Theory of communicative action

Jürgen Habermas distinguished communicative action, oriented to reaching understanding, from strategic action, oriented to success. Political legitimacy depends on whether norms could win agreement in undistorted communication.

In The Theory of Communicative Action (1981) he argued that every speech act raises claims to truth, normative rightness and sincerity that others can accept or contest. Rational agreement requires that every competent speaker may take part and question any assertion, without coercion; only the 'unforced force of the better argument' should decide. Society combines a communicatively structured lifeworld with systems steered by money and administrative power.

The theory is an analytical framework rather than an institution. It underpins Habermas's accounts of the public sphere and of constitutional debate, and has informed the design of deliberative forums.

Chantal Mouffe argues that politics cannot rest on rational consensus and should channel conflict between adversaries. Nancy Fraser argued that the bourgeois public sphere excluded women and subordinate groups. Critics also find the ideal speech conditions unrealisable.

Highly influential in communication studies, sociology, law and democratic theory, and a main source of deliberative democracy. Its empirical reach is limited because the ideal conditions are rarely met.