This thesis studies what the Habermas' conceptions of 'public sphere' mean, and what kind of effects they have on the development of modern civil society theories.
According to Habermas the public sphere of the liberal bourgeois emerges through the d...
This thesis studies what the Habermas' conceptions of 'public sphere' mean, and what kind of effects they have on the development of modern civil society theories.
According to Habermas the public sphere of the liberal bourgeois emerges through the direct and indirect conflict between the citizens and the feudal authorities and an absolute monarch. That is, in the process a public man is born who is obliged to protect his private property/sphere; these would gather in salons and engage in rational, critical debates over the feudal authorities and the culture of emancipation and further by means of the literal public sphere that is developed and political parties they voluntarily rise against the monarchy state. At this point, civic society that kept on gaining force with the development of industrial and market economy capitalism clashed with regulations imposed by the state. Emancipated from the regulations of absolutism and equipped with letters the citizens of the public sphere used their newly acquired tools to criticize and struggle against their thus we witness the birth of the public sphere. As a result a bourgeois constitutional state that systemizes the ideology of the public sphere, is born. Whereas there only existed the display of authority and the people's submission to it in a political wasteland, this brought about a new political sphere where citizens were able to discuss and decide on their own problems.
If the public sphere is understood as a movement that rose out of a Civil-Society with the rise of the modern bourgeoisie and as a result of their effort to protect themselves from the system, then hyangyak(鄕約) can be seen in the same line of reasoning as the public sphere - as it is in a way an organized effort by the people under the Chosun dynasty to protect themselves from the system that attempted to gain control over their daily lives.
However there are similarities as well as distinct differences between the Western public sphere and hyangyak; thus the author will attempt to show its characteristics and how the public sphere operates in the Korean traditional context and further attempt to convey that the current Korean civic movement operates under the influence of traditional forces rather than according to the dynamics of the Western civil society.
These traces of a public sphere can be found in the hyangyak movement of the Chosun Dynasty. Although a civic society was absent and the movement was not led by the bourgeoisie one may say that hyangyak was an attempt to escape the rules of absolutism. hyangyak was a kind of comprise between the local forces who insisted on a local right as an independent arena with themselves at the center and the central government that wanted to centralize all forces through their presence even in the local areas.
This thesis claims: Habermas' conceptions, such as 'public sphere', 'civil society' which rejuvenate citizens' voluntary political participation, are an important conception as an alternative to civil society and representative democracy.