As implicações da nova mudança estrutural da esfera pública para a legitimidade do direito em Jurgen Habermas

Abstract

This study investigates how Habermas’s conception of the legitimacy of law—anchored in the social structure of the public sphere and developed within a discursive theory of law and democracy—is affected by his most recent reflections on the structural transformations of the public sphere. Based on a critical analysis of Jürgen Habermas’s work, it is argued that social networks organized through digital platforms—by fragmenting the public sphere into self-referential semi-public spheres lacking discursive filters—undermine the modern social understanding of the separation between public and private realms. As a result, the structural conditions necessary for the democratic constitution of public opinion and political will are deteriorated. This new structural barrier to public communication and the centripetal circulation of communicative power leads to the formation of opinion and will being influenced by private interest groups communicatively isolated in echo chambers. Within this altered dynamic, extracting an intersubjectively shared core of interpretation among competing worldviews—capable of contributing to democratic processes and social integration in plural and interdependent societies—becomes a challenge that threatens the legitimacy claims of modern law, both nationally and internationally. In light of this scenario, political regulation of the platforms that structure public communication in the 21st century becomes unavoidable. The journalistic duties and communicative responsibilities that constitute the public sphere and govern traditional media—such as operational transparency, commitment to critical publicity, and the credibility of disseminated information and arguments—must be extended to the new digital media.