The Quest for Civil Order by Chor-yung Cheung

Author:Chor-yung Cheung
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social theory, political theory, politics, diversity, democracy, Gellner, civil society, pluralism, modular man, economy, individualism, economics, centralisation, centralization, decentralisation, decentralization, society, Hayek, knowledge, abstract rules, obligatory rules, Habermas, discursive democracy, communicative reason, law, autonomy, rational consensus, rationality, social integration, morality, patriotism, political participation, majority rule, legitimate law, administrative power, authority, proceduralist democracy, radicalism, Oakeshott, civil association, moral agency, human conduct, civility, conservatism, freedom, diversity
ISBN: 9781845406813
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2013
Published: 2013-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

Equally important, however, is that the discursive and deliberative model of law required by the co-originality thesis points to a kind of state constitutionalism in which human rights and political participation are regarded as the common political bond for all legal consociates within the polity. At the same time cultural diversity within this political community will be respected as long as it is compatible with the common political bond of the community. Habermas believes that properly understood, this kind of constitutionalism, or what he also calls ‘constitutional patriotism’, can be developed into a kind of normative resource to anchor the people’s political loyalty to the constitutional state, as well as to a public identity that goes beyond the nation-state, for the ability of the nation-state to continue to inspire political loyalty is increasingly called into question by problems created by multiculturalism and globalisation. A closer look at Habermas’s idea of constitutional patriotism will follow in the next section.

Constitutional Patriotism as the Political Bond in the Age of Post-traditional Society [51]

Habermas’s co-originality thesis has elevated human rights and political participation to the status of being the two main pillars of constitutionalism. Both these pillars (or the private and public autonomy of the citizens concerned) are individualistic in nature, for the former ensures a private domain for every individual free from all illegitimate interferences, while the latter creates conditions for every citizen to be the co-author of all legitimate rules of conduct for the society. Although Habermas rightly points out that ‘[a] constitution can be thought of as a historical project that each generation of citizens continues to pursue’, [52] he is also keenly aware of the fact that from a normative point of view, ‘the social boundaries of an association of free and equal consociates under law are perfectly contingent’, for in the real world ‘who gains the power to define the boundaries of a political community is settled by historical chance and the actual course of events - normally, by the arbitrary outcomes of wars or civil wars’. [53]

In other words, while it is clear what constitute the indispensable normative principles regulating all free and equal legal consociates in a constitutional state, the co-originality thesis by itself does not directly settle the question of who in fact constitute the citizens of the state concerned, since both the elements of choice and chance are inevitably present here. Nor does it explain whether and why these citizens are willing to stick with the constitutional state through thick and thin, even to the extent of risking their lives to protect it.

At one time, particularly since the French Revolution in the history of Europe, the nation-state appeared to provide a convincing answer to the question of what constitutes a people, while at the same time maintaining the political solidarity of the community. For, on the one hand, the nation, understood in the pre-political sense of an ethnic community integrated geographically and/or culturally by a common language, customs and traditions, seems to be able to

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