to tendencies in the social sciences to overlook the context, the everyday life, in relation to understanding the communication and action of individuals. The main critic came from the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), who also blamed psychology for falling into this pattern (Joas and Knöbl 2004). Husserl claimed that consciousness is always focused on some activity, some phenomenon, in everyday life, which gives it meaning. The Austrian philosopher and sociologist Alfred Schütz (1899–1959) developed this by his phenomenological thinking, and then prepared the way for Habermas’s transformation of ideas about the everyday horizon to a scientific concept, the lifeworld. Schütz showed how this “province of reality” was structured, which highlighted the background as a context for communicative actions (Joas and Knöbl 2004: 160). Let’s briefly describe it.

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Schütz saw that the individual can broaden his/her field of vision when sharing a social world with others. This consists of a multitude of structures where the thoughts, motives and actions of the other “introduce an intersubjective dimension” (Schütz 1932/1976: 20). The most important structure of this social world is characterized by an immediate experience of the other, which means, the parties share “a common sector of time and space”. One’s consciousness process then becomes part of the other’s, and this goes both ways, which gives the relationship “different degrees of intimacy and anonymity” (Schütz 1932/1976: 22). The most authentic of these relationships Schütz calls the “face to face situation”, where actors express themselves as unique people, and he claimed that it is from this relationship that everything is interpreted and get its basic legitimacy (Schütz 1932/1976: 23). The face-to-face relationship give the parties knowledge about each other for a certain period of time; they gain a perspective from each other and can grow older together. This shared space is also enhanced by the bodily presence of the parties, such as movements, gestures and facial expressions, which affects the awareness of the other and creates a “thouorientation” (Schütz 1932/1976: 24). This relationship can be one-sided if the other is ignored, but mutual if the parties recognize each other. It transcends into a genuine “we-relationship”, which means that both are engaged in each other’s experiences about the same thing. For example, when both see a bird escape and can say, “we saw a bird in flight” (Schütz 1932/1976: 25). Schütz claims that we could only become part of the consciousness of others, and only understand what the other party means, when being engaged in concrete we-relationships. The directness will be broken if one of the players begins to reflect over what they have perceived, which can often occur and disturb everyday communication. His analysis raises questions about how today’s communication on social media is understood, where the face-to-face relationship, if you follow Schtüz, is reduced or deformed! This indicates that the more indirect the relationship is, the more anonymity the other party experiences. However, collective social reality, which the individual experiences through functions and organizations more than by people, is by nature anonymous, and its meaning can be conveyed through typifications. They act as hypotheses in social relationships, for example, when we take a train trip and the other is first defined as a train traveller. This way of making sense is also used in welfare work as a basis for categorization: unemployed, juvenile delinquency, single

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or abusive man. The problem with this is that it does not develop any new meaningful contexts, but constantly reproduces the same idealized image. It can be said to increase the system’s rationalization of its own structure, making the client more and more into a client. A risk that the communicative perspective can exceed. Habermas was inspired by these analyses, despite their limits, by building on the solitary subject. Schütz suggested intersubjectivity but ignored its power on the language itself. Therefore, the perspective could not differentiate between what we are talking about, meaning which kind of world we refer to (issues of fact, norms or feelings) and from where we get support for our interpretations (who’s lifeworld). In other word, he didn’t differ between world and lifeworld, which Mead also missed. In Schütz’s version, cultural knowledge was seen as the decisive component of everyday life, meaning he mainly relied on objective facts in communication and thus reduced it to conversations. In Mead’s version, the language is reduced to a way for role taking and socialization, which made it useful for adaptation to everyday life (Habermas 1995). None of the models could however show how a daily reality could be exceeded because that required a more developed communicative action model. The concept of lifeworld is described as a context, a background from which communication and action establish solidarity and proven competence, a sphere for interpreting and coping with situations (Habermas 1995). A specific situation in this context defines a theme, which has risen in connection with the interests and goals of the participants. They interpret the situation with regard to the problem they are faced with, which opens the door to options of action. They can choose an action benefiting their own interests and also taking into account the others’ interests. Thus, being in a situation means that certain actions are considered acceptable, while others not. By means of validity testing, the restrictions embedded in the situation can be uncovered and identified as facts (true or false), norms (right or wrong) and expressions (authentic or fake) (Habermas 1987a). Through that the parties can avoid and/or erase misunderstandings, contribute with new interpretations if necessary and act to maximize the potential of success for both. Thus the lifeworld (from where something comes) becomes an almost inexhaustible resource for the individual, something always available. It differs from the world (what we are talking about, e.g. facts, norms, feelings) by its nature of being a “horizons-forming context for understanding processes” (Habermas 1995: 590, my trans.). This fundamental

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background knowledge works in silence as a complement to the conditions for acceptable language standards, for example delivered by the social world. Beyond being a context, it also acts as a “reservoir of convictions”, which gives it two different approaches that must be maintained at the same time when trying to master a situation (Habermas 1995: 591, my trans.). One approach means seeing yourself as a product of development with an individual skill, a certain knowledge of a social praxis. Another means seeing yourself as the initiator of reasonable acts, by validating the statements on which they are based. The Danish philosopher Troels Nørager, who has interpreted Habermas carefully, describes this process in the lifeworld as follow: We are either “passive, receptive, and contemplative when we let ourselves be borne by the unproblematic knowing in the lifeworld and active, full of initiative when we take a stand and criticise the validity requirements” (Nørager 1987: 144, my trans). It means that we can calmly and passively rely on experience when all participants are familiar with actions in a situation, while we must become more active and perceptive when the situation is new; for example, how to greet someone within a new context. The lifeworld is therefore constituted by the language, in which we are cached. It is not possible to stand out away from it, distancing yourself from the lifeworld in the same way that you would distance yourself from issues, norms or interests (Habermas 1986b). In this sense, the lifeworld becomes both infinite and limited. But it is impossible to capture the lifeworld completely; only those parts needed in the specific situation. By highlighting our obvious knowledge, the lifeworld becomes spatial and timely in grasping the situation. We take something out of the background horizon, denote it and then let it fall back, updated with a new linguistic and rationalized meaning. The extracted section has been validated together with other persons, and thus gained more reliable knowledge than before. It has been rationalized, and reproduced symbolically. Nærager summarizes the lifeworld as a kind of natural world image, although a very contradictory one. “It cannot be fully problematised, but be broken down. It cannot be controversial, but decays and it is at our disposal, but can at the same time fail as resource” (Nørager 1987: 165, my trans.). It means that we can’t empty the lifeworld, but lose contact with the experiences it represents, and risk getting lost. The lifeworld can’t be controversial either, because our experiences can’t be denied.

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They are there, good or bad. We can also end up in complex situations which our own experiences cannot grasp, and then the lifeworld fails as a resource. However, by constantly reproducing its structures as valid knowledge (cultural reproduction), stabilizing of group solidarity (social integration) and educated, authentic growing (socialization) the lifeworld will be endless as a resource. 3.2.3

System

The system works in another way with other functions, but is also constructive for integration and social order. It was first introduced in biology during the 1940s as a model for living systems, but quickly became an inspiration for social science, behaviourism and some therapy traditions. This resulted in a model in which the system was in focus, surrounded by factors, made neutral. As such a system perspective, it has been well established, for example in some welfare work, as a complement to conscious-minded psychodynamic perspectives which focus on the solitary subject. According to Payne (2002) system theory can “offer a way of understanding the complexity of a new organization’s very broad role” (Payne 2002: 277). However, he saw that its importance differed between the USA and the UK. While the ecological system theory connected to individualized therapeutic processes dominated in the USA, more pragmatic and radical perspectives became popular in the UK. A modern representative for system perspective is Habermas’s colleague, the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998). He is behind many of today’s welfare analyses, because the perspective is focused on the system’s functional task. This functional model describes the system as a self-governing unit, an “autopoietic system”, which is justified as long as it is different from the environment (Luhmann 1990: 3179). Not governed by other principles than following directives and rules, its main ambitions are not integration but effective functioning. In welfare systems, a hard-driven objectification, codification and specialization is often seen as logical and necessary for maintaining social order. However, in accordance with Habermas, Luhmann’s system model indicates some problems, mainly because it is still founded on the old mind–body problem (Habermas 1987b: 385; Kihlström 2012). It also creates an insensitivity to ethical and moral considerations, and by that an isolation from the society as a whole. Instead of prioritizing the citizen,

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the system begins to prioritize its own needs. By neglecting the connection to intersubjectivity, it cannot reflect on meaning and validate the truth. “There are no good arguments for why bad arguments are bad” (Habermas 1986a: 254). Habermas’s interpretation of a modern and complex society leads to other conclusions. He also refers to systems, but cannot accept them as being independent and autopoietic. When analysing systems from an intersubjective perspective, he instead claims that systems are developed through a rationalization of the lifeworld. As a result, the codes of the system can be questioned because mutual communicating subjects can refer to “universal principles about human equality, human rights and then frankly validate ethical and moral standards in relation to the condition of a concrete situation” (Kihlström 2012: 292). For example, a young social care worker reacted against the ill treatment of elderly customers and laid the groundwork for a new law, Lex Sarah (called after her). The concept system refers to “sedimented structures and established patterns of instrumental action” (Finlayson 2005: 53). They represent a kind of interaction not communicative, but functional (Habermas 1986b). We need systems within the increasing complexities of society. The codes standardize actions, which relieves us and helps us decide how situations should be interpreted. These systems can become specialized and work outside of a communicative logic, as Luhmann claimed. However, they are on borrowed time! They are not legitimized forever in that functional logic, because they must be open for processes of re-legitimacy and recharging (Habermas 1997). The market economy and public administration are media-steered subsystems, meaning they have gone through a long process of decoupling from the lifeworld. Their functions can then be defined by codes, adapted to standard situations (Habermas 1986b). The code for the market-oriented systems is money, a steering medium trying to be as effective as possible, based on economic criteria. The code of the administration-oriented systems is power, meaning it works in line with the collective will of citizens. Disconnected from the lifeworld processes, they are in principle free from a direct validity test. We normally trust them, provided they act within the framework of the legal order, meaning the legality and legitimacy that citizens attach to its codes. However the administrative systems, with their complex power codes, are more dependent on citizens’ trust and legitimacy than the economic

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ones. If, for example, a simple bouquet of flowers costs one hundred pounds, we would probably consider that too expensive and would most likely refrain from buying. But if the power within the administration is misused, it becomes disordered and will affect us in another way, because our dependence on it is of another kind. If you don’t have money, you may borrow from someone. But if you aren’t accepted as an individual in need of help, you will be excluded from the system, from the solidarity of the society, which can be humiliating and destructive. Thus the system’s order and sorting functions can be driven too far and reduce the possibilities of understanding and action coordination in the lifeworld. It can destroy integration and instead fragment the everyday life of individuals, or force them into assimilation. This results in the lifeworld being “colonialized” (Habermas 1987a: 355). The abstraction process that shaped the service user’s relationship with the social state’s administration is a “model case” of this risk for colonization (Habermas 1987a: 322). It can create crises for individuals: for example by loss of meaning, deviations and identity disorders. Then the system becomes more dominant, with more rules than originally intended, and enters “tendencies toward juridification” (Habermas 1987a: 356). Certain lifeworld contexts are particularly sensitive to this, for example family and school, in which values and norms are essential elements of their socialization and integration. Such a disturbance may cause “overattention to or concealed disobedience of law” (Habermas 1987a: 372). Therefore, rationalization and codification is a sensitive process, especially for those welfare activities that intervene in vulnerable individuals’ everyday life (Habermas 1987a). However, “meaning can neither be bought nor enforced” but can only be accepted through a communication, oriented to a process of mutual understanding, which is anchored in everyday life (Habermas 1986b: 390, my trans.). On the contrary, processes relying on functionality without enough analysis of their context, can get lost and instead support dysfunctionality.

3.3

Morality and Law

We have now seen that modern democratic communication is linked to the complexity of the lifeworld and systems, where norms, regulations and boundaries are important. It increases the pressure on individuals to be able to interpret, understand and validate what is being said in order to act constructively. In that process the relations between morality and law

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are important to respect, for making the action legal as well as legitimate, which will be our focus here. A starting point is that differentiated modern, democratic societies have replaced the authority of the Holy with the authority of an achieved consensus based on mutual communication free from “sacrally protected normative contexts” (Habermas 1987a: 77). It has changed the foundation of the legitimation from a sacred one to one being founded “on a common will, communicatively shaped and discursively clarified in the political public sphere” (Habermas 1987a: 81). Legitimacy issues belong to the political sphere and penetrate daily welfare work. They confront individuals with collective will, developed with the help of intersubjective models of communicative action and reinforced with requirements from the public political sphere. As seen as a special social space, that public political sphere can strengthen integration in modern societies. which are “normatively held together solely by civic solidarity, that is, the abstract, legally mediated form of solidarity among citizens” (Habermas 2004: 22). It implies that law is complemented by morality, whose function is to be a mediating, regulatory, balancing and stabilizing factor between the private and public spheres. However, if morality was not linked to the law, it could degrade into moralization, directing individuals in an organized life without emphasizing their free choice or human rights. This became evident just before democracy was consolidated, and it should be briefly explored here because of the risk it may pose for social order. Subsequently, some key phenomena in today’s morality are examined: the different assignments for morality and law, the legitimacy gap, the discourse theory of morality, moral feelings and references to human rights. 3.3.1

From Moralizing to Social Policy

Tendencies towards moralizing were evident at the beginning at the twentieth century. During that time the rulers became eager to proclaim how inhabitants should live when it came to hygiene, purity or sexuality, and how they could learn to develop their literacy and numeracy. These problem areas, impregnated with illegal morality, were soon named the “social” (Rose 1999: 114). It implied a process that influenced the character and personality of the individual. In fact, it was “the invention of the social” (Rose 1999: 112). Let us briefly follow how morality took shape within the social order.

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Ambitions with the social sphere gave the concept status and implied that several European countries formulated social aspirations. For example, during the political revolutions in Europe during the 1830s and 1840s Germany proclaimed “this revolution is not only political, it is of the heart socially in character” (Rose 1999: 117). The term social became an indicator of a certain type of policy that could meet requirements for the state, but also meet demands for market freedom. Thus, the social issue came to be perceived as a positive force by creating a better social order. The increased awareness of social aspects pushed the policy to demand more accountability, when it came to the problems created by the capitalist economic system. Even though several areas were not regulated, the state was considered as having certain obligations and rights to engage in them. In the early 1900s these commitments were called social policies. The term social reflected a type of anti-individualism, which partially relieved the individual from responsibility, but sharpened their status as citizens. It was expected to reduce tendencies to conflict and indicated a “social order, social tranquillity, perhaps even social justice” (Rose 1999: 118). The development created experts who could improve citizens’ social security. In England, a number of mutual social obligations were introduced between the state and citizens, for example a type of health insurance, a retirement pension, a minimum wage and unemployment insurance (Rose 1999). It became apparent that politics had to emphasize a certain moral attitude, a social responsibility, in order to receive support from the people and to strengthen the legitimacy of the rules. In the United States, where the state has a weaker role, an ideology developed based on the citizens’ own control and responsibility. A group of left liberals including William James and George Herbert Mead claimed that individuals learned ethical behaviour in social groups (Rose 1999). The idea was that the interests of individuals and collectives coincided in small groups, such as the family, the workplace and the school, which could prevent conflicts from occurring. Social control was internalized and became self-control. Such natural processes could be used in society for creating social rules, at the same time allowing both individual independence and ethical responsibility. Thus, social problems became a matter of social control, an “effective will-transference” (Rose 1999: 122).

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A phenomenon called scientific management also developed. By studying workplaces as an arena of group relations, the aim was to get the right person in the right place. The idea was that the workplace could satisfy both the individual’s need for community, and the owner’s demand for increased production. The workplace became a “social domain”, but in reality, it was both dehumanizing and risky (Rose 1999: 126, 127). The interest in social conditions increased through promoting healthfriendly and safe lifestyles, and in developing mental health programmes for homes, workplaces, schools and cities. It resulted in a complex bureaucracy of administration, education and care. Many classical social educators such as Makarenko, Aichhorn, Korczak, Neill and later, Gustav Jonsson in Sweden, could now send their messages via radio. However the social, connected to a certain morality, began to change in importance and popularity. In England in the 1980s it referred to a right to “go on the social”, meaning the welfare state compensated certain groups in the form of social assistance or labour support; for example, when an accident had occurred, or the market didn’t offer a job. In the 1990s, this approach was rejected, and dependence on welfare aid was instead made a moral problem. According to Rose, the system began to speak of these people in degrading terms, as representing a dependent culture, a subclass, or marginalized and excluded groups. Such groups drained the taxes and did not give anything in return. Some people wanted to “shut down the something-for-nothing society”, other talked about “a hand-up, not a hand-out” or “from welfare to work” (Rose 1999: 100). The social became a problematic sector, negatively charged, which undermined interest in it. Instead, individuals’ identity processes came into focus as well as relationships and networks, such as the local, ethnic and political. The development of systems also began to push individuals to plan and to be strategic, in order to better assess their own opportunities in relation to current standards. Mistakes or successes came to be personal, and demands grew for people to find their own way in life. The earlier anti-individualistic view of sociality instead turned into a pronounced individual perspective, which also underlined people’s own duty, responsibility and competence. Moral values became a private matter, or had “run dry”, following Arendt’s designation (Habermas 1997: 147).

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Different Assignments for Morality and Law

According to Habermas, there has been a weak scientific interest for analysing the relationship between morality and justice (Habermas 1997). This connection however, is often actualized in welfare work, where the interpretation and implementation of rules and laws is continually challenged, and in need of being motivated and legitimized. Therefore, let’s examine Habermas’s analyses of the relations between morality and the law. He started by asking how individuals can act with moral responsibility based on a desire to be a part of the collective. Again, Durkheim had an answer, but this time in his studies of what it means to terminate a contract (Habermas 1987a). Durkheim found that participants, when in the process of causing harm to each other, could be reconciled by balancing various private interests. It could be an agreement to something that both parties considered to be reasonable, which became the embryo for developing a civil right. By that, they entered into contractual relationships, manifested through certain ceremonies. Durkheim interpreted it as the “remnants” of its once-sacred significance. The obligation of the contract worked, according to Durkheim “thanks to a regulation of the contract which is originally social” (Habermas 1987a: 80). The contract thus became legitimate, accepted by the collective, only to the extent that it expressed a general will. In differentiated societies, Durkheim saw this general will becoming more and more embedded in the state. Their representatives differed from other collective representatives by their demands of a higher level of awareness and reflection, for example a correct action. With that, he saw a development of democracy. The differentiation also allowed individuals to have an independent relation to the collective identity, meaning they could take a stand on values and norms. It pushed them into freedom, emancipation and individualization, and drove them to becoming “more and more of a person”, more and more autonomous (Habermas, 1987a: 84). This helped Habermas to view individuation and growing autonomy as a process of selective self-understanding. It affected solidarity “so that is no longer secured by prior value consensus but has to be cooperatively achieved by virtue of individual efforts. In place of social integration through belief, we have a social integration through cooperation”, which Durkheim called organic solidarity (Habermas 1987a: 84).

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Although Durkheim could not explain what enabled this development, he found it increased rationalization, which meant that individuals could join even if the values came from different contexts, groups or codes. With these abstraction and rationalization process, the parties could refer to a universal ground of values, to a universal morality, from which Habermas developed his discourse theory of morality. So instead of building a consent based on sacred traditions, it is built on a communicative consensus. Social integration no longer mediates through institutionalized values, but via intersubjectively recognized validity requirements, through a language deal, developed in semantics, grammar and logic. By becoming codified and abstract, these common values became also easier to transfer between different contexts, so they could serve as support for action in a diversity of complex situations arising in modern society. “Once a community of believers has been secularized into a community of cooperation, only a universalistic morality can retain its obligatory character. And only a formal law based on abstract principles creates a divide between legality and morality” (Habermas 1987a: 90). Mead, who was inspired by Kant (1724–1804), also contributed to clarification of the universal character of morality: “A thing that is good from a moral standpoint, must be a good for everyone under the same conditions” (Habermas 1987a: 93). Kant’s categorical imperative was a maxim, a law against which the individual could test whether a norm deserved recognition. Mead developed it theoretically, by seeing that the authority of morality rests on the fact that it represents a public interest, and that the unity, constituted by the collective, protects this interest. Thus, morality contributes to protecting the collective by being a social barrier against deviation. It prevents group identity from breaking down and everyday life from being dissolved. A summary of the different tasks for morals and law is presented in Table 3.1. It is important to bear in mind that the two phenomena complement each other, and that it is about a postconventional morality, seeing everything “through the powerful but narrow lens of universalisability” (Habermas 1997: 113). Furthermore, the process cannot be simplified by attributing morality to the private sphere and the law to the public sphere. Instead, when complementing each other, or when law is “a functional complement to morality”, they can be distinguished through three characteristics: (1) their respective functions, (2) their

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Table 3.1 Obligations for morality and law Morality

Law

1. Differences in function between morality and law Is open to interpretation, not codified when Stabilizing expectations, so the each person is responsible consequences become predictable Is normative binding It is binding The subjects themselves test, autonomously, It tests the validity of the norm; its if the validity of the norm is just moral, ethical and pragmatic ones It works for strategic action (in case of non-solidarity when the court is not testing solidarity but only the fact) It relieves the legal entity that does not need to act autonomously (make its own decisions) Its standards are understandable, public, consistent The court’s decision is enforced, implemented 2. Their different contributions to the constitution of power Through judgement skills and action Via constitutive rules that create new preparedness institutions, procedures and Through the regulation of interpersonal competencies relationships 3 Their different contributions to the legitimacy of power From a universal view of humanity as a Through law, as long as its fair (the whole, what all actionable subjects could right can only be right if it is based on reasonably want democratic legislative procedures) Moral universal standards should be in The norms of justice should be in harmony, but not coincide with the norms harmony, but not coincide with moral of justice standards

contributions to the constitution of power, and (3) their contributions to the legitimacy of power (Habermas 2000: 257, 256–262; 1997). In short it states that justice, as a control system, becomes insufficient to ensure social integration. It needs norms and moral values that are based on grounds accepted by individuals who recognize them as legitimate. 3.3.3

The Legitimacy Gap

Weber was concerned about legitimacy, and asked how it could evolve from legality. The question was relevant for him, because he believed that the modern political system was a legal domain with a rational

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character that differed from older models which relied on traditions or charisma. His response was that legitimacy “inhabits the form of law in a morally neutral manner”, by referring to a type of independent rationality (Habermas 1986a: 228). However, according to Habermas’s communicative rationality, legitimacy is not a neutral process, because it includes moral principles. The relationship between law and morality is internal, meaning that “laws can be justified as rational only in the light of morally substantive principles” (Habermas 1986a: 226). Weber missed this point because he saw moral values as subjective values instead of being intersubjective. It connects legality to legitimacy by external as well as internal processes of communicative action. Furthermore, morality is not only related to the law but also to political power. Law has both an independent mission and assists political power, which has a function in itself and gives the court an executive power. Therefore, the problem of the binding force of morally motivated norms can be solved by means of the code of law, while problems of executions have to use power codes (Habermas 1997). It makes it possible to first determine if a person fail to do something, for example, paying car tax, and if so, to use legal powers to collect the debt. If this relation between the two spheres, law and political power doesn’t work properly, a “legitimacy gap” can develop (Habermas 1997: 146). This becomes obvious in strategic interactions where the relationship between what is right and power risks being abused. For example, when somebody thinks “I have power and can therefore decide what is right.” It can isolate and drain morality. In communicative interactions, on the other hand, the right way to act and power can strengthen one another, which also strengthens their common, moral base. If operational procedures are mystified, its moral connections may be endangered. Then according to Habermas the profane power can increasingly promote its own interests, which opens up the legitimacy gap. The right, the legality, will then be reduced as resource for justice (Habermas 1997). Morality will be emptied. It means that efforts are concentrated on establishing power by invoking rules, for giving the impression of being supported by the law. Processes like this can undermine the normatively recognized order and its legitimacy. However, legitimacy problems can also be caused by a growing deformalization of law; for example, when only instrumental procedures regulate process of will-formation. It enables the participants to “settle

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their affairs themselves” or when the difference between the designation and the actual social one impacts on legal programmes. They can also depend on “the growing sensitivity on the part of the legislator, to problems of acceptability”, and “on the assimilation of penal law to informal types of social control”, which erode norms and create suspicion of consensus orientation (Habermas 1986a: 231). Functional tendencies contribute as well; for example, using the law within welfare administrations by subordinating normative viewpoints, “to the imperatives of self-maintaining bureaucracies or to the functional pressures of self-regulating markets” (Habermas 1986a: 232). So the tendency to use the law instrumentally at the moment of application can result in a conflict between rights and the collective good. These processes can produce media-controlled subsystems that prioritize money and power. Then also the continuous need of validation, based on norms and values, could be neglected. In order to identify these different defects, Habermas advocates an impartial procedure for justification and assessment of principles that he call discourse (Habermas 1986a). 3.3.4

Discourse Theory of Morality4

Thus, determining which moral attitude can be accepted for a special action, for example in welfare work, the mutual argumentation may need support in some general principles. They are expressed through a discourse that allows an impartial reflective review of the norms, whether established or hypothetical, which govern the action (Habermas 1993). Then morality sublimates itself to procedures, to a justification discourse. It is supplemented with an application discourse, a non-hierarchical, nonauthoritarian, equal and mutual approach, because impartiality appears to be necessary firstly in a particular case (Habermas 1997). The discourse theory of morality was developed through Kant’s categorical imperative “Everyone must be able to will that the maxims of our action should become a universal law” into an intersubjective procedure for moral argumentation (Habermas 1993: 8). It postulates that “only those norms may claim to be valid that could meet with the consent of all affected in their role as participants in a practical discourse”. It expands to a process in which all participants simultaneously undergo an ideal roletaking transformed into a “public affair” (Habermas 1990: 197, 198). Or more drastically described: Habermas takes Kant’s principles down from

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heaven and puts them on the table, so that morality becomes an issue in everyday life. It is important to notice that discourse theory also tries to be sensitive to consequences, for example, not just validating norms from the perspective of white, well-educated Western men. Therefore neutrality is required, a so-called “moral point of view”, which means a point “from which we can judge practical questions impartially” (Habermas 1993: 1). Neutrality is supported by the principle of universalization which says that the consequences for “each person affected must be such that all affected can accept them freely” (Habermas 1990: 120). It provides room for special interests, but also requires them to be reflected as possible interests for everyone, since they are universal. With this ambition it also follows the “inclusion of the other” but not those who are opposed to exclusion, which means that some are inside and some remain outside. Instead it “means rather that the boundaries of the community are open for all, also and most especially for those who are strangers to one another and want to remain strangers” (Habermas 2000: xxxvi). As noted, arguments are central in discourse ethics and for validating them correctly without unfairness, four aspects of the process must be met: – that nobody who could make a relevant contribution may be excluded – that all participants are granted an equal opportunity to make contributions – that the participants must mean what they say – that communication must be freed from external and internal coercion so that the “yes” or “no” stances that participants adopt on criticizable validity claims are motivated solely by the rational force of the better reasons. (Habermas 2000: 44)

This intersubjective process makes it possible to withstand any unelected powers. However, depending on the problem, the question of what should I do offers different action options. By sorting them it turns out that some can be handled without activating an intersubjectivity argumentation (Habermas 1993: 9). These are called pragmatic options, which means that they represent something we just have to do for realizing certain desires. This may require a rational choice between different techniques, a purposive rationality, a “must” oriented by the most wanted action.

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These pragmatic problems can be decided by the subject her/himself, without affecting someone else, for example if you are going to buy a red or black bike. You do not need to give any reasonable argument, other than you like one or the other colour. Ethical issues are more existential, such as when the subject reflects on who he or she wants to be now and in the future. Do you want to pay car tax and feel safe and be more responsible as a car owner? These kinds of questions have a clearer connection between reason and will, to an “ought” oriented by clinical advice (Habermas 1993: 9). However, neither here do the individuals need to include someone else in their considerations. When it comes to moral questions, as described above, they appeal to the “free will” of a person, acting on the basis of self-given laws (Habermas 1993: 9). It breaks up subjectivity and the process translates into an intersubjectivity at a higher level, in which it intermeshes “the perspective of each with the perspective of all” (Habermas 1993: 12). It is only this type of will, based on moral insight, which can be called autonomous. It is difficult to handle because we can be indecisive, weak or having a deviating will. The latter can induce revolt if the individual is “excluded by rigid moral principles”, or if his or her dignity is violated (Habermas 1993: 14). These reactions can appear in welfare work among adolescents and adults who feel misunderstood and excluded. However, those people who exclude others in the name of moral universality, betray their own ideas about freedom (Habermas 1993). Since legitimacy includes both the will of individuals and the system, it must secure autonomy, which means that the will “lets itself be bound by moral insight, though it could choose otherwise” (Habermas 2000: 34). A private autonomy is linked to the subject’s freedom of action, and a public autonomy is linked to the civilian’s freedom of action. While the private is founded on classical freedoms, which in modern times are expressed as human rights, the public can be found in the idea of sovereignty. From a legal perspective, the right can only be legitimized if it secures both private and public autonomy. A practical discourse thus serves as “a warrant of insightful will formation, insuring that the interests of individuals are given their due without cutting the social bonds that intersubjectively unite them” (Habermas 1990: 202).

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3.3.5

Moral Feelings

Besides law, regulations and assessments, moral feelings also have effects, especially in their processes of application. Although professionalism results in moral feelings being kept under control, they can indicate what a problem really is about. They can refer to experiences that are often not yet articulated, but exist as a diffuse and underlying concern that affects communication. They can help us to go beyond our own feelings about ourselves, and interpret events based on a universal view of how everyone else perceives them. According to Habermas they are important for the constitution of a moral phenomenon, because they can make us think that certain actions are wrong and threaten our integrity (Habermas 1993). It also applies to feelings of guilt that lie behind condemnation, pain and feelings of harm. They can be connected to charges against another person, or to anger and indignation concerning a third person who has hurt others. Moral feelings thus span a large record of experiences that are activated in interpersonal relationships. However, “someone who is blind to moral phenomena is blind to feeling” (Habermas 1993: 174). Support from moral feelings can also make it easier to exceed cultural distance to a stranger. They help us see the “‘differences’, to the uniqueness and inalienable otherness of the other” (Habermas 1993: 175). However, moral feelings do not have an exclusive right to the truth, and they cannot be held responsible for the phenomena they introduce, even if they can be intersubjectively tested. Therefore, we cannot make it a standard by only seeing something from the “moral point of view”. Instead, it can initiate a check of the generalizability of all the different views. The moral in this form is thus always an open, hidden or institutionalized component, important in communications, for example in welfare work between a professional and a client. 3.3.6

Human Rights as Modern, Universal Values

The universal values of human rights (HR) have during some periods been seen as the basis for morality, in the sphere between morals and justice. According to Habermas, it originates naturally as a part of the positive law, meaning it is juridical. However, when including values like “being good for all”, human rights also contain morals. Thus, they can’t be “rejected as moral standpoints but prosecuted like criminal actions” (Habermas 1986a: 190, 191).

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Human rights have been developed as an answer to violence against human dignity (HD). They are called the freedom of modernity and were adopted by the UN after World War II: “All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (UN; Art. 1, 1948). Ideas about dignity and rights had been expressed for a long time, but not interconnected in this way. The requirement of dignity was developed, for example as a claim to protect high-ranking people, or membership in society. It was a social recognition of status, that after a while was transformed into democratic citizenship (Habermas 2010). The connection between rights and dignity is a problem because rights are validated in relation to a specific context, while human dignity must apply to everyone, at a more universal level (Habermas 2010). Thus, human rights have a Janus face: they are both particular and universal. The two phenomena, rights and dignity, have succeeded in consolidating their relationship. However, we have seen that morals can be too weak to secure rights and need to be linked to a compelling law,grounded in democracy. The process is complicated, as HR may seem to be too abstract, and can easily become an empty shell, a directory of rights without effect. But through the UN and other international institutions, and through negotiations in specific cases, the interest in HR has increased due to its “explosive force as a concrete utopia” (Habermas 2010: 3). Therefore, it cannot be blurred out. So it is an utopia, however one which is quickly transformed into action when violence against human dignity occurs in everyday life. It can give rise to a massive demand to correct the injustice, resulting in concrete rules being put aside in order to bring justice to the victim of violence. This can happen in situations where suffering is visible or appears in the form of unacceptable social conditions concerning marginalized social classes, different treatment of men and women, discrimination against immigrants, cultural, linguistic or religious minorities, or concerning honour violence’s or brutal expulsions. All these are signals that suggest violations of dignity or physical violence can activate HR. In order to protect a society from violence, it must allow participants to react to it. That requires an adequate level of independence in the private and economic life of individuals. Then individuals can shape a cultural context in which the moral promise of equal respect for each person’s dignity can be pursued. However, it is more difficult if you are poor and vulnerable. Even so, citizens should be able to respect each other as

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members of a free democratic community. They must be able to see themselves as free citizens who are respected in their human dignity. According to Habermas, HD can become the conceptual hinge that connects the moral of equal respect for each, with the positive law and democratic legislation in a way that supports political order (Habermas 2010). Thus, HR can be seen as a realistic utopia (Habermas 2010), a type of standard, as long as the ideal is rooted in a democratic society with institutions. Concrete cases, however, show how difficult it is to penetrate rhetoric or idealism, such as when stuck in moral demands or, on the contrary, being cynical as a type of realism. This tension between the ideal and reality arose when HR was linked to the positive law, which forces us to think and act realistically without betraying the utopian idea. But even realism has changed and become a new minimalism that seeks to cut off the protection of equal dignity for everyone. This political style makes it easier to include HR but also more difficult, as it can reduce HR to “an intricate international practice” where people’s morals are lost (Habermas 2010: note 26). Therefore, it is important to put HR and HD together, so they can enforce changes.

3.4

Welfare Administrations

When the interaction between morals and the law is disturbed, for example by misguided efficiency, instrumentalism, social control, or coercion, the moral will be drained, which risks causing legitimacy deficits. It is a challenge for welfare institutions when applicate political decisions with help of an administration, because it may be insensitive to the nuances of everyday life. It is an arena crossed by rationalized, collectively based orders and codes, guided by law, directives and concrete circumstances such as limited resources, deadlines, traditions for acceptance, etc. (Habermas 1997). The work is performed by officials who are more or less professional. Organizational theorist Robert Denhardt (1981) claims that critical theory5 offers a good understanding of these processes, because it examines questions about the nature of rationality and objectivity, central in state bureacracies. With Marcuse’s criticism of Weber’s view of rationality, Denhardt described how Habermas developed this. It was by interpreting the reasons behind rationality and objectivity in a new way, as a social construction through “conscious choice and effective action” (Denhardt 1981: 630). Habermas also identify different types of actions in the social systems; a technical that was goal oriented

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and an integrative that was built by “consensual norms” (Denhardt 1981: 630). The technical became dominant, supported by assumptions about an ever increasing economic growth. This has subordinated the legitimacy base to a strategic rationality, also in the welfare bureaucracy. It has made politics less dependent on normative structures, which results in a general depoliticization of citizenship. According to Denhardt (1981: 631) it has become “no longer that of aiding in the choice of social directions but is one of occasionally choosing between alternative sets of administrative personnel, whose function, in turn, is to deal effectively with those problems which impede the smooth operation of the social and economic system”. These changes undermine the legitimacy of public services, which then require new models of administrative practice. Models that do not depersonalize people or lack self-reflection for that causes alienation both “within the bureaucracy and alienation from it” (Denhardt 1981: 631). The bureaucracy needs to be developed in a direction towards more freedom of choice and less regulation. This can strengthen both the client and citizen roles as well as the commitment to democratic processes. So just following the law does not make its implementation correct. Legal orders can be misinterpreted, distorted and overloaded. For example by routines, pre-formulated application forms, time for investigations and visits, even if that can be aimed to make the work efficient, transparent, predictable and reduce unreasonable expectations and violence. Implementation can also be disturbed by local practices, for example, unspoken prejudices, behaviours or opinions about the aid applicants which are not sanctioned in the regulations. Then decisions can be made without regard to the applicant’s argument, and instead referring to a management or an objective fact “behind the back” of the citizen (Habermas 1997: 39). Thus, administrators are not protected against “paternalistic self-empowerment and selfprogramming” (Habermas 1997: 188). This will be reflected here by focusing on the power of the administration as well as the three roles; the client, the professional and the citizen. 3.4.1

Power

The power attributed to administrators comes through political decisions and processes. They generate legislative texts and regulations that experts interpret in directives and guidelines for implementation. This power can

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be used more or less in accordance with the various legal provisions and more or less constructively. There are often complicated rules which can be difficult for officials to handle properly. What should be the priority, what rules apply in the specific situations that the clients invoke, and what are the intentions behind the rules? These issues can take up so much energy that they fail to take into account the “autonomy guaranteed equally for all citizens”, which is the basic idea that maintains the law’s connection to legitimacy (Habermas 2000: 254). Citizens’ participation can also be challenged by differences in democratic traditions, by models for organizing welfare work, or by differences in needs from an often multicultural mix of clients. According to Beetham (1996) “in the USA, the ethos of government administration is closer to business than it is in Britain or France, where the civil service constitutes a more closed end exclusive élite” (Beetham 1996: 36). The public service is also less developed in the USA, but on the other side it has “a much more stringent requirement of openness in government, and a much more rigorous investigative process—both based upon a more thorough constitutional separation of powers, and a culture altogether less deferential than in either Britain or France” (Beetham 1996: 36). Guy Peters (2001) has also found that cultural differences affect bureaucracies. He claims, for example, that both the United States and the United Kingdom have an administrative process “conducted in an informal, personalistic manner based generally on personal acquaintances and personal trust”, which does not apply to Germany with its more “institutionalized bureaucratic style” (Guy Peters 2001: 37). However, regardless of the model, implementation is a key problem in contemporary political systems, not least because of rigid structures. This leads to “governments may do what they think they can do rather than what they should do or even want to do” (Guy Peters 2001: 233). Furthermore, unfair social positions can be a power problem, if they are not neutralized when they reach administration. Social power means “possibilities an actor has in social relationships to assert his own will and interests, even against the opposition of others” (Habermas 1997: 175). This power must be transformed into an equality and symmetry of the political processes (Habermas 1997: 175). Otherwise, people with good reputation and influence can confiscate the administrative power, which, at least theoretically, should protect against that. No political party can for example, forever make administration to its own executive power. On the contrary, political election procedures mean that new legitimated

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guidelines and priorities can replaces outdated ones, and thus change the administrative practice. Administrative activity is controlled from two aspects: first that the law is implemented in a professional way, second that the “normative responsibilities that guarantee the legality of execution” are statutory based (Habermas 1997: 188). This means, for example, that the administration should “carry out its tasks as professionally as possible” and that the execution is limited to “employing the power according to the law” (Habermas 1997: 188). However, such a law-based authority can risk going too far. Through its control and its instructions, welfare work can take over more autonomous parts of civil society and threaten integrity. Such behaviour can be problematic, because the ethical and moral self-image of the individual can be offered in exchange for social support. Therefore, Habermas criticizes those welfare state models based on ideas that individuals are isolated autonomous persons, which themselves choose to stand inside (included) or outside (excluded) society. He supports the right of individuals to say yes or no, but nevertheless, always to be involved (einbeziehungen) (Habermas 2000: 139). As a citizen, the individual has an indisputable right to self-realization and selfdetermination within the community. Thus, welfare systems will provide services and “apportions life opportunities” and a material basis for a “humanly dignified existence”, regardless of gender, education, finances or status (Habermas 1997: 407). The client role, the professional role and behind them the citizen role are used to regulate these offers. 3.4.2

The Client’s Role

Being a client originally means “a person under protection and patronage of another, hence a person ‘protected’ by a legal adviser” (www.lexico. com/definition/client). It is used in welfare work to signify the relationship between a professional and people in need of help and services. In some contexts it has been replaced by the term “service user” or “customer”, depending on what kind of perspective the relationship works from, but also for reducing ideas about the professional position as a distant expert. The concept of the client is also problematic when it does not reflect a freedom in the relationship but control and passivity (Harris and White 2018). Grimen (2008) has termed these relationships as “epistemic asymmetry”, where the professional has the knowledge the client

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needs but lacks (Grimen 2008: 200). According to him, it may be due to a combination of helplessness, lack of technical skills and emotional disturbances, etc. which make clients particularly vulnerable. Such dependent situations can also drive the client to an excessive role of adaptation, stress and uncertainty, which can affect communication, making it too strategic and misleading. The client role, thus adapted to the administrative welfare systems to facilitate functional integration, shows interesting differences compared to a customer role (Habermas 1987a). The customer role is clear and limited in relation to a financial system, while the client role is both too broad and too narrow in relation to the welfare’s power system. Too wide for it gives access to the system without specifying requirements or how to achieve the goal. Too narrow because it reduces the communication space so that the real problems risk not being defined or explained. The functionally embedded communication is designed for typical cases and lacks the reciprocity for dealing with new and unknown problems. Clients may have problems that are only partially similar to those already defined. To handling these, professionals need both skill and imagination to provide a correct service and relevant help. So while the customer in a business relationship can easily specify their wishes and judge whether she/he wants the product offered, it is more difficult for a client to define the help needed and to judge whether that offer is relevant. However, the communicative action perspective indicates how to do this. By opening for a switch to a mutual communication instead of the unilateral information in the context in question, the client is given better opportunities to talk. The mutual communication, which is also a symmetrical interaction, enables a transition from an interaction between a client and a professional, to one between two equal persons, two citizens. It gives the help-seeking individual a certain break and distance from the narrow client role and an opportunity to validate the claims and expectations associated with it. It promotes the parties’ understanding of the situation and allows for a choice whether or not the person concerned accepts the conditions attached to the client role. Language that can convey this occurs in daily life without us thinking about it, but it is not established as a tool in professional welfare work. Invoking a citizenship status can, however, be problematic in several ways. Certain clients who interact with welfare services lack exactly that, for example some refugee groups. Their position in relation to the democratic rights of the country in question is therefore even more exposed and

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their opportunities to invoke a dignified treatment are severely circumscribed. Although such requests could be supported by the accession of democracies to human rights, as formulated in the UN Declaration that “all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, they can be neglected in practice (UDHR, Art. 1, 1948). They are still weak although their “explosive force as a concrete utopia” can raise requests for more developed, cross-border standards (Habermas 2010: 3). However, today there are no rules for dealing with such internationalized norms, so confronting them with already stressed bureaucrats can be provocative. 3.4.3

The Professional’s Role

“Professional” is an ambiguous concept, that generally represents knowledge that is true, valid, sustainable and with more or less developed skills. It is often associated with specific roles and duties (Molander and Terum 2008). Parson’s institutional perspective on professions is a relevant starting point here, as it tries to clarify the functions and achievements of professionals in welfare work. Their task is to maintain social order with a “credential basis in competence and expertise and not in political authority” (Fauske 2008: 41). Parsons argued that problems such as poverty, discrimination, crime and war were challenges for society with integration aspirations. These could be mastered by professionals because they are trained to respect collective interests, which underpins democratic welfare work. He also advocated for a close link between academic education and practical skills, but in a way that made the professions free from economic and political interests, regardless of the institutional framework (Fauske 2008: 42). For supporting integration, Parsons stated professions must have autonomy in relation to the power of welfare organizations. But many professions in this sphere have special problems with it, because they are missing a so-called “legitimation”,6 for example in social work and social care. This, together with the fact that they can exist under a conditional and controlled permission to decide on financial support, makes them even more dependent on the system. However, a “free communicative space” within the functional systems, is always possible, regardless of external restrictions. To understand and claim it, Parsons’s perspective is not enough, so we must complement it with Habermas’s analyses. Through his communicative action perspective,

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the parties can reach a mutual understanding and clarification of the problems and find out how to act as constructively as possible, a process based on everyone’s equal value (justice) and everyone’s right to join society (solidarity). This can act as a control and stabilizing of the actions, so they are not dependent of the social status of the applicant, or on norms within a shielded and isolated group (Brunkhorst 2008). Professionalism, inside the welfare sector, should be worthy of a high degree of trust, which is a challenge. However, it can be influenced to surrender instrumental, bureaucratic logic, especially if the scientific basis for professional competence is weak. Several welfare workers are considered only having a semi-professional standard, which forces them to rely mainly on everyday knowledge and practical experience. Social workers, care providers and leisure educators were previously placed within this group, but have nowadays they have university degrees (Brante 1988). Some of these professions often work closely with a specific lifeworld and its communication style regarding codes and slang. They have to search for positions that both parties accept. As a result, the interaction is forced to start in intersubjectivity and reciprocity and can, after that, eventually reach a legitimized asymmetry. In that sense they can strengthen confidence in their social and system integration ambitions and function as a bridge into the society’s order. By being a kind of role model, they can support young people in their interaction with authorities. This becomes even clearer if we follow Brunkhorst’s definition of professionalism, as firstly “oriented to understanding” and thus marking a limit against strategic action (Brunkhorst 2008: 398). Secondly, it means being anti-authoritarian and based on knowledge; however, not as subordinate to other knowledge but based on its development, “exposed to criticism and doubt” (Brunkhorst 2008: 398). If the knowledge is proved insufficient, it can only be developed through even better knowledge, but not replaced with common experiences or emotions. These characteristics of being professional also means autonomy, which we found was a challenge to maintain inside the welfare system they are dependent on. If they fail it can undermine citizen-based administration. Thus professional authority generate a special form of communication, which invites the client into a collective, “universal solidarity”, standing over particular interests (Brunkhorst 2008: 398). However, it requires that the professional maintains a neutral attitude and does not become influenced by projections, psychological transfers or “jargon”, all

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being just the reverse side of an instrumental reason, a surfing over the bureaucracy (Brunkhorst 2008: 400, 402). 3.4.4

The Citizen’s Role

According to Delanty (2000), citizenship comprises four components: rights, responsibilities, participation and identity, all of which have been highlighted earlier in this text. Here, however, we will focus on the formalized and neutral position the role offers individuals in their relationship with welfare systems, based on power. Rousseau already pointed out that individual differences in power, money and reputation were irrelevant when people are being defined as citizens. The sociologist T. H. Marshall (1893–1981) developed this idea for a modern society.7 As it is known, Marshall’s analysis emerged during a time when Marxism and liberalism were important political views. Marxism argued that the liberal idea of a free market gave the individual great liberty, but without guaranteeing equality. Liberals on the other hand claimed that Marxism’s ideas of a plane economy were insensitive to the individual’s more subtle needs (Turner 1993). Marshall was inspired by both approaches; socialism for emphasizing the individual’s inherent capacity, liberalism for emphasizing the free market. His perspective became a bridge between these approaches. By advocating for a basic education provided by the state, every individual should receive the knowledge necessary for becoming a good citizen. It was also a qualification offered by the state to the individuals so that they could strengthen their relationship with the market and a predictable, social order. Marshall claimed that citizenship developed in a special order: first came civil rights, then political rights and lastly social rights. Civil rights enabled the freedom to speak, to think, to own property, to terminate contracts and to invoke the law. The first steps towards these rights were already taken during the Middle Ages. Political rights enabled the citizen to be politically active, to vote and to be a member of a political authority. This type of citizenship developed when parliamentary processes began to stabilize. Social rights, finally, comprised rights such as economic welfare, the security of belonging to the social community and living a civilized life with reference to society’s standards. The right to receive unemployment benefits followed soon after, as well as support for health promotion and education. This social dimension of citizenship

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was gradually institutionalized when the welfare state was consolidated (Barbalet 1993). The criticism of Marshall’s interpretation has focused on several aspects (Turner 1993). The first one is that the civilian and political rights presuppose capitalism instead of acting as its counterpart as Marshall claimed. Secondly, the civil and political citizenship does not balance hierarchies. Instead, in the case of social rights, they were based on a redistribution of state resources. Furthermore, there is no certainty that civil and political citizenship came before social citizenship. For women, social rights often came before political and civil rights in several modern societies. According to Habermas (1997) there is also a risk that the citizens’ rights are seen as institutionalized and linear, a neutral process, when in reality it has been a very complex exercise to establish them. They have been channelled through a variety of subsystems, developing their own logic for inclusion in markets, workplaces, schools, hospitals, theatres, political organizations and media. Another criticism, also relevant today, is the strong link between citizenship and the national state. According to Turner (1993) these links are not as fundamental as Marshall assumed. Instead, they could be seen as a special form, because citizenship in earlier times, such as in the medieval church, could mean a much more universal form of participation. In conclusion, Marshall’s theories of citizenship arose from a peaceful view of history, that overlooked the class struggle, new social movements and social struggles for civil rights (Turner 1993). Nevertheless, the phenomenon has survived and gained even greater importance as a mechanism in our modern and complex society. However, the question remains how citizenships’ integrative power can work today, for example in relation to the welfare system. Barbalet (1993) has discussed this and claims that civil rights are necessary for the individual, such as law. Political rights give the individual the necessary tools for taking part in the formulation of political power. Social rights are meant to guarantee a certain standard of living and strengthen the individual’s relation to society, helped by social services and education. Social citizenship thus reduces the individual’s risks, regardless of the size of their own incomes. This makes the individual more prominent in society, but, as described earlier, also more dependent (Barbalet 1993). Marshall’s ambitions were to “reduce the distance between citizens” (Barbalet 1993: 43). Differences existing after this could then become more socially legitimated. Thus, individuals from different classes of

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society could have a chance of being equal in practice, despite differences due to occupation and income. Delanty (2000) however, notes that the citizen’s three roles requires a passive individual instead of an autonomous, socially actionable individual who can handle new challenges. Such a passive individual can become even more problematic in today’s social community, which requires activity, participation in the public sphere, and the need for a space for identity development, such as self-realization and self-determination. It also raises further questions: can the citizenship stabilize the systems as well as strengthen the individual? Is it possible to balance the communicative tension between individuals and the welfare system solely on the basis of this passive citizenship role? According to Delanty, some aspects of Marshall’s theory are limiting. Firstly, a request for rights concerning the contemporary politicization of gender and race. These need a further model in order to handle the tension “between equality and the recognition of differences” (Delanty 2000: 18). Secondly, a model is needed to handle the challenge of divergences concerning cultural rights, which have been given priority in many parts of the world. It is also a problem in today’s communities, which have been too large for commanding loyalty, as Marshall’s model proposed. Today, states have inhabitants with citizenship in other countries, for example immigrants, which no theory of citizenship can ignore. Habermas too found the citizen role insufficient, unmodern, and in need of reconstruction in line with a contemporary and differentiated society. He advocates for a democratic citizenship, which includes two earlier traditions, the liberal and the republican. The liberal tradition focuses on the individual’s private autonomy, rights and freedoms. This should be limited by the law and relies on the protection afforded by the state. Participation in political processes takes place via elections, by which the government responds to the citizen’s interest as individuals (Habermas 1997). This citizenship is based on a legal status, distancing the individual from the state, but still counting on its protection. The republican tradition, on the other hand, focuses on the citizen’s political autonomy, in which the citizen is the “author of a community of free and equivalent persons” (Habermas 1997: 270). It emphasizes participation through communicative power and the self-determination of the citizen. This approach goes beyond the interests of individuals by prioritizing an “inclusive opinion-and will-formation” of goals and norms, being “in the equal interest of all” Habermas 1997: 270). The model also

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gives citizens the right to influence administrative power because it is not permanently established. Thus, the liberal citizen’s role emphasizes an individualistic, instrumental relationship while the republican role emphasizes social identity and ethical community—the “we” (Habermas 1997: 498). While the liberal citizen role is strongly linked to the market economy, the republican role is linked to social rights, institutionalized within welfare bureaucracy. The liberal model prioritizes the freedom of the individual while the republican model prioritizes the fair and compensatory distribution of social welfare. However, it’s important to note that both models tend to undermine the private side of the citizen’s role, its connection to the individual, which weakens the person’s status in relation to modern welfare systems. As a result, the public role of the citizen can be equated with, or replaced by, the client role, making inclusion and exclusion processes more effective. It opens up for an instrumental response, where the citizen is pushed to the periphery as an “organization member” (Habermas 1997: 505). Therefore, Habermas suggested a third variant of citizenship, a negotiating and problem-solving public in a deliberative democracy. It includes the previous models, but is more than “the aggregation of pre-political individual interests” and more than the “passive enjoyment of rights, bestowed by a paternalistic authority” (Habermas 1997: 506). It is also based on human rights and can be applied to an international context, for example the European Community. Such a democratic citizenship, not closed off in a “particularistic fashion”, could pave the way for “a world citizenship” (Habermas 1997: 514). According to the Danish philosopher Peter Kemp, “the global cosmopolitan today is the only figure capable of overcoming the contradiction between individual and citizen, between the individual and the state” (Kemp 2011: 246). He refers to a citizen who neither cultivates individuality, because it undermines solidarity with society and the global world, nor cultivates the state. However, a turn to Kemp’s direction is still a huge challenge for national welfare systems!

3.5

Summary

To summarize, we can see that the basic form of modern communication is intersubjective, which allows individuals to express and test arguments without sanctions. It means argument applied to facts, morals and feelings. However, these ideal circumstances are supported as well as limited by everyday life and community institutions and systems.

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There is increased pressure on individuals to interpret, understand and validate what is being said in order to act constructively. This requires a process where morals and laws cooperate for making the legal social order legitimate. Communicative action shows the original social nature of morality, being a complementary function to laws and offering procedures for examining how to act in a manner that the participants consider acceptable. However, misguided efficiency, instrumentalism, social control, or coercion, as well as defective professionalism or self-maintaining bureaucracies, can make the moral sphere empty and create a legitimacy gap. A strategy against this is to claim for stronger autonomy together with institutionally secured human rights. If the welfare administrations, which run the risks of being too instrumental, develop their roles of clients, professionals and citizens, they can use their powers to strengthen their democratic assignments.

Notes 1. Universal declaration of human rights (UDHR), Art. 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/ UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf. 2. The meaning becomes clear if we compare it with the structure of reflection, “that comes about when a subject turns upon itself in order to make itself an object for itself”. Then “the subject finds itself again in something that it encounter as an object”. “The structure of assimilation differs from the structure of reflection by virtue of its opposite direction: the self relates itself to itself not by making itself an object but by recognizing in an external object, in an action schema or in a schema of relation, something subjective that has been externalized” (Habermas 1987a: 9). 3. SR = Swedish government-operated radio broadcaster. www.sr.se. 4. Sometimes called discourse ethics by Habermas. 5. The term critical theory was first introduced in 1937 in two papers in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung by the German philosophers Max Horkheimer 1895–1973 and Herbert Marcuse 1898–1979 respectively. Both received American citizenship in 1940. They belonged to the inner circle of the Frankfurt School (1932–1941) with, among others, Theodor Adorno (1903–1969). He early noticed Jürgen Habermas’s intellectual brilliance and offered him work as a research assistant in 1956–1959. Through Habermas’s critical development of the perspective of his predecessors,

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he is seen as the most important representative of the so-called secondgeneration of critical theory. The theory’s goal is “not just to determine what was wrong with contemporary society at present, but, by identifying progressive aspects and tendencies within it, to help transform society for the better” (Finlayson 2005: 4). 6. Professional identification (legitimation) is a guarantee that the professional has a certain level of knowledge and certain personal characteristics. The professional is controlled by the society and the identification can be revoked if serious mistakes are made (www.socialstyrelsen.se). In Sweden, efforts are made to give social workers “legitimation”, as their advanced education and skills make them well suited. However, their close connection to the municipalities’ budget, etc., has so far complicated the issue. 7. T. H. Marshall’s lecture about “The future of the working class” at the Cambridge Reform Club in 1950 is available in revised form in T. H. Marshall & T. Bottomore (1992): Citizenship and Social Class. London: Pluto Press.

References Barbalet, J. M. (1993). Citizenship, Class Inequality and Resentment. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), Citizenship and Social Theory. London: Sage. Beetham, D. (1996). Bureaucracy. Buckingham: Open University Press. Brante, T. (1988). Sociological Approaches to the Professions. Acta Sociologica, 31(2), 119–142. Brunkhorst, H. (2008). Profesjoner i kommunikasjonsteoretisk perspektiv. Solidaritet mellom fremmende. In A. Molander & L. J. Terum, Profesjonsstudier. Oslo: Universitetförlaget. Delanty, G. (2000). Citizenship in a Global Age. Society, Culture, Politics. Buckingham: Open University Press. Denhardt, R. B. (1981, November/December). Towards Critical Theory of Public Organization. Public Administration Review, 41(6), 628–636. Fauske, H. (2008). Profesjonsforskningens faser of stridsspœrsmål. In A. Molander & L. J. Terum, Profesjonsstudier. Oslo: Universitetförlaget. Finlayson, J. G. (2005). Habermas. A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Grimen, H. (2008). Profesjon og tillit. In A. Molander & L. J. Terum, Profesjonsstudier. Oslo: Universitetförlaget. Guy Peters, B. (2001). The Politics of Bureaucracy (5th ed.). London: Routledge. Habermas, J. (1986a, October 1–2). Law and Morality. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Harvard University.

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Habermas, J. (1986b). Entgegnungen. In A. Honneth & H. Joas, Kommunikatives Handeln. Beiträge zu Jürgen Habermas’ Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Habermas, J. (1987a). The Theory of Communicative Action. Vol. 2. The Critique of Functional Reason. Oxford: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1987b). The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1990). Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1993). Justfication and Application. Remarks on Discourse Ethics. London: The MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1995). Vorstudien und Ergängzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1997). Between Fact and Norms. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (2000). The Inclusion of the Other. Studies in Political Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (2004, November 11). Public Space and the Political Public Sphere: The Biographical Roots of Two Motifs in My Thought. Commemorative Lecture, Kyoto. In Between Naturalism and Religion. Philosophical Essays (2008). Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (2010, July). The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights. Metaphilosophy, 41(4), 464–480. Harris, J., & White, V. (Eds.). (2018). A Dictionary of Social Work and Social Care (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. www.oxfordreference.com. Joas, H., & Knöbl, W. (2004). Social Theory. Twenty Introductory Lectures. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kemp, P. (2011). Citizen Of The World. The Cosmopolitican Ideal for the Twenty First Century. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Kihlström, A. (2012). Luhmann’s System Theory in Social Work. Criticism and Reflections. Journal of Social Work, 12, 287–299. jsw.sagepub.com. Luhmann, N. (1990). Essays on Self-Reference. New York: Columbia University Press. Marshall, T. H., & Bottomore, T. (1992). Citizenship and Social Class. London: Pluto Press. Mead, J. H. (1934/2015). Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Molander, A., & Terum L. I. (2008). Profesjonsstudier-en introduktion. In A. Molander & L. J. Terum, Profesjonsstudier. Oslo: Universitetförlaget.. Nørager, T. (1987). System og livsverden. Århus: Förlaget ANIS. Payne, M. (2002). The Politics of Systems Theory Within Social Work. Journal of Social Work, 2(3), 269–292.

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Rose, N. (1999). Powers of Freedom. Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schütz, A. (1932/1976). The Dimension of the Social World. In Studies in Social Theory, Collected Papers (Vol. 2). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. SR = Swedish government-operated radio broadcaster. www.sr.se. Turner, B. S. (Ed.). (1993). Citizenship and Social Theory. London: Sage. UN; Art. 1, 1948. UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights). www.un. org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights. Wiggershaus, R. (2004). Jürgen Habermas. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag.

CHAPTER 4

Conclusions: Legitimacy Challenges

Abstract The concluding chapter explores how the tension between the individual and the system, between the client’s expectations and the profession’s assignment causes legitimacy deficits in the concrete welfare work. Since the process is supported by the administrative split between help and control, solidarity and justice, individual freedom and collective will, this basic approach must be changed. It offers the communicative action perspective, which shows that these fragmented phenomena instead are deeply interconnected, are two sides of the same phenomenon. As such, they become real resources for dealing with legitimacy deficits. The contradiction between the individual’s increased dependency and increased demands for self-realization and self-determination can be exceeded and ensure a shared responsibility, basic equality and effective cooperation between the parties. Keywords Help · Control · Solidarity · Justice · Individuality · Collective will

Individuals have become increasingly dependent on the welfare system, at the same time as they have faced increased demands for self-realization and self-determination. This tension indicates the need for more developed communication between clients and professionals, where arguments

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regarding legality are not sufficient. Also the legitimacy can be questioned, not only through the ordinary way by general elections, but also through a validity test in concrete situations. Administrators and professionals are unprepared and uneducated to deal with that challenge. An increased pressure to be rational and cost effective, has stressed them to prioritize one-sided and authoritarian communications. The communicative action perspective has the potential to become a tool for handling this challenge. Its validation of claims includes arguments from individuals’ everyday lives as well as those from the system’s professionals. As a compass, it can guide concrete democratic welfare work to ensure both citizens’ requests for equality, freedom, justice and solidarity, and the social order’s request for functional efficiency. It provides a space for switching between a communicative action and an open strategic approach without abandoning the intersubjective potential, the reciprocity, that establishes a common responsibility. Finally, it can guide constructive social action. The perspective is an excellent model for exceeding constructed contradictions between some key factors, which have been separated in the practice in a way that undermines legitimacy improvements. That is the split between help and control, solidarity and justice, individuality and collective will, which are factors that together constitute the very basis for a functioning democratic welfare work. They will be examined here with a focus on welfare practice. However, this will be supplemented with a few theoretical interpretations to make the claims clear.

4.1

Help and Control

The concepts are used here as metaphors, indicating two typical aspirations of welfare work that have been treated as if they were impossible to realize in one and the same situation. Help is often linked to trust, while control is linked to distrust. It mean approaching clients from two different theoretical perspectives, psychodynamic theory and system theory, neither of which is intersubjective. The first approach communicates with the client as a solitary subject, from a consciousness perspective, to determine appropriate help. The second communicates with the client as an object, which opens for control, reduced to instrumental procedures.

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In practice, help can be for different things, depending on which welfare centre the client visits. It can be about unemployment or financial problems, health or family counselling, job applications, educational opportunities and so on. Control, on the other hand, is connected to strictly regulated offers, mainly formulated as rights and obligations; for example when clients receive subsistence support or housing allowance. For dealing with these two different ambitions the implementation is often organized so that it take place in two different locations and by two different professionals. However, in both cases, the professional appears as an authority, best suited to define the client’s problems, the type of help required or the necessity of being checked. Even if this is a possible approach in some situations, the split causes problems. Clients have felt misunderstood, manipulated, made passive and have been tempted to overdo their role adaptation. The objectifying control-approach has forced the clients into institutionalized schedules, thereby reducing their own self-initiative. Since the welfare system seems to see its models as the most suitable ones, every failure can be attributed to the clients’ lack of ability to follow them. These processes can easily make persons clientized and get them stuck in a vulnerable position. In Sweden, a project was initiated to change these clientizing trends by putting the clients at the centre and having them formulate relevant help. An evaluation showed that both professionals and customers experienced positive changes. The professionals’ communication became more constructive. “The professionals moved from ‘engaged positive’ observations of the clients to ‘engaged realistic’ understandings of the clients” (Kihlström and Wikström 2008: 244). Their work produced increased confidence between the parties and better solutions for the clients. Clients got better contact with the professionals, more information about offerings, and felt “less downtrodden”. That strengthened their self-esteem, responsibility and confidence in their own competence (Kihlström and Wikström 2008: 244). The process was interpreted as a shift of the client role to a position closer to the citizen role. Without denying that “control works as a help, and help works as a form of control” in some situations, this mixture underestimates the consequences of a unilaterally decided asymmetry (Järvinen and Mik-Meyer 2003: 233). It makes it too easy for system interests with specialization and categorization in focus to take over, because it facilitates the sorting of which clients which will be included or excluded. Järvinen & Mik-Meyer found that the weakest were excluded from help,

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not because anyone wanted this, but because the professionals were not aware of the contextual power this differentiation gave them in relation to the subordinated clients. This division of subject and object perspectives in combination with the unilateral definitions of problem and predetermined behaviour, can also reduce the opportunities for gaining knowledge about new vulnerable situations among citizens. In the long run, it can cause disturbances at different levels and of various kinds, which has been summed up by Finlayson (2005) with reference to Habermas. If there is a “decrease in shared meanings and mutual understanding”, it causes anomie; if it is “an erosion of social bonds”, it causes disintegration; if it is an “increase in people’s feelings of helplessness and lack of belonging” it causes alienation; if it is a “consequent unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions and for social phenomena” it causes demoralization; and finally, if it is a “destabilisation and breakdown in social order” it causes social instability (Finlayson 2005: 57). In welfare work this can generate misunderstood clients who feel that they do not belong to the social community. It undermines clients’ interest in taking some responsibility for the community and can lead to the emergence of violence-controlled groups setting their own standards. Such an exclusion certainly reduces the pressure on welfare work as these clients choose other, alternative solutions. However, it increases pressure on civil society if these groups communicate through threats and shootings. Such trends have also emerged also in Swedish society. The American researcher Kelly (2004) has reflected on models of help for marginalized citizens. He recommends a combination of neutral exercise of welfare work with a more client-oriented approach, such as collaboration, participation and openness for new subjects. With inspiration from Habermas’s theories, he shows how system power can penetrate people’s daily lives and destroy their feelings of being a citizen. That is why he claims that welfare administration must pay particular attention to side effects, such as alienation and exclusion. What then are the most important elements to consider when dealing with the tension between help and control? Some components were revealed in a study that examined possible differences in effects between the use of communicative action and a hidden strategic or instrumental perspective (Kihlström and Israel 2002). The communicative perspective was perceived as a “person to person” conversation that provided information on possible solutions. It also facilitated various arguments and

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suggestions and a quest for consensus on how to solve the problem. The hidden strategic or instrumental perspective was perceived as being that the professional, in an authoritarian spirit, offered one suitable standard solution, which had been prepared even before the parties met. Arguments from the client about other solutions were not considered. Instead they were blocked so the pursuit of consensus were unimportant. It forced clients into specific behaviours, which gave them feelings of both surprise and anger (Kihlström and Israel 2002). Evidently, a communicative action context can work as legitimizing help and control. Here, one aspect of the perspective seems especially important. It is participation in the problem definition and help design. The perspective makes this possible by offering a consensus-oriented shift between communicative and open strategic actions. In order to identify the problems, mutual communication is constructive, while decisions about the form of support must undergo a strategic adjustment to the system’s possibilities. When the client becomes involved in this mutual interpretation of the social order, their responsibility for necessary control is activated. Thus, the constructed tension between help and control can be removed through a legitimacy process focusing on mutuality and participation, which strengthens responsibility, and with that, legitimacy.

4.2

Solidarity and Justice

An administration that implements welfare in democracies is based on justice as well as solidarity. Despite these values being anchored in laws and regulations, it is a challenge to realize them in the daily work. A reason is that they must solve two tasks at the same time: “equal respect for the dignity of each individual … and protect the web of intersubjective relations of mutual recognition, by which these individuals survive as members of a community” (Habermas 1990a: 200). These ambitions appeal to people’s vulnerability and weakness, which is constitutive and chronic for all modern people. They can be aggravated by accidents and shortcomings that affect the individuals during their socialization in different ways (Habermas 1990a). Therefore, it is crucial that solidarity and justice are supported by a morality that everyone supports. In that sense, morality balances an outcome that strengthens both social and system integration. While development of the language strengthened individualization (discussed in the next section), it brought justice and solidarity to one

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and the same moral base. In the past, these were referred to different moral traditions; solidarity with the good and justice with duty, which has affected the understanding of them. So let’s have a brief exploration of their character, before applying these processes in the practical work. Solidarity is about reciprocal sympathy and responsibility within a group which promotes and supports its members. This has been expressed as “one for all, all for one”, an obligation with some ethnocentrism, a forced willingness, limited to internal relationship of particular groups (Brunkhorst 2005: 2). Habermas himself experienced this in his youth in Nazi Germany when posters proclaimed: “Command us, Fuhrer, we will follow you” (Habermas 1990b: 245). However, in democracies this ethnocentricity has been replaced by and transformed into the ideal of solidarity—that everyone has a right to mutual recognition. Today, solidarity is political! In whatever way it is generated in the lifeworld, it is processed in the political sphere1 and channelled into the system, where it becomes institutionalized and abstract. That makes it possible to defend equal rights of the other without knowing him/her. It has become a “solidarity among strangers” (Brunkhorst 2005: 2, 76; Habermas 2000: 159). Although the functional differentiation of the democracy has been successful, their systems can turn into dysfunctional orders (Brunkhorst 2005). These can also be too instrumental, which promotes the emergence of undemocratic social systems, for example some bureaucracies. It undermines solidarity by using “the human subject without replacing it”, and makes the system “blind to the damage they cause” and the fate of those who have been “external to system-specific communication” (Brunkhorst 2005: 82). In the practical work, these system orientations can deconstruct solidarity in many ways: by treating citizens as objects and not necessarily communicating with them; by eliminating large groups which condemns them to “political ineffectiveness and apathy”; by using the law incorrectly to reinforce inequalities and “impunity for the staffs of oppression” (Brunkhorst 2005: 124). This dark side of the system’s power can generates a “radical de-solidarization” (Brunkhorst 2005: 83). Justice is based on the view that every person possesses an inherent dignity2 that allows him/her to demand justification for themselves and others (Forst 2014). Its basic meaning becomes clear if we set it against the arbitrariness that arises when persons and structures reproduce power and privileges without regard to the interests of others. So justice is just when securing equal freedoms and equal respect for all in its distribution.

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If it fails, the victim of injustice is not the one who lacks certain goods, but “the one who does not ‘count’ when it comes to deciding about the process of producing and allocating of goods” (Forst 2014: 22). Then the core question for justice is “who determines who receives what?” (Forst 2014: 22). Managing this is a more complicated task than only referring to distribution rules. The result also depends on the competence of the persons in charge (who make the decisions), on interpretations of who should receive assistance or not (who receive), and on the extent of the help (what kind of help). In order to avoid references to pure grace, rigid rules or self-righteousness or immodesty approaches, a mutual communication is needed to strengthen its legitimacy. “A right, after all, is neither a gun nor a one-man show. It is a relationship and a social practice, and in both those essential aspects it is seemingly an expression of connectedness” (Michelman 1986 in Habermas 1997: 88). From Habermas’s analyses it became clear that both solidarity and justice are produced through a mutual and symmetrical communication, in which moral validation is central. However, it is important to notice that justice does not require solidarity as its reverse side, because that opens up the concept of solidarity for moralization and depoliticization (Habermas 2012). Solidarity admittedly gets its content from the law, but it is up to the participants in an intersubjective, reciprocal communication to define what that means. In that sense it goes beyond obedience to a norm (morality) or obedience to the law (justice) by its dependence “on expectations of reciprocal conduct—and on confidence in this reciprocity over time” (Habermas 2013: 9). This can explain why it may seem easier to manage justice than solidarity in the administrative welfare practice. Justice can be a bit sloppy, or get reduced to a concrete, simple distribution; for example, I want as much economic support as you, while solidarity can be more hidden. As they are embedded within the systems they do not always need to be articulated. However, as democracy requests, institutionalization is necessary to give laws and solidarity universal validity and stability. Therefore the welfare system, for example, can offer financial support and health care as a general rule to the citizens, when they are unemployed, ill or have retired from work. If systems take care of the distribution of justice and solidarity, it could mean that they are perceived as unnecessary and unimportant for everyday life. However, some situations have revealed the opposite; for example in Sweden during the major refugee crisis 2015, when rail stations were

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overcrowded with vulnerable people who needed food and homes for the night. Many individuals and non-governmental organizations attempted to help and support the refugees, and these opportunities to show their compassion gave strong feelings of meaning and joy. The same spontaneous help was offered to people affected by the terrorist attacks in Stockholm in 2016. These solidarity expressions took place in the public arena, where individuals took collective initiatives. Together with public power, solidarity was given a face that also addressed the police, who were specifically acclaimed for their ability to handle this new situation. Inspired by Habermas’s analyses, Honneth (1995) has described the feelings that are awakened when values about morals, justice and solidarity are violated in the community, which also happen in administrative practices. One example is when a person’s safety is threatened in terms of physical well-being, for example by violence. Another is when disallowing the moral competence of persons or groups by questioning their judgement, for example when being legally neglected. This can destroy self-esteem. Also, by humiliating someone or showing a lack of respect for the dignity of persons or their abilities. Some of these violations may seem harmless, but can result in serious stigmatizations, because the feelings of being excluded and worthless are the same for everyone. Even if these feelings can be dealt with, they may not disappear easily. They can “harden into smouldering resentment” (Habermas 1990a: 45) and target a particular person, or an official. In some cases an excuse helps, such as if the person chose the wrong word, didn’t mean it that way, or was overstressed. It indicates that most people have a underlying understanding of what it means to act with justice and solidarity. So, just as the communicative perspective can handle a process of legitimacy in terms of help and control, it can also deal with solidarity and justice. However, failures concerning their core values such as dignity and equality can be difficult to detect. They can be silent or just unspoken, for example when they are linked to gender, education, finances, status. Certain steps may be beneficial to keep in mind when securing legitimacy validation of solidarity and justice. Essentially it concerns three different types of actions, but only the third raises moral considerations between the parties. The first step is to identify what kind of object is actualized in the action. If it is something no one else cares about (pragmatic), for example, to choose a red or blue coat, questions of solidarity and justice can be ignored. It is the same if the action affects your own self-image, for

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example paying a bill or not, which hardly touches anyone else. On the other hand, if you face a problem that affects other people and their actions, a moral dilemma arises. Then also their arguments about the solidarity and justice of the action have to be mutually validated. For example, how should the welfare worker act when an old couple who have lived together all their lives have to be separated (depending on illness) when one of them is offered space on a special accommodation? The solution should be such that everyone concerned can accept it. In that sense it becomes a universal solution, which means it is not only appropriate from a specific group’s point of view (e.g. white Western men). The second step is to handle these processes neutrally. Both protection of the individual’s dignity and protection of the individual’s existential need for belonging are involved here. Without any ambition to be neutral, it can be difficult to gain confidence in the process. The professional must maintain his/her authority, and not become influenced by irrelevant aspects. Since many different cultures come into contact with the welfare sector, it can be a great challenge to maintain an attitude that is perceived correctly. Neutrality must maintain the feeling that everyone is treated equally, regardless of the situation they are in. The third step is that the professional must have sufficient competence to be able to explain on what grounds the decisions are made and what considerations are behind it. It may require certain knowledge of the law’s intentions and considerations. If the client receives this information, it can be easier to determine if the outcomes are as correct as possible both in relation to the thing itself and to the requirements for maintaining dignity, equality and belonging to a community. However, these kinds of professional knowledge can be undermined when efficiency thinking takes over. Thus, a legitimizing process can counteract the system imbeddings of solidarity and justice that undermine an understanding of what that concepts really means and how it can be realized when needed. It is important because citizens expect constructive reactions if the rights to dignity, equality and respect for the individual’s relations are violated in everyday interactions.

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4.3

Individual Freedom and Collective Will

The tension between individual freedom and collective will manifests itself in practical welfare work. For example, this can occur when traditions, political decisions and institutional arrangements are confronted with the expectations and needs of individuals. This kind of tension is often considered insurmountable, but analyses from a communicative action perspective indicates that they can be overcome to some extent. It depends on the way individualization and the collective will are understood, and which arguments are expressed and validated in the context in question. However, some kinds of value problems, discriminatory professions’ cultures and unhealthy working conditions can affect the outcome, although they are rarely mentioned by the parties. By not being subject to reflection or argumentation, they cannot reduce the tension. With that in mind, let’s first clarify how individualization and collective will are defined and then show how they affect concrete welfare work and how to handle it. 4.3.1

Individualization

A misinterpretation is that individualization is in opposition to intersubjectivity when the two phenomena instead require each other. Historically however, the concept of individuality has been used in many different ways, for example as a singularity (Greek meaning), as an ego (conscious philosophy), as an acting subject (after Kant) and more radically as a “self-positing” one (Fichte)3 (Habermas 1992: 159). This independence, which Fichte identified, came through the language as a “glassy medium without properties” (Habermas 1992: 161). However, according to Habermas (and Humboldt)4 this mirror model (the subject’s relation to itself) can be rejected because “language is a mechanism that distinguishes and unifies at the same time” (Habermas 1992: 164). These insights helped Mead to clarify the relation between “I” and “me”, explained earlier. However, let’s follow this point in relation to a post-conventional5 development of individualization. Mead claimed that individuals were involved in a “civilisation process ”, based on moral values, which became more and more abstract (Habermas 1992: 182). It pressured them to make more and more independent decisions about who they wanted to be in relation to the environment. Then the “Me” in this post-conventional moral development undergoes a change. From having

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represented the will of a concrete group, it instead represents the will of everybody in every society. That also changes the relation to “I”. Previously, the spontaneous and creative “I” could escape a disciplinary “Me”. In modern society, we are instead forced to reflect more on how an interaction should be performed (from an abstract perspective of morality). That pushed “I” nearer to “Me”, which makes the individual both more individualized and more social. So this development makes the individual better equipped to cope with the challenges of modern society (Habermas 1992). From that position, Habermas radicalized the concept of individualization by showing how the individual is forced to accept the demands of an independent “self” which includes recognition of the other. As a result, individuality is a social matter which make it possible to exist with two ambitions; self -determination and self -realization (Habermas 1992: 192). These self-determination and self-realization processes are dynamic and flexible. They help the individual to cope with contradictory role expectations and go into different concrete contexts, without losing free will or responsibility for their own life projects. For example, a client might have to reveal his unavoidable and urgent need for public assistance, but at the same time want to be met with respect as a citizen. Not being broken down in such a vulnerable situation depends on our abstract idea of how it really should be when it is good for everyone. Thus, moral values can protect both individuals’ rights and the community’s well-being. The communicative action, with its argumentation process, opens for that by allowing each participant to say yes or no, which at the same time forces them to exceed their egocentric perspective. This kind of consensus presupposes that self-determination is unlimited and that self-realization is the result of a solidarity-based empathy in everybody’s situation (Habermas 1992). It means we can freely accept decisions that give the other the same opportunities that we ourselves demand. You see the other in yourself! 4.3.2

Collective Will

A collective will emerges when parties want to solve problems together that they cannot solve on their own. This will has an important condition, namely that “the other appears as a real individual, with his own unsubstitutable will” (Habermas 1993: 15, 16). It changes the norm-testing

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process from ideas about an imaginary opponent, as described earlier, to one with concrete interests. Thus we have changed the focus from firstperson singular to first-person plural. Instead of asking “what should I do”, the question has become “what should we do”? It means that the role is changed “in which other subjects are encountered” (Habermas 1993: 15). When dealing with an imaginary opponent we use reflection. But this is not enough here, because real conflicts between interests and different wills can only be dealt with if morality is supported by law. It has a formulized connection to the system, which ensures that the results of the collective will get the right input into the system. We can say that we are following the law. Thus a collective will requires institutionalized procedures and “communicative presuppositions of processes of argumentation and negotiation” (Habermas 1993: 16). For reaching a result with the collective process, a practical discourse is available. It can deal with collective conflicts, determine collective goals and ensure that they are realized without use of violence. However, using it demands that one can sort out what kind of problems we are dealing with, for example economic, political, moral, etc. Then the question arises: Whether these discourses can work in relation to individualized individuals? The answer is “no” if the process becomes too narrow and based only on rules and principles, justice and power. Habermas’s solution is to advocate a two-step process, which comprises justification “followed by application of the norm” (Habermas 1993: 36). The first step validates whether the norm can be seen as legal, which the principle of universalization helps to answer. However, this validation is based on knowledge we have now, so it must be “open to reinterpretation in light of unforeseen situations of application” (Cronin, in Habermas 1993: xxiv). For validating such an appropriateness a separate test focused on the context is needed. There not only the law is tested but also how the norm can be applied from the moral point of view (impartiality). It means that the norm can be appropriate if everyone’s interest in the situation can be assumed to be accepted by all in similar situations. It is necessary, however, to keep in mind that the moral position itself cannot be sufficient to affirm justice, therefore the two steps must be combined. If the collective will is misused the legitimacy is undermined (Habermas 1997). Modern democracies can show a tendency to use the

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energy that the collective will produces for strengthening the power structure and forgetting to protect the sphere of justice. If clients are forced to surrender this type of instrumentalism, alignment with the welfare system will be lost. This happened in practice, when an institution representing the collective will forced clients to change their service centre. By invoking an established regulatory framework, they were required to consult a particular doctor, with the motivation that it would give them better help (Kihlström 1990). This, of course, created high expectations in the clients. Instead, it became a great disappointment, as they constantly met new doctors; none of whom showed any interest in their case. Thus, the collective will was abused by referring to justice and power but neglecting a mutual understanding of the situation. A question arises whether the clients could oppose the directives? However, the clients encountered an institution that expressed a genuine will with great authority, and the possibility of any arguments against it was minimized. Therefore, some clients made their mandatory visits to the service centre, but at the same time consulted their own physician in secret. It put the rehabilitation idea out of play and seriously undermined confidence in the welfare work. Another, more desirable solution would have been to leave the client role and instead respond as a competent citizen with authority to the failed intervention. Unfortunately, the power of welfare can deter this, especially if the client depends on financial support. Thus, a communicative legitimacy, which validates the tension between an individual and a collective will, can turn out to be considerably more complicated than expected. The space for a mutual communication is greatly reduced, the power balance between the parties is lacking, and the justification of the order may appear wise from the standpoint of professional colleagues. Sometimes there is also a lack of authority close enough to see and report inaccuracies. All together, it indicates a need for great vigilance over models that undermine communicative legitimacy. Being ignorant of this can damage both the clients’ situation and confidence in the collective will expressed in the welfare work. Let’s end with an illustration that shows such tensions and reactions! The illustration comes from the English film, I Daniel Blake (2016).6 In the waiting room for social services, there is a scene where a young woman with two children is denied consultation because she arrived a few minutes late. She excuses herself by explaining that she was new to

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the neighbourhood and had got lost, and therefore could not find the address. She was asked to book a new appointment, but had no money for food, travel and other basic needs. She became desperate and Daniel, an elderly man waiting for his turn, was angry and shouted to the manager, “we are paying your salary so let her in!” He asked the other people that were waiting if they could wait another few minutes, in order for her to be seen first. Everyone spontaneously said yes, yet the manager referred to system rules and claimed that they must be maintained. He said “no”, so the people’s offering didn’t change the outcome. However, in the long run, citizens always have the last word.

4.4 Recommendations for Welfare Work Professions The conclusions in this book are that communicative legitimacy has turned out to be a necessary professional competence for maintaining democratic welfare work. Its expanding system orientation rationalizes the interaction at an ever-increasing rate, making the citizens’ experiences and participation seriously limited and instrumentalized. This can undermine the support for welfare work and produce new marginalized groups who cannot improve their own conditions but are left to their own destiny. It can also cause helplessness, self-destruction and tendencies to oppression. In the long run, it can erode our basic morality, our universalist core (Habermas 2000). This development forces welfare administrations to become more active in their justification and application processes in realizing equality, justice, solidarity and human rights. As the most developed perspective so far, thus communicative action enables analyses of the legitimacy standard with regard to identifying shortcomings as well as reinforcing efforts. 4.4.1

Professional Knowledge Requirements

The knowledge required comprises both a general basic approach and some more specific ones. In accordance with communicative action the general method is described as a two-step type of knowledge; understanding followed by a constructive social action. It opens for a mutual definition of the problem in question followed by a guiding strategy for reaching the goal.

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The specific knowledge comes from the three aspects which challenge the legitimacy in daily welfare work. First, they indicate need of a competence to switch between an instrumental and a communicative approach. Even if that is what we do in everyday life without thinking about it, the mechanism behind it needs to be clarified. It makes it possible not only to connect to this new model but also to understand it and thus handle it critically in professional work. Second, a professional knowledge is required about the characteristics of justice and solidarity as well as their function and relationship with morality. This also require a “sorting competence” between pragmatic, ethical and moral issues, in order to know which one is relevant and which strategies can be useful in a situation in question. It requires some type of philosophical knowledge that is usually at the base of practical knowledge. Unfortunately, it can be easy to forget when professionals are entering their field. Third, the readiness to continuously test the moral compass in relation to universal values such as human rights is needed. However, this is still hard to rely on even if human rights have been introduced in various democratic documents, nationally and internationally. We summarize as follows: – theoretical knowledge about the two-step model of communication action; – pedagogical skills to master the switch between the instrumental and communicative approaches; – knowledge about the characteristics of justice and solidarity, their function and connection to morality; – a “sorting competence” between pragmatic, ethical or moral problems, and which strategies that can help in clarifying them; – a continuous test of the moral compass in relation to universal values such as human rights.

Notes 1. This is a kind of social space with an order of justification (Forst 2014: 175). 2. “Dignity refers to a status that applies to human beings as human beings, regardless of their specific identity” (Forst 2014: 97). Violence against

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3. 4. 5.

6.

dignity is being “ignored, not counting, and being ‘invisible’ for the purposes of legitimizing social relations” (Forst 2014: 98). Johann Gottlieb Fichte 1762–1814. German philosopher, Immanuel Kant 1724–1804, German philosopher. Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1767–1835, German philosopher. Post-convention norms mean they are more elevated over each concrete context and thus more universal (Nørager 1987: 168, 169). “Those who judge on the post conventional level are characterized by taking a hypothetical attitude vis-à-vis institutions and maxims of action as well as by judging and, if necessary, criticising existing norms that are actually accepted in the light of abstract norms” (Habermas 1990b: 225). I, Daniel Blake is a British social realist drama film from 2016 directed by Ken Loach with screenplay by Paul Laverty.

References Brunkhorst, H. (2005). Solidarity. From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Finlayson, J. G. (2005). Habermas. A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Forst, R. (2014). Justification and Critique. Towards a Critical Theory of Politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1990a). Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Habermas J. (1990b). Justice and Solidarity: On the Discussion Concerning Stage 6. In E. T. Wren (Ed.), The Moral Domain. Essays in the Ongoing Discussions Between Philosophy and the Social Sciences (pp. 224–254). Cambridge: The MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1992). Postmetaphysical Thinking: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1993). Justification and Application. Remarks on Discourse Ethics. London: The MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1997). Between Fact and Norms. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (2000). The Inclusion of the Other. Studies in Political Theory. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Habermas, J. (2012). Nachmetaphysische Denken II . Berlin: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (2013). Plea for a Constitutionalization of International Law. Athens: World Congress of Philosopy. Honneth, A. (1995). The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts. Cambridge: Polity Press. Järvinen, M., & Mik-Meyer, N. (Eds.). (2003). At skabe en klient. Köpenhamn: Hans Reitzels Forlag.

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Kelly, T. (2004). Unlocking the Iron Cage: Public Administration in the Deliberative Democratic Theory of Jürgen Habermas. Administration & Society, 36, 38. Kihlström, A. (1990). Den enskilde individen och vårdapparaten: en analys av “mötet” utifrån teorin om det kommunikativa handlandet (The Individual and the Care System: An Analysis of the “Meeting” Based on the Theory of Communicative Action). Dissertation, Department of Social Work, University of Gothenburg. Kihlström, A., & Israel, J. (2002). Communicative and Strategic Action: An Examination of Fundamental Issues in the Theory of Communicative Action. International Journal of Social Welfare, 11(3), 210–219. Kihlström, A., & Wikström, E. (2008). Toward Network and Citizen: Collaborative Care for Drug Abusers. International Journal of Health Planning and Managment. Published online: www.interscience.wihley.com. Michelman, F. (1986). Justification (and Justifiability) of Law in a Contradictory World. In J. R. Pennock & J. W. Chapman (Eds.), Justification, Nomos (New York), pp. 71–99, here p. 91. In Habermas, J. (1997). Between Fact and Norms (p. 88). Cambridge: Polity Press. Nørager, J. (1987). System og livsverden. Århus: Förlaget ANIS.

Index

A Aakvaag, Gunnar C., 10, 16, 23 accountability, 3, 9, 47 administrative power, 15, 60 agreement, 22, 27, 37, 38, 49 application, 11, 34, 53, 56, 59, 75, 84, 86 Arendt, Hannah, 14, 20, 21, 27, 48 asymmetric, 12 authenticity, 7, 25 autonomy, 10, 33, 49, 55, 60, 63, 64, 69 autopoietic systems, 43

B balancing, 23, 30, 46 Beck, Ulich, 11, 16 Beetham, David, 2, 6, 8, 9, 60 Brunkhorst, Hauke, 15, 64, 78 bureaucracy, 3, 4, 8, 9, 21, 48, 53, 59, 60, 65, 68, 69, 78

C citizens, 1–4, 7, 10, 30, 43, 44, 46, 47, 57, 59–62, 64–69, 74–76, 78, 79, 81, 83, 85, 86 civilization, 37 claims, 3–5, 11, 13, 19, 24, 32, 38, 40, 44, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60, 62, 66, 69, 74, 76 client, 3, 4, 8, 13–15, 26, 30, 56, 59–62, 64, 69, 73–77, 81, 83, 85 codes, 6, 21, 30, 39, 44, 50, 52, 58, 64 colonization, 23, 45 communicative action, 2–4, 7, 12–14, 23–25, 30, 33, 36–39, 41, 46, 52, 62, 63, 74, 76, 77, 82, 83, 86 consciousness, 2, 20, 31, 33, 37, 39, 40, 74 consensus, 1, 7, 25, 37, 38, 46, 49, 50, 53, 77, 83 contract, 22, 27, 49, 65 cooperation, 49, 50 coordinate, 2, 6, 24, 33

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Kihlström, Communicative Legitimacy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54949-7

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INDEX

D deficit, 2, 5, 14, 15, 58 Delanty, Gerard, 65, 67 democracy, 3, 9, 10, 22, 24, 31, 46, 49, 57, 63, 68, 77–79, 84 Denhardt, Robert B., 2, 4, 8, 58, 59 differentiation, 16, 49, 76, 78 discursive, 46 Durkheim, Émile, 15, 16, 31, 36, 37, 49 E equality, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 15, 32, 44, 60, 65, 67, 74, 80, 81, 86 ethic, 54, 69 exclusion, 31, 39, 54, 68, 76 expressive, 25, 26 external, 9, 20, 54, 63, 69, 78 F Finlayson, James Gordon, 44, 70, 76 Frankfurt School, 69 freedom, 4, 8, 11, 15, 23, 47, 49, 55, 59, 61, 65, 67, 68, 74, 78, 82 functional, 9, 11, 39, 43, 44, 50, 53, 62, 63, 74, 78 G generalized other, 32 gestures, 31, 33, 34, 36, 40 globalization, 9, 11 governments, 3, 9, 16, 60, 67, 69 H Habermas, Jürgen, 2, 4–6, 10–15, 20, 22–27, 29–39, 41–46, 48–50, 52–63, 66–69, 76–80, 82–84, 88 help, 3, 6, 7, 15, 24, 25, 30, 31, 34, 39, 44–46, 56, 58, 61, 62, 70, 74–77, 79, 80, 83–85, 87

horizons, 39, 41, 42 human dignity (HD), 57, 58 human rights, 4, 30, 44, 46, 55–57, 63, 69, 86, 87 Husserl, Edmund, 39 I identification, 2, 70 illocutionary, 25, 26 implementation, 49, 59, 60, 75 inclusion, 10, 54, 66, 68 individualization, 16, 49, 77, 82, 83 institutionalization, 79 instrumental, 4, 5, 13, 21, 44, 52, 64, 65, 68, 69, 74, 76–78, 87 integration, 23, 25, 38, 39, 43, 45, 46, 49, 51, 63, 64, 77 interaction, 2, 4–6, 8–10, 12, 13, 15, 22, 23, 26, 31–33, 35, 38, 44, 52, 58, 62, 64, 81, 83, 86 internal, 2, 9, 12, 52, 54, 78 intersubjective, 2, 12–14, 24–26, 32, 33, 35, 40, 44, 46, 53, 54, 68, 74, 77, 79 J justice, 8, 10, 11, 15, 22, 47, 49, 51, 52, 56, 57, 64, 74, 77–81, 84–87 justification, 53, 78, 84–87 K Kant, Immanuel, 50, 53, 82, 88 L law, 1, 4–9, 12, 14, 15, 30, 44–46, 49–53, 55–59, 61, 66, 69, 77–79, 81, 84 legality, 2, 5, 50–52, 61, 74 legitimacy, 1–3, 8, 9, 12–14, 22, 24, 25, 30, 37, 39, 40, 44, 46, 47,

INDEX

51, 52, 55, 58–60, 69, 74, 77, 79, 80, 84–87 lifeworld, 4, 24, 30, 38, 39, 41–45, 64, 78 linguistic, 33, 37, 42, 57 Lipsky, Michael, 2–4, 8, 15 Luhmann, Niklas, 16, 43, 44 M manipulation, 13 Marshall, Thomas H., 65–67, 70 Mead, George Herbert, 15, 31–35, 37, 38, 41, 47, 50, 82 monological, 24 moral, 2, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 20, 23, 25, 26, 30, 36–38, 43, 44, 46–58, 61, 68, 69, 78–84, 87 mutual, 2, 11–13, 15, 25–27, 30, 31, 34, 38, 40, 44–47, 53, 62, 64, 76, 77, 79, 85, 86 N non-authority, 4 non-hierarchy, 4 Nørager, Troels, 42 norms, 5, 6, 15, 20, 23–27, 33, 35–38, 41, 42, 45, 49–54, 59, 63, 64, 67, 79, 84, 88 O objective world, 24, 25 obligation, 10, 23, 30, 36, 37, 47, 49, 75, 78 orders, 3, 5, 6, 11, 14, 21, 24, 29, 30, 34, 38, 43–48, 52, 53, 57–59, 63–65, 69, 74, 76–79, 85–87 over-socialized, 23 P paradigm, 20, 25, 26

93

Parsons, Talcott, 23, 24, 63 participation, 4, 5, 8, 30, 39, 60, 65–67, 76, 77, 86 pragmatic, 43, 51, 55, 80, 87 professional, 1, 3, 5, 7–9, 12–15, 30, 56, 58, 59, 61–64, 69, 70, 73–77, 81, 85–87 propositional, 25, 26 psychodynamic, 2, 43, 74 R rationalization, 4, 39, 44, 45, 50 reciprocity, 4, 8, 9, 11, 19, 22, 62, 64, 74, 79 recognition, 3, 5, 7, 24, 30, 32, 35, 50, 57, 67, 77, 78, 83 regulating, 39, 53 rightness, 2, 4, 6, 13, 24, 26 Rockman, Bert A., 9 role, 2, 15, 22, 23, 25, 30–32, 34, 35, 39, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61–65, 67–69, 75, 83–85 Rose, Nikolas, 46–48 Rosseau, Jean-Jacques, 14 rule, 5, 8, 9, 13, 15, 22, 32, 34, 36, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 57, 60, 79, 84, 86 S Schütz, Alfred, 15, 39–41 self, 8, 11, 22, 25, 32, 35, 49, 53, 69, 83 self-determination, 4, 12, 23, 61, 67, 73, 83 self-realization, 4, 12, 35, 61, 67, 73, 83 Simmel, Georg, 14, 22 social world, 13, 24–26, 40, 42 solidarity, 8, 11, 15, 16, 25, 33, 37, 41, 43, 45, 46, 49, 51, 64, 68, 74, 77–81, 83, 87

94

INDEX

solitary, 2, 20, 34, 41, 43, 74 split, 32, 37, 74, 75 strategy, 3, 7, 69, 86, 87 subjective world, 24, 26, 35 switching, 11, 37, 74 symbolic, 31 system, 2, 4, 6–15, 20–24, 30, 33, 35, 37–39, 43–45, 47, 48, 51, 55, 58–68, 73–79, 84–86 T tension, 3, 7, 9, 58, 67, 73, 76, 77, 82, 85 truth, 2, 4, 13, 24, 26, 31, 33, 37, 38, 44, 56 truthfulness, 2, 4, 6, 13, 25, 26 U understanding, 2, 12, 14, 15, 22, 25, 26, 30, 31, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41,

43, 45, 49, 58, 62, 64, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 85, 86 universal, 22, 30, 31, 44, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 64, 66, 79, 81, 87, 88 V validation, 4, 12, 13, 24, 26, 35, 39, 53, 74, 79, 80, 84 W Weber, Max, 8, 12, 16, 51, 52, 58 welfare work, 1–3, 14, 20, 40, 43, 46, 49, 53, 55, 56, 60–63, 74, 76, 82, 85–87 will, 4–6, 10, 11, 13–15, 22, 24, 26, 30, 32, 34, 35, 40, 44–47, 49, 52, 53, 55, 58–61, 65, 67, 74, 75, 78, 82–85 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 34