Modern society was viewed by Enlightenment thinkers as a project for integration under the banner of reason: A growing public would enlighten itself within the public assemblies (including parliaments) of Enlightenment societies, emerge from its “selfincurred immaturity”, govern itself in constituted nation states, exchange experiences in the Kantian “federation of nations” as “world citizenry”, and gradually extend the ambit of international law. In accordance with this view, the political public sphere plays a central role in the blueprint for democratic society. It provides the means by which problems that are universally acknowledged as requiring resolution are recognised. It serves to control the constitutional state, and it is both the condition of legitimacy for the constitutional state and the constitutional framework of the sovereign people. The political public sphere thus functions as a forum, as a controller and legitimator, and as an integrator.

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