Sabet Michael
Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Front Sociol. 2023 Jul 26;8:965428. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2023.965428. eCollection 2023.
Goal 16 of the UN sustainable development goals, which calls on the global community to "build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels," can be conceptualized as aiming at fostering communicative action, a concept developed by Jürgen Habermas to describe a mode for coordinating society grounded in deliberation. However, Habermas simultaneously provides an account of the structural transformation of the public sphere that suggests a hard limit on the capacity of mainstream capitalist liberal democracies to foster genuine communicative action in the relationships between institutions, individuals and communities. This paper therefore argues for the critical role of prefigurative politics, in which communities strive to internally embody desired socio-political forms rather than focusing on changing the wider socio-political order, as a vital resource for generating examples to inform institutional progress. The prefigurative example of the Baha'i community demonstrates norms and practices that may illustrate a path out of the dynamic Habermas identifies of system colonizing lifeworld, by fostering and protecting communicative action as the mode of social coordination. The form of communicative action found in the Baha'i community is situated in a context of a organic model of relationships between individuals, communities and institutions. The paper contrasts the conceptual underpinnings of this model with individualistic conceptions of human nature that are argued to undermine liberal democracy's capacity for communicative action. At the core of communicative action within a Baha'i context is a distinctive model of deliberation, known within the community as "consultation". The paper argues that can offer a vital nuance to Habermas' ideal of communicative action as in the public sphere. The formal democratic structures and processes of the Bahá'í community are also explored as an institutional example that arguably meets the challenge of Goal 16. The paper concludes with initial reflections on a process by which the prefigurative example of a Baha'i model might be brought to bear on institutional performance in wider society.
联合国可持续发展目标的目标16呼吁全球社会“在各级建立有效、负责和包容的机构”，这可以被理解为旨在促进交往行动，这一概念由尤尔根·哈贝马斯提出，用于描述一种基于审议来协调社会的模式。然而，哈贝马斯同时也阐述了公共领域的结构转型，这表明主流资本主义自由民主国家在促进机构、个人和社区之间关系中的真正交往行动方面存在严重限制。因此，本文认为预现性政治具有关键作用，即社区努力在内部体现理想的社会政治形式，而不是专注于改变更广泛的社会政治秩序，作为生成范例以推动机构进步的重要资源。巴哈伊社区的预现性范例展示了一些规范和实践，通过将交往行动作为社会协调模式加以培育和保护，可能为哈贝马斯所指出的系统殖民生活世界的动态困境指明一条出路。在巴哈伊社区中发现的交往行动形式处于个人、社区和机构之间关系的有机模式背景之下。本文将这种模式的概念基础与那些被认为会削弱自由民主交往行动能力的人性个人主义观念进行了对比。在巴哈伊语境下，交往行动的核心是一种独特的审议模式，在社区内部被称为“协商”。本文认为，这可以为哈贝马斯在公共领域中的交往行动理想提供至关重要的细微差别。巴哈伊社区的正式民主结构和程序也作为一个制度范例进行了探讨，它可以说是应对目标16挑战的典范。本文最后初步思考了一个过程，即巴哈伊模式的预现性范例如何能够影响更广泛社会中的机构绩效。
