This essay develops the idea that Analytic and Continental orientations to political theory are best comprehended not as mortal enemies, but rather as alternative lenses that, together, allow us to better perceive a broader range of significant aspects of political life than is possible by adhering to only one of these approaches. This claim is fleshed out by an analysis of the communicative action paradigm developed by Jürgen Habermas. If this paradigm is revised somewhat in order to make it less dominated by the ideal of consensuality, it can then be taken to be quite attractive in the way it perceptively deploys these two lenses.
ButlerJ (1997) The Psychic Life of Power, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
2.
ConnollyWE (1995) The Ethos of Pluralization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
3.
ConnollyWE (2002) Identity\Difference: Political Negotiations of Democratic Paradox, Expanded ed, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
4.
DryzekJ (1995) Critical theory as a research program. In: WhiteSK (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Habermas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 97–119.
5.
FoucaultM (1984) Politics and ethics: An interview. In: RabinowP (ed.) The Foucault Reader, New York: Pantheon Books.
6.
HabermasJ (1984) Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 1, Reason and the Rationalization of Society, Boston: Beacon Press.
7.
HabermasJ (1985) Civil disobedience: Litmus test for the constitutional democratic state. Berkeley Journal of Sociology30: 95–116.
8.
HabermasJ (1987) Theory of Communicative Action Vol. 2, Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason, Boston: Beacon Press.
9.
HabermasJ (1996) Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
10.
HabermasJLuhmannN (1971) Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie: Was Leistet die Systemforschung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
11.
HabermasJRatzingerJ (2006) The Dialectics of Rationalization: On Reason and Religion, San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
12.
McCarthyT (1991) Complexity and democracy: The seducement of systems theory. In: McCarthyT (ed.) Ideals and Illusions: On Reconstruction and Deconstruction in Contemporary Critical Theory, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 152–180. .
13.
Murphy M (forthcoming) Habermas and Social Research: Between Theory and Method. London: Routledge.
14.
ParkinsonJMansbridgeJ (2012) Deliberative Systems, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15.
RawlsJ (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
16.
WhiteSK (2004) The very idea of a critical social science. In: RushF (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 310–335.
17.
WhiteSK (2011) Contemporary Continental political thought. In: KloskoG (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 480–500.
18.
WhiteSK (2014) The virtual patriot syndrome: Tea Partyers and others. In: ColesRReinhardtMShulmanG (eds) Radical Future Pasts, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
19.
White SK (forthcoming) A Democratic Bearing: Admirable Citizens, Uneven Injustice, and Critical Theory.
20.
WhiteSKFarrER (2012) ‘No-saying’ in Habermas. Political Theory40(1): 32–57.
21.
WhiteSKFarrER (2013) Reply to Thomassen. Political Theory41(3): 489–491.
