Making Affect Safe for Democracy?

: On "Constitutional Patriotism"
Author(s): Patchen Markell
Source: Political Theory, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Feb., 2000), pp. 38-63
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/192283 .
Accessed: 08/05/2014 22:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 MAKING AFFECT SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY?
On "Constitutional Patriotism"

PATCHENMARKELL
University of Chicago

The past few years have witnessed the rediscoveryof an old distinction
between"civic"and"ethnic"nationalisms.This renaissancehas been driven
in partby the new prominenceof nationalismon the worldpolitical scene in
the wake of the events of 1989. Yet the distinctionbetween civic and ethnic
nationalisms,however timely, has been taken up with special eagerness by
political theoristsbecause it also speaksto a problemin the theoryof liberal
democracythat antedatesthe most recent wave of nationalism,namely,the
question of the relationshipbetween liberal democracy and the affective
dimensions of political life. Skepticalof passion and identification,liberals
havetriedto exchangethe dangerousromanceof polis and patria forthe calm
certitudesof reason, or for the underratedpleasures of what Hobbes calls
"peaceable,sociable, and comfortableliving."' In turn, liberalism'scritics
have chargedthatits aversionto affect is unsustainable.Modernprocedural
liberalismhas no roomfor the strongpassionsof belonging,loyalty,andalle-
giance, and so it "cannot inspire the moral and civic engagement self-
governmentrequires."'The concern, in Scruton'spithy expression, is that
"thepublicspherecannotstandso serenelyabovethe loyaltiesthatfeed it."3
The distinctionbetweencivic andethnic nationalismshas offeredliberals
an attractiveanswer to this charge because it promises to isolate a kind of

AUTHOR'SNOTE:Earlierversionsof this essay werepresentedat the meetingof theAmerican

Political Science Association, Washington,D. C., August1997, and to the 1997Political Theory
Research Workshopin the Departmentof Governmentat HarvardUniversity.Forcomments,I
am especially gratefulto Seyla Benhabib,Bill Connolly,MichaeleFerguson,AndreaFrank,Jill
Frank,Peter Gordon,Bonnie Honig, Pratap Mehta, SankarMuthu,JenniferPitts, Jackie Ste-
vens, 7racyStrong,and an anonymousreviewerfor thisjournal. Thanksalso go to the Program
for the Studyof Germanyand Europeat the Mindade GunzburgCenterfor EuropeanStudiesat
HarvardUniversityfor its gener-oussupport.
POLITICALTHEORY,Vol. 28 No. 1, February2000 38-63
D 2000 Sage Publications,Inc.

38

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 39

affect on which liberal democracies can safely rely as a source of citizen

motivation.Whereasethnic nationalismis groundedin attachmentto a pre-
political community of descent, civic nationalism, its proponents claim,
expresses devotion to nothingotherthanliberal-democraticpolitical princi-
ples and values themselves. Thus, liberal-democraticstates can inspiretheir
citizens with civic nationalismwhile keepingthedivisive force of other,more
perniciousattachmentsatbay.4As Barberannounces,"Acivic patriotismthat
eschews exclusion but meets the need for parochialidentity can providean
alternativeto the manypathologicalversionsof blood kinshipthatarearound
today in places like ex-Yugoslavia,Romania,Rwanda,Tajikistan,Nigeria,
the Ukraine,and Afghanistan,to namejust a few."5
Such theoreticaldeploymentsof the distinctionbetween civic and ethnic
nationalismrepresentwhat I call the strategy of redirection. This strategy
claims to renderaffect safe for liberaldemocraciesby redirectingourattach-
ment and sentimentfrom one subsetof objects (the "ethnic")to anothersub-
set of objects (the "civic").Since the ethnic convenientlyturnsout to be the
source of all of affect's pathologies, the civic can offer all the benefits of
affect while "eschewing exclusion" at the same time. In this essay, I argue
thatthe strategyof redirectionrests on a misleadingpictureof the dynamics
of political affect and,in particular,of the relationshipbetweenaffect andthe
universalprinciplesthatsupposedlyarerepresentedby the civic. The project
of makingaffect safe for liberaldemocracy,I claim, founderson the troubling
fact that even the reproductionof civic affect proceeds by tying citizens to
historicalinstitutionsandconcreteculturesthatneverarequite equivalentto
the universalprinciplesthey purportto embody.
To develop this argument,I turnto one accountof political affect thathas
assumeda prominentplace in recentdebatesaboutcivic andethnic national-
isms: Habermas'sconceptionof "constitutionalpatriotism"(Verfassungspa-
6
triotismus). Many of Habermas'sreaders take the idea of constitutional
patriotismto be a version of civic nationalism,and they understandHaber-
mas himself to be a practitionerof whatI call the strategyof redirection.7Yet
Habermas'sown writingson constitutionalpatriotismare not as straightfor-
wardas these interpretationssuggest. Althoughmanyof Habermas'scharac-
terizations of constitutionalpatriotismdo suggest that he hopes to make
affect safe for liberal democracy by directing it toward abstractuniversal
principles,therealso is an importantstrandin Habermas'sthought-call it a
minortheme-that powerfullyresists the strategyof redirectionandgestures
towardan alternativeway of thinkingaboutpoliticalaffect.This essay draws
out that strandby readingHabermas'sidea of constitutionalpatriotismboth
in light of his recent treatise on law and democracy,Between Facts and
Norms, and in light of his concretecontributionsto public discussions about

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
40 POLITICALTHEORY! February2000

nationalism,citizenship,asylum and immigration,and violence againstfor-

eigners in contemporaryGermany.By reconstructingHabermas'sconcept of
constitutionalpatriotismin this way,I aimto identifythe limits of the strategy
of makingaffect safe for democracyby redirectingit towardsafe and proper
objects;alongthe way,I also hope to makea little troublefor the conventional
wisdom aboutwhere Habermas'sworkbelongs on the mapof contemporary
political thought.8
In the second section of this essay, I offer a preliminaryreadingof consti-
tutionalpatriotismas anexemplarof the strategyof redirection,whichtriesto
solve the problemof politicalaffect by directingaffect towarduniversalnor-
mativeprinciplessimpliciter.This interpretationis renderedmost plausible,I
suggest, when constitutional patriotism is understood as the collective
equivalentof whatHabermas,in his writingson individualpsychology,calls
"postconventional"ego-identity.The thirdand fourthsections of the essay
begin to tracethe limits of this interpretationof Habermas,and the limits of
the strategyof redirectionitself, by readingthe idea of constitutionalpatriot-
ism againstthe backgroundof BetweenFacts and Norms. There,Habermas
theorizes the complex relationshipbetween the law as a system of effective
sanctionsandthe law as a systemof validnorms,drawingoutboththe mutual
dependenceof these two aspectsof law andthe irreduciblepotentialfor con-
flict betweenthem.So long as it is understoodas anexampleof the strategyof
redirection,I claim, constitutionalpatriotismis caught in an analogousten-
sion: the universalprinciplestowardwhich constitutionalpatriotismis sup-
posed to direct our affect are not self-sufficient,but both depend on and are
threatenedby a supplementof particularitythat enables them to become
objectsof passionateidentification.In the final section of the essay, I suggest
thatHabermashimself, especially in his writingon concretepolitical events
in contemporaryGermany,offers a betterunderstandingof the meaning of
constitutionalpatriotism,one that takes account of and responds to, rather
than denying or repressing,this tense relationshipof conflict and interde-
pendence between the universaland the particular.If universal normative
principlesalways dependon supplementsof particularitythatenablethem to
become objects of attachmentand identificationbutthatare also neverquite
equivalentto the principlesthey purportto embody,thenconstitutionalpatri-
otism can best be understoodnot as a safe and reliable identificationwith
some pureset of alreadyavailableuniversals,butratheras a politicalpractice
of refusingor resistingparticularidentifications-of insistingon andmaking
manifest this failure of equivalence-for the sake of the ongoing, always
incomplete, and often unpredictableprojectof universalization.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 41

HI

The term"constitutionalpatriotism"does not appearin Habermas'swork

untilthe 1980s, when he invokedthe idea in the courseof the Historikerstreit,
a heatedpublic debateaboutthe uniquenessof the Holocaustandthe "public
use of history"in which Habermaswas a centralplayer.9Ratherthanjumping
directly into the whirlpool of Germanculturalpolitics, however, I want to
begin by framingconstitutionalpatriotismagainstthe backgroundof theo-
retical questions about the relationships among identity, rationality,and
social integrationin modernity-questions thathadalreadyoccupiedHaber-
mas for more than a decade when the Historikerstreitbegan.
In a 1974 addresstitled "CanComplex Societies Form a RationalIden-
tity?"Habermasputhis own twist on an old Hegeliantheme, suggesting that
modernityintroducesan "inevitablecleavage between ego-identity derived
fromuniversalisticstructuresandcollective identityboundup with a particu-
lar community."'lForHabermas,this cleavage was problematicbecause uni-
versalismboth underminesand seems to dependon the bindingforce of par-
ticular identities. "On the basis of universalisticnorms,"Habermaswrites,
"no particularentity possessing an identity-formingpower (such as the fam-
ily, the tribe, the city, state, or nation)can set up bounds to demarcateitself
from alien groups."Yet "if this place is not filled" (i.e., the place from which
socially effective bonds issue, previouslyoccupiedby families, tribes,cities,
states, and nations),then "universalisticmorality,in the same way as the ego
structuresconsistentwith it, would remaina mere postulate.""How, if at all,
could this tension betweenthe bindingforce of identificationandthe univer-
sal norms of modernitybe overcome?
In the 1974 essay, Habermas'sresponse to this problem was to suggest
thatmodernity'suniversalisticmoralitycould become self-sufficient,thatis,
that the "basic norms of rationaldiscourse"could themselves become the
foundationof a new formof collective identitythroughwhich universalprin-
ciples would acquireeffectiveness and social reality.'2This optimistic ges-
ture echoed Habermas's contemporaneoustheorization of a postconven-
tional stage in the developmentof the ego-identityof the individual,a theme
he has continuedto develop in more recentwork.'3On this account,the indi-
vidual passes from a stage of conventional identification, in which he
"blind[ly]subjugat[es]"himself to traditionalsocial expectationsand roles,
into a mature stage of postconventionalidentification,in which he relates
autonomously and critically to the social expectations he encounters.14
Habermasinsists thatthese referencesto the autonomyof the individualare
not to be takento mean thatthe individualcan "stepoutside of society alto-

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
42 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

gether and settle down into a space of abstractisolation and freedom";even

postconventionalidentitiesdependon and makereferenceto the dimension
But in the postconventionalstage, the intersubjective
of intersubjectivity."5
has a differentmeaningandweight;it refersnotto the actuallyexisting others
whose demandsunilaterallydeterminethe individual's identity, but rather
to the "anticipated"or "projected"communityof others to which the post-
conventional subject appeals for recognition of his unique, autonomously
formedidentity.16 Analogously,Habermasimplies thattheremay be a corre-
spondingmovementin the developmentof humansocieties away from vari-
ous forms of conventionalcollective identificationgroundedin supposedly
fixed andgiven attributessuch as kinship,ethnicity,andterritory;andtoward
a postconventionalcollective identity, which would "no longer requir[e]
fixed contents"but instead would be centeredarounda shared"conscious-
ness of universaland equal opportunityto participatein value and norm-
forming learningprocesses.""7 In short,postconventionalcollective identity
would consist in somethinglike an identificationwith the normsand proce-
duresthatconstitutethe idealized"unlimitedcommunicationcommunity.""8
This problem of collective identity in modernity,which Habermasex-
ploredin abstractformbeginningin the 1970s, took on new concretenessand
political immediacyin Germanyin the 1980s. Even before the momentous
eventsof 1989, a series of controversiesoverGermanhistoryplacedthe issue
of nationalidentityat the centerof public attention.In May 1985, President
Reaganvisited WestGermanyat ChancellorHelmutKohl'sinvitationto help
markthe fortiethanniversaryof the end of WorldWarII. Reagan'sitinerary
sparkedan uproar,for he was scheduledto lay a wreathat a Germanmilitary
cemeteryat Bitburg,which turnedout to house the gravesof 49 membersof
the SS and about2,000 Wehrmachtsoldiers. Underpressurefrom outraged
Jewishorganizations,Reagantackeda visit to the Bergen-Belsenconcentra-
tion camp onto his plans, but by implyingthatthe two sites were equivalent,
Reagan'sconcession only mademattersworse.19In a scathing essay in Die
Zeit, Habermas argued that the visit was partof a troublingneoconserva-
tive campaign to normalize German identity-and, not coincidentally,to
rehabilitateGerman nationalism-by "laundering"the German past.2"A
year afterBitburg,Habermaspublishedanotherarticlein Die Zeit criticizing
an analogous"revisionist"movementin the writingof Germanhistory.2'This
movement,Habermasargued,downplayedthe singularityof the Holocaust
so as to constructa nationalhistoryof Germanythatcould become an object
of pride. The resulting Historikerstreitlasted for a year and helped make
Habermasinto one of Germany'sbest-knowncritics of the old idea of Ger-
many as a Volksnation,a position he has deepenedin subsequentpublic dis-

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 43

cussions of issues such as unification,immigrationand asylum rights, and

Europeanunion.22
These disputes clearly reflected the cleavage Habermashad described
in 1974 between the normative content of modernity-its universalistic
morality-and the need to make thatnormativecontenteffectiveas a source
of social integrationby groundingit in concrete identifications.On Haber-
mas's view, the neoconservativeshad simply sacrificedthe normativeprinci-
ples of modernityat the altarof "thefunctionalimperativesof predictability,
of securing consensus, [and] of social integrationthroughthe creation of
meaning.,,23 In his contributionsto the Historikerstreit,Habermaswas not
contentto respondto the revisionistsby reversingtheirprioritiesanddeclar-
ing the irrelevanceof social integration.Instead, Habermasfollowed the
same routehe had takenin 1974, this time in explicitly politicalterms.There
was one kind of political attachment,he claimed, thatcould serve as a basis
for social integrationeven while remainingtrueto the universalisticmorality
of modernity: a "connection to universalist constitutional principles" or
"constitutionalpatriotism."24
Read againstthis background,Habermas'sidea of constitutionalpatriot-
ism does seem to be a sophisticatedexampleof whatI havecalled the strategy
of redirection. For Habermas, constitutional patriotism seems to be a
uniquely safe form of affect for liberal democracies because it is directed
toward a distinctive kind of object. Love of family, ethnos, and nation all
attachus to pre-political objects of affect and identification;that is, objects
that are imaginedto exist "independentof and priorto the political opinion-
and will-formation of the citizens themselves."25These forms of political
affect seem to correspondto the conventionalstage of identity-formation
Habermasdescribes in the context of individualpsychology, in which the
individualsecuresidentityonly at the cost of blindlyacceptingthe traditional
roles assignedto him by others.If postconventionalego-identityis an accom-
plishment of the matureindividualwho has learnedto do withoutthe certi-
tudes of traditionand social convention,Habermassuggests that constitu-
tional patriotism is, correspondingly,the appropriateform of affect for a
maturepolitics thathas outgrownthe need for a pre-politicalground-a poli-
tics thathas "learn[ed]to standon its own two feet."Thus, ratherthanrefer-
ring outside politics to "a prior homogeneity of descent or form of life,"
constitutionalpatriotismdirects citizen allegiance toward the nation now
conceived simply as a"self-determiningpolitical community."26
By groundingpolitical integrationin this way on the very principlesthat
also serve as the normativebasis of politicallegitimacyin modernity,consti-
tutionalpatriotism(thusunderstood)promisesto bringthe sustainingenergy

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
44 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

of affective identificationinto politics while avoidingthe possibility of con-

flict between citizens' passionateattachmentsand theirrationallygrounded
moral and political obligations.Once upon a time, Habermasadmits, affect
directedtowardthe pre-politicalunity of the Volksnationdid help createand
consolidate emergentliberal-democraticstates.2' But the experience of the
past few centuriesof state building has also taughtus that the fantasy of a
homogeneouscommunitycan be pursuedonly at the cost of intoleranceand
ethniccleansing;andso, especially undercontemporaryconditionsof accel-
eratingpluralism,Habermasinsists that such methods of securingpolitical
integrationfinally must be abandoned.2' The only normativelyacceptable
alternativeis to focus political affect and identificationaroundan increas-
ingly abstractset of principlesthatcan serve as a least commondenominator
amonga "diversityof culturallife-forms,ethnicgroups,religions,andworld-
views."29Such an approach,unlike earlierforms of patriotismand national-
ism, valorizes a set of universal norms ratherthan a concrete historical
community. Consequently,it does not generate irrational,antidemocratic
hostility towardan unendingseries of people or groupswhom it positions as
its "others."30)
The foregoing account of constitutionalpatriotismand the underlying
understandingof postconventionalidentity-formationinvite criticism in a
numberof ways, both at the level of individualpsychology andat the level of
collective identification,althoughI focus on the latterhere.31For example,
Habermasoften seems to move too quicklybetween,on one hand,a descrip-
tion of the postconventionalsituation, which simply refers to the fact that
"societaldifferentiation"andthe "diversificationof conflictingrole expecta-
tions" have disruptedthe simple unreflective reproductionof traditional
ways of life andrenderedit impossibleto sustaina purelyconventionalexis-
32
tence, andon the otherhand,his accountof postconventionalformsof iden-
tification,which supposedlymake it possible for us to sustaincoherentego-
identities and stable collective identities even in the postconventional
situation. Habermas's rough outline of the postconventional situation is
compelling-although we might wantto suspendjudgmenton his tendency
to associatethatsituationexclusively with Westernmodernity-yet his opti-
mistic account of postconventionalidentity seems more problematic.Does
the postconventionalindividual,simply by virtueof being throwninto a con-
text in which no single conventionalidentitycan serve as an unproblematic
guide to action, somehow become so well insulatedfrom the weight of his-
toryandof social expectationsthathe can treathis historicalandculturalcon-
textsolely as rawmaterial,to be incorporatedcriticallyandselectively into an
autonomously shaped life? Can the abstractuniversal principles around

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 45

which postconventionalcollective identities are to be centered really com-

mandpassionateattachmentpriorto andindependentlyof identificationwith
concretehistoricalcommunities,such thatthey can serve as a critical"filter"
through which "nationalpride and collective self-esteem" can be passed,
screeningout theirundesirableaspects?33Or,to the contrary,does the repro-
duction even of civic and principledforms of identity proceed precisely by
appealingto, ratherthanovercoming,the weightiness of the historicalinsti-
tutionsand concreteculturesto which we find ourselvesboundeven priorto
the processof criticalreflection?If so, thenmightthe postconventionalsitua-
tion demandnot thatwe searchfor a distinctiveand safe form of identitybut
ratherthat we adopt an ambivalentposturetowardidentificationas such?
Surprisinglyenough, I suggest, Habermashimself turns out to support
this latter,less sanguine perspectiveon the possibility of postconventional
identity, thereby undergirdinga powerful and subtle critique of the whole
strategy of renderingaffect safe for liberal democracy by splitting it into
"safe" and "dangerous"variants.To understandHabermas'scritique,how-
ever, we need to leave constitutionalpatriotismbehind for the moment and
turnto Habermas'smonumentalrecent treatiseon law and democracy.

III

The title of Habermas'streatise,BetweenFacts and Norms, immediately

suggests parallelswith the "cleavage,"outlinedin 1974, between the effec-
tive integratingforce of collective identities and the universalistnorms of
modernity.Habermasdoes not disappoint:before advancinginto particular
controversies about constitutionalinterpretation,the social welfare state,
civil society, and the separationof powers,he devotes the first four chapters
of the book to a difficultbutrich portraitof this relationshipbetween "factic-
ity" and"validity"in law andpolitics. However,Habermas'sapproachto this
relationship seems to have changed markedly.Between Facts and Norms
does not lend supportto the projectof makinguniversalnormsself-sufficient,
as Habermas's 1974 essay might have led us to expect. Instead,Habermas
shows thatthe relationshipbetween facticity and validity is markedboth by
conflict and by interdependence.If Habermas's1974 essay gesturedin (late)
Hegelian fashiontowarda momentof reconciliation,orchestratedby the phi-
losopher, between the demands of social integration and the normative
imperativesof modernity,Habermasnow practices a kind of philosophical
modesty. He treatsthe dependenceof normativityon factical resourcesthat
also threaten it as the constitutive tension of law and politics itself, to be nego-

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
46 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

tiated by citizens, not transcendedby the theorist.And, in so doing, Haber-

mas pavesthe way for a morecomplex,dynamicaccountof the affectiverela-
tion of citizens to the historical institutions in which political principles
inevitablyare embedded.
HabermasintroducesBetween Facts and Norms by observing that the
study of law andpolitics has long been dominatedby a division between the
objectivesocial sciences, which studythe law simply as a system of causally
effective rules, andnormativetheory,whichtriesto deriveconclusions about
the proper content of law from the requirementsof practicalreason. The
formerperspectiveattendsto law'sfacticityandis exemplifiedfor Habermas
by Luhmann'ssystems theory, although this perspective, in its exclusive
focus on the function of law as a methodof social integration,also should
remindus of the position Habermasattributedto his neoconservativeoppo-
nents in the Historikerstreit.The latterperspectiveattendsto law's validity
and is exemplified for Habermasby the early Rawls.34Habermastries to
overcome the false reductionof law to one or the other of these aspects,
describinglaw insteadas a pointof intersectionor "mediation"betweenfacts
and norms:"Legalnorms,"Habermassays, "areat the same time but in dif-
ferent respects enforceable laws based on coercion and laws offreedom"
(p. 29, emphasesadded).35
The phrase"atthe same time butin differentrespects"is a placeholderfor
a complex relationshipof conflict and interdependence.First, facticity and
validitystandin a relationof potentialconflict. This point should alreadybe
familiarfrom Habermas'searlierdescriptionof the cleavage between con-
crete identities and universalnorms in modernity.And, once again, Haber-
mas explains the cleavage by telling a story about the birthof modernity.
Modernity,he suggests, disturbstwo other,older connectionsbetween facts
and norms, which were sustainedby "backgroundassumptions,loyalties,
andskills"thatwe "alwaysalready"possess by virtueof ourimmersionin the
lifeworld (p. 22) andby "archaicinstitutionsthatpresentthemselveswith an
apparentlyunassailableclaim to authority"(p. 23). Backgroundknowledge
is a sheerfact aboutus; we use it "involuntarily,withoutreflectivelyknowing
that we possess it at all" (p. 22). Yet backgroundknowledge is also ours; it
does not compel us but ratherreflects our "intuitive"understandingof what
ought to be done and so maintainsa tie to the dimensionof validity (p. 23).
Likewise, the archaicinstitutionis both a sheer fact that "imperiouslycon-
fronts"people with threatsof coercion and an essential source of validity in
societies where individualsare simply defined by their relationshipsto the
collectivity.36

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 47

In these cases, however, we encounter not just an intersection but a

"fusion" of facticity and validity (p. 23). In backgroundknowledge and
archaicinstitutions,we mightsay thatthe facticalexhauststhe normativeand
thus remains insulated from criticism and challenge (p. 25). In "modern
societies," by contrast,social complexity, differentiation,and pluralization
have contributedto the "disenchantment"of both conventionalknow-how
and sacredauthority(p. 25). For us, Habermassays, "validityandfacticity-
thatis, the bindingforce of rationallymotivatedbeliefs andthe imposedforce
of externalsanctions-have partedcompanyas incompatible"(p. 26). Thus
the phenomenonthatcharacteristicallylinks facticityandvaliditytogetherin
modernity-the law-can only mediate and cannot reconcile the tension
between them.
But if facticity and validity have "partedcompany as incompatible"in
modernity,then why not let them go theirseparateways, which is (afterall)
what Habermasthinks systems theory and normativepolitical philosophy
have done? The answeris thatalthoughfacticity and validity are incompati-
ble, they also are interdependent.This interdependenceof facts and norms
has two faces. First,Habermasargues,law can performits (factical)function
of securingsocial integrationin modernityonly if it is morethana system of
effective sanctions;it must also satisfy normativecriteria.

Modem law can stabilizebehavioralexpectationsin a complex society with structurally

differentiatedlifeworlds and functionallyindependentsubsystemsonly if law, as regent
for a "societalcommunity"thathastransformeditself into civil society, can maintainthe
inheritedclaim to solidarity in the abstractform of an acceptable claim to legitimacy.
(p. 76)

Conversely,and much more importantfor our purposes,Habermasalso

arguesthatvalidity inevitablyis intertwinedwith the factical dimensions of
law and politics, andthis is the argumentthatrepresentsthe most substantial
departurefromhis earliergesturetowardthe possible self-sufficiencyof uni-
versal norms. This moment of interdependencearises most fundamentally
from the incapacityof practicalreasonalone to motivatemoralaction, a gap
that only a system of legal sanctions can fill.37In modernity,Habermas
argues, moralityhas become detachedfrom the "customarypractices"that
once gave it a strongmotivatingforce. As mere knowledge,however,moral-
ity possesses only the "weakmotivatingforce of good reasons"(pp. 1 3-14).
The internalizationof moralityin the form of conscience can help compen-
sate for this weakness,butthereproductionof conscience is itself notoriously
unreliable.Thus Habermasconcludes,

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
48 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

A moralitythatdependson the accommodatingsubstrateof propitiouspersonalitystruc-

tures would have a limited effectiveness if it could not engage the actor's motives in
anotherway besides internalization,thatis, preciselyby way of an institutionalizedlegal
system that supplements postconventional morality in a mannereffective for action.
(p. 114, emphasis added)

The law providesthis supplement,Habermassays, becauseit consists of a

system of incentives and punishmentsthatproducesexternalconformityto
norms,althoughfromwholly amoralmotives."Coercivelaw overlaysnorma-
tive expectationswith threatsof sanctionsin such a way thataddresseesmay
restrictthemselvesto the prudentialcalculationof consequences"(p. 116). To
function in this way as a motivationalsupplementto practicalreason, how-
ever,law mustbe morethana set of valid norms,for the merelyphilosophical
specificationof such normswould still lack the power of sanction.Thus, an
effective system of law must involve the creation of "specific rights" that
"stem from the decisions of a historical legislature"(p. 125). Moreover,
becausethese rightshavea historicallyspecific genesis andgoverna socially
and geographically discrete collectivity, a valid legal order must include
"rightsthat regulatemembershipin a determinateassociation of citizens"
and that allow us to "differentiatebetween membersand nonmembers,citi-
zens and aliens"(p. 124). Yet since considerationsof validity cannot them-
selves establish "proper"boundaries between determinatecommunities,
abstractnormativeprinciplesdemanda furthersupplementof particularity
from "historicalchance [and]the accidentalcourse of events,"which define
the territoryand membershipto which historicallyspecific systems of posi-
tive law apply.38Finally, even a historically specific system of basic rights
appliedto a determinateassociationof citizens would remain"incompletein
essential respects"because a system of rights"cannotstabilize itself" with-
out the furthercreationof a politicalinstitution-the constitutionalstate-to
reproduce,implement,and enforce the law (p. 132).
In its dependenceon the sanctioningpower of a specific body of positive
law, applicableto a territoriallyand historicallydelimited community and
backedup by the coercive powerof the institutionsof the state,the normative
core of law refersbeyonditself andtowardits own facticalparticularization.
This dependencekeeps the normativecore of law involved in a dangerous,
uneasy alliance with institutionsthat threatento displace and overwhelmit
(p. 39). As we shall see, this fragilestructureof conflict andinterdependence
also providesa useful frameworkfor understandingthe problemof identity
and affect in modernity,andit will help us understandthe problemsencoun-
teredby all attemptsto solve the problemof political affect throughthe strat-
egy of redirection-Habermas's included.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 49

IV

In BetweenFactsand Norms,Habermassuggests thatthe creationof posi-

tive law andthe foundingof the coercivestateprovidenecessarysupplements
to the normativeprinciplesof a legal order.They give the universalnormsof
modernityan effective bindingforce thatthey cannotexert on theirown and
thereby enable them to become foci of social integration.Yet in this work,
Habermasanalyzesonly one of the ways in which law andthe stateserve this
supplementaryfunction. Law and the state overlay valid norms with sanc-
tions, he says, effectively exploitingthe instrumentalmotivationsof citizens
to secure social integrationaroundvalidprinciples.At least in BetweenFacts
and Norms,Habermasoverlooksthe ways in which positivelaw andthe state
also produce new motives for compliance with legal norms by producing
shared identifications among citizens. Attending to these mechanisms-
which Habermasdoes obliquely addressin otherrecent work including his
brilliantessay on the history and futureof the Europeannation-state-will
bring us back to the subjectof constitutionalpatriotism.
Law andthe stateproduceidentificationsby addressingpeople as citizens;
that is, as both subjects and authors of the institutionalorderthat governs a
given territory.When arrestsaremade,when votes aretaken,whenjuries are
assembled, when cars areregistered,when taxes are assessed, and so on, the
participantsin these moments of interpellationare made and remade into
members of an "imaginedcommunity"of citizens.39In this way, as Haber-
mas himself acknowledgesin his accountof the rise of the Europeannation-
state, law and the state mediate between citizens, creatinga "new and more
abstractform of social integration"by tying each person to a single central
idea: the idea of "thepeople"to which all belong.40While positive law fills in
the motivationaldeficits of practicalreasonby imposing effective sanctions
that appeal to self-interest, the productionof identificationsfills in these
same deficits in a differentway: by broadeningthe referenceof the "self" in
"self-interest"to include the members,institutions,and practicesof a com-
munity that we come to regardas ours, or even as "us.",41
This analogy between the motivationaleffects of legal sanctions and the
motivationaleffects of legally and politically producedidentificationssug-
gests, however,thatidentificationsmay be caughtin the tensionbetweenfac-
ticity and validityin the same way as aresanctions.Legal sanctions,remem-
ber, representedone point of interdependencebetween facts and norms:
universal legal norms can become effective as sanctions only if they are
embodiedin aparticularsystem of positive law andcoercive stateapparatus,
the particularityof which is not given (andcannot be given) by normsthem-
selves but ratherprovidedby the supplementof facticity.Somethingsimilar

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
50 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

holds truefor identification.Forthe interpellatingaddressof law andthe state

to identify people effectively as membersof some imaginedcommunityof
citizens, that communitymust indeed be imagined;it must be given some
definite shape, even if the definition of the communityremains subject to
interpretationand reimagination through practices of cultural politics.
Moreover,this definiteshapecannotbe given by the abstractnormativecore
of law andpolitics itself;identification,too, mustreachbeyondthe normative
and towardthe factical to obtain its necessary supplementof particularity.
Habermasmakesthe pointhimself:"Theidentityof a person,of a group,of a
nation, or of a region,"he says, "is always something concrete, something
particular";it requiresthe presentationof an "image"to oneself and others,
and it nevercan "consistmerely in generalmoralorientationsandcharacter-
istics, which are sharedby all alike."41
The tensionbetweenthe normativeandthe facticalin the contextof identi-
fication is well illustratedby Habermas'streatmentof popularsovereignty.
To create sufficiently strong identificationsto sustain social integration,
Habermassuggests,the image of thecommunityto whichcitizens belong has
to be given more definitionthanthe "abstract"idea of popularsovereignty,
on its own, can provide. The problem here is that the idea of "the people"
that lies behind the normativeprinciple of popularsovereignty-the pure
demos-does notcorrespondto any"visiblyidentifiablegatheringof autono-
mous citizens."43The will of the people resists all representation;it "with-
draws" into a "subjectlessand anonymous state" and becomes "elusive,"
leaving its tracesandeffects butneverbecomingpresent.44In its elusiveness,
however,the puredemos also frustratesidentification:it offers no images in
which citizens can find themselves mirrored.Identificationwith the "peo-
ple," which is a necessarycomponentof effective social integrationaround
the principleof popularsovereignty,thusrequiressome extra-normativesup-
plement to give substantialityto the demos.
But this means thatidentificationwith the demos constitutivelyinvolves
misrecognitionsince the demos never is equivalentto any purportedrepre-
sentationof it. Historically,Habermasobserves,the figure of the nationas a
cultural,linguistic, and historicalunity often has filled the gap left by the
demos, serving as a "culturalsubstrate"that would be "vivid and powerful
enough to shape people's convictions and appea[l] more strongly to their
hearts and minds than the dry ideas of popular sovereignty and human
rights."45Yet in filling this gap, nationalismperformsa twofold misrecogni-
tion. First,the nationneveris the pre-politicallygiven entity it purportsto be
butis insteadproducedas a pre-political"fact"in the verysame act of address
thatproducesthe individualas citizen.46Second, the demos neveris the his-
torical,linguistic, and culturalunity representedby the image of the nation;

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 51

such an image is, at best, the trace of the "people";the sloughed skin of a
demos on the move. Habermasthussays thatthe "republicanachievement[of
the nation-state]is endangeredwhen, conversely,the integrativeforce of the
nationof citizens is tracedback to a pre-politicalfact of a quasi-naturalpeo-
ple"-yet it also is truethatthe republicancore of the state exposes itself to
this dangerby virtueof its dependenceon a supplementof particularity.The
normativeprinciplesof law and politics invitethe very "naturalisticconcep-
tion of the people" that also threatensthem.47
This dynamicof dependenceandthreatcreatesseriousdifficultiesfor the
projectof constitutionalpatriotism,at least so long as that projectis under-
stood in termsof the redirectionof politicalattachmentandaffecttowardsafe
and properobjects. As we saw earlier,Habermas'soriginal image of consti-
tutionalpatriotismposited the possibility of reproducingidentificationwith
and loyalty to abstractnormativeprinciplesindependentlyof any identifica-
tion with particularnationalor historicalcommunities.This priorattachment
to universalprincipleswas supposedto serve as a "filter"that could screen
48
out the dangerouselements of nationalprideand historicalconsciousness.
On this account,only afterwe haveestablishedan independentaffectivecon-
nection to normative principles will we be properly equipped to decide
"which of our traditionswe want to continue and which we do not."49Yet
Habermas'sown reflectionsaboutthe interdependenceof facticityandvalid-
ity suggest that this kind of attachmentto pure principleis impossible; the
norms"behind"a constitutioncan become objects of identificationand loy-
alty only via an admixtureof particularity.5"
This point has not been lost on Habermashimself. After his initial contri-
butionsto the Historikerstreit,and perhapsin a tacit responseto critics who
had complainedaboutthe apparentthinnessof constitutionalpatriotism,the
terms of Habermas'sown account of political affect shifted in a slight but
vital way. His Sonning Prize speech, for example, glosses constitutional
patriotismnot as loyalty to universalprinciplesbut ratheras attachmentto
"thepolitical orderandthe principlesof the Basic Law,"thatis, to a set of par-
ticular institutions and a historical constitution.51The same speech later
returnsto more abstractformulationsof constitutionalpatriotismbut imme-
diately adds: "Of course constitutionalpatriotism'sties to these principles
have to be nourishedby a heritageof culturaltraditionsthatis consonantwith
them."52 Elsewhere,Habermasrefersto constitutionalpatriotismas a way of
"enduringlylink[ing]"principles "with the motivationsand convictions of
citizens" by "situat[ing]"these principles"withinthe historicalcontext of a
legal community."53 And often, Habermassimply refersto a "sharedpolitical
culture"as the supplementof particularitythatabstractprinciplesrequireif
they are to become objects of attachmentand affect.54

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
52 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

Even here, Habermas'simpulse to make affect safe for democracydoes

reassertitself. In a final defense of the strategyof redirection,Habermassug-
gests thatnationalismsgroundedin this way in the "sharedpolitical culture"
and"institutions"of a polity,preciselybecausethey are political, do not bear
the "ambivalentpotential" that had made "pre-political"conceptions of
nationhoodat once a resourcefor anda dangerto liberal-democratic politics.55
This, however,confuses two senses of "political."Takethe example of cul-
ture.To say thatthe politicalcultureof a communityis "political"is to name
the segment of society to which thatculturebelongs; the political cultureis
"political"in the sense thatit pertainsto institutionsandpracticesof govern-
ance, decision making, or the allocation and use of power. The modifier
"political"carriesa much differentsense as a componentof the distinction
between "political"and "pre-political."Consideragain how Habermasuses
this distinction:

But this republicanachievementis endangeredwhen, conversely,the integrativeforce of

the nationof citizens is tracedbackto a pre-politicalfact of a quasi-naturalpeople-that
is, to somethingindependentof andprior to thepolitical opinion- and will-formationof
the citizens themselves.56

In this sense, the political culture of a community,too, is something pre-

political. The content of the constitutionand the particularinterpretations
thatconstitutionhas been given overa long historyof adjudication;the politi-
cal historyof the country;the symbols, songs, events, dates, andpeople who
captureourpolitical imagination;the patternsandstructuresof civil society;
the vocabulariesof political analysis and polemic; the "nationalfantasies"
that "circulatethroughpersonal/collectiveconsciousness"'7 -all these and
more constitutea culturalinheritancethatthe demos did not choose. This is
not to say thatpolitical cultureis fixed or thatwe arecompletely determined
by it;the politicalculturewe leave behindneveris the same as the one we first
found, andsome of thatchangeis due to preciselythe kindof culturalcritique
andtransformationthatHabermasrightlyurgesus to practice.But that,after
all, is notuniquelytrueof politicalculture;it is trueof culturein general.And,
conversely,what is trueof culturein general also is true of political culture.
Its givenness, or its facticity,lends it the particularityit needs to become the
focus of an "imaginedcommunity"of passionateidentification;yet, at the
same time, politicalcultureis neitheras unifiedandcoherentas ourrepresen-
tations of it suggest nor as purely expressive of universalprinciples as we
believe. Consequently, we constitutively misrecognize ourselves in our
"sharedpolitical culture"or "commoninstitutions"just as much as we do in
othernationalisms.And,just as in othernationalisms,the narcissisticdefense

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 53

of a commonpolitical identityhas the capacityto inspireviolence andexclu-

sion." This is not to say thatcivic andethnicnationalismareequivalentorthat
there are no good reasons to prefer,for example, civic over ethnic rules of
political membership.But it does suggest thatthe practiceeven of constitu-
tional patriotismor other forms of civic nationalismcarries political risks
analogousto those borneby othernationalisms,andthatthe strategyof redi-
rection,with its promiseof a safe formof politicalaffect,leads us to overlook
these dangers.
Although Habermas'sfinal theoreticaldefense of the strategyof redirec-
tion ultimately is not persuasive, Habermas'sown practice of cultivating
constitutionalpatriotismthroughhis interventionsinto Germanpublic life
does ratherelegantly exemplify the tensions thatcome to inhabiteven civic
attachments.In his second majorcontributionto the Historikerstreit,titled
"On the Public Use of History,"Habermas already saw the necessity of
groundingpolitical affect not in abstractionsbut in concrete historicalphe-
nomena. Writing in Die Zeit to a broadpublic audience, Habermasmade a
powerful argumentagainst the revisionist historiansby describing, in the
first-personplural, the obligations of remembrance,solidarity,and critical
fortitudethatthe fact of Auschwitz-the memoryof which is itself a partof
Germanpolitical culture-imposes on "us."59Habermas'saddress assigns
these obligationsby, we might say, interpellatingthe authorhimself and his
readersin an imagined, and thereforedeterminate,community.Precisely in
the service of constitutionalpatriotism,Habermasinvokes a historicalcom-
munityof descent thatimposes unchosenand inescapableobligationson its
members.He writes,

Ourown life is linkedto the life contextin which Auschwitzwas possible not by contin-
gent circumstancesbutintrinsically.Ourformof life is connectedwith thatof ourparents
and grandparentsthrougha web of familial, local, political, and intellectualtraditions
thatis difficultto disentangle-that is, througha historicalmilieu thatmadeus what and
who we aretoday.None of us can escape this milieu because ouridentities,both as indi-
viduals and as Germans,are indissolubly interwovenwith it.60)

This invocation of a communitydefined by supposedlypre-politicalties in

the course of a struggle to instill loyalty towardconstitutionalprinciplesis
not a contradiction.It is an expressionof the interdependenceof validityand
facticity in the context of identification,an interdependencethat also has its
dangers.In this passage, which oughtto provokeouradmirationeven while it
makes us nervous,the strategyof makingaffect safe for democracythrough
redirectionfinds its limit.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
54 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

If the strategyof redirectioncannot make affect safe for liberal democ-

racy,then is there a way of at least attenuatingits dangers?In this section, I
want to suggest an alternativereadingof constitutionalpatriotism,grounded
less in Habermas'stheorizationof postconventionalidentitythanin his occa-
sional essays on contemporaryevents in Germany,which might be of some
help. On this reading,constitutionalpatriotismis not a kind of affectively
chargedidentificationwith a set of universalprinciples;instead,in keeping
with the risks anddangersthatcome to inhabitthe reproductionof all sortsof
identity(even in thepostconventionalsituation),constitutionalpatriotismis a
habitor practicethatrefuses or resists the very identificationson which citi-
zens also depend.
To begin, considertwo assumptionsthathave,so far,pervadedthis discus-
sion of the dynamics of attachmentand affect. First, I have treated"affect"
very flatly, as a whole, and have not addresseddifferences among affects,
much less the possibility of a pluralityof affects towarda single object. This
is, in largepart,trueof politicaltheorymoregenerally.Certainlyin most dis-
cussions of the varietiesof nationalism,the relativevirtuesof patriotismand
cosmopolitanism,andthe politics of identity,the affectsunderconsideration
are presumptivelypositive-love, loyalty,andpride.(A few writers,notably
Appiah, have mentionedshame, if only in passing.61)Yet if thereis a struc-
tural ambivalencein the productionof politicalaffect as such, andespecially
"constitutional"or "civic"affect-if loyalty to political principlesmust be
mediatedthroughparticularcultures,institutions,and practicesthat are not
themselves identical with, and might even threaten,those principles-then
perhapswe would do well to attendto the possibilities that inherein analo-
gously ambivalentpatternsof politicalaffect. In an essay on powerin demo-
cratic politics, Mansbridgesuggests that "citizensmust fight the very coer-
cion thatthey need"62; perhaps,too, citizens also must learnto fear,be angry
at, andbe ashamedof the veryinstitutionsandculturesthatclaim theirattach-
ment and allegiance.
At the same time, the dynamicsof affect I have describedall are what we
could call centered;thatis, they all involve the productionof attachmentand
affect towardsome centralimaginaryobject-a culture, a history, or even
simply an institutionsuch as the state. This, too, correspondsto contempo-
rarytendenciesin theoreticaldiscussionsof affect and identification.Haber-
mas's own account of how the nation-stateoriginally produced"imagined
communities"of citizens, a projecthe hopes to continuebutwithoutthe help
of the "nation,"presumes that relationshipsof solidarity and attachment
among individualswho are themselves ".strangers" are first establishedby

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 55

tying each individualto sharedinstitutionsat the center.On this view, the ver-
tical identificationwith the centralimaginaryobject is primary;the horizon-
tal love for one's fellow citizens (andthe resentment,hatred,or fear of those
others on whom we projectresponsibilityfor the fragility of the collective
imaginary)is its secondaryeffect.63
But what if the directionof these flows of attachmentand affect could be
reversed?After all, the interdependenceof facticity and validity works both
ways. In their struggles for legitimation,positive law and the constitutional
state create associations of citizens who, once broughttogether in various
spaces of democraticpolitics, sometimes refuse to confine theirencounters
64
and their collective actions to the reiterationof official identities. Rather
than only allowing our relationto the centralimaginaryobject to guide our
relationsto individualothers,might we sometimes also allow love, sympa-
thy, indebtedness,or gratitudetowardparticularothersto generatenew and
different affects towardthe state, the constitution,or the political culture?
Affects, perhaps,such as fear, anger,and shame?
These possibilities are exemplified by some of Habermas'srecent inter-
ventions into Germanpoliticaldiscourse.I discuss only one examplehere. In
the early morninghoursof November23, 1992, neo-Nazis threwfirebombs
into two homes in M6lln, a town in the northernGermanstate of Schleswig-
Holstein. Bahide Arslan (a fifty-one-year-oldTurkishcitizen who had lived
in Germanyfor many years), her ten-year-oldgranddaughterYeliz Arslan,
andherfourteen-year-oldniece Ayse Yilmazall were killed.6 The murdersin
Molln were hardly the first instances of violence against foreigners in the
newly unified Germany,but the public response to the attackin M6lln was
distinctive. In the days following the attack,thousandsof people attended
demonstrationsagainst violence in the streets of Molln; on December 6,
approximately400,000 people marchedin a candlelightvigil in Munich;and
subsequentdemonstrationsdrew huge crowds in Hamburg,Berlin, Frank-
66
furt,Nuremberg,and otherlarge Germancities. In an essay on the asylum
debate in Germanyfirst publishedin Die Zeit on December 11, Habermas
pointed to such demonstrationsas admirableexamples of constitutional
patriotism.He wrote, "Resoluteand credible oppositionto xenophobiaand
anti-semitismis not coming from the proponentsof the asylum debate;it is
not the political elites who are displayingempathyand democraticindigna-
tion, nor the servantsof the state who are practisingconstitutionalpatriot-
ism." Instead, he said, "especially since the murdersin M1l1n,"grassroots
demonstrationsandprotestslike the one in Munich"havebeen puttinga stop
to the half-heartedand ambivalentreactionson high."67
What are we to make of Habermas'sclaim that these demonstrations
express "constitutionalpatriotism"?On one hand, Habermas'sanalysis of

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
56 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

the demonstrationsafterMolln does, at one moment,soundlike a reiteration

of the strategyof redirection."The political affect driving [the protestcul-
ture]forwardis unmistakable,"he asserts."Thedemonstratorswere defend-
ing the standardsof civic intercoursewhich were acquiredand partlytaken
for grantedin the old FederalRepublic."68This might be takento mean that,
for Habermas,thedemonstrationsexemplifyconstitutionalpatriotismbecause
they are groundedin a passionateidentificationwith a certainset of abstract
principles-the "standardsof civic intercourse"-that had been betrayedby
the neo-Nazi attacks.
But Habermas'stext and the detailsof the case suggest thatthe dynamics
of political affect here are more complicatedand subtle thanthe strategyof
redirectionwould allow. Notice, for example, how Habermasdrawsa close
association between constitutional patriotism and the affective postures
of "empathy"and "democraticindignation."Indeed, these postures were
prominentlyvisible in the publicdemonstrationsandvigils afterM6lln. Pro-
testerscarriedsigns bearingslogans such as "Weare all Turks"and "Insoli-
darityandmourningfor ourfellow-citizens,"andin Hamburg,at least 10,000
people-equivalent to morethanhalf the populationof M1lln-attended the
funeralservice for the three murderedwomen.69And this responsivenessto
suffering, at least in some cases, also generatedexpressions of shame and
angerover the behaviorof the Germanstate.The enormousMunichdemon-
strationwas launchedunderthe motto "Munich:A City Says No," and the
event's organizersmade clear that its purposewas to say no not just to neo-
Nazi violence but also to the Kohl government'sfailureto respondquickly
andforcefullyto earlierattacks."Byparticipating," the organizerssaid, "peo-
ple will show that we do not accept attackson hostels for asylum-seekers,
vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and assaults on foreigners; that we are
ashamed by the helplessness and slowness of ourgovernment, and that we are
increasinglyready to defend democracy."70Some demonstratorswent fur-
ther,suggesting thatthe state's inactionwas not a simple omission but rather
partof a scheme by Kohlandthe ChristianDemocratsto drumup public sup-
port for a more restrictiveasylum policy. Thus, some protestersin Mo5lln
chantedthe slogan "DeutschePolizisten schuitzendie Faschisten"(German
politicians are protectingthe fascists), and a letterto the editor in the Ham-
burg edition of the left-wing Tageszeitungcalled for citizens to protest
againstthe "politiciansof this republicwho, throughthe debatearoundrefu-
gees and immigrants,have fomented 'race'-hatredand instrumentalizedit
for their populistpurposes.",71
To be sure,the demonstrationswere not unambiguouslypoliticizedin this
way. The laterand largercandlelightvigils seem to have drawnhuge crowds

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 57

72
at least in partbecause they seemed safely apolitical. Some critics who, like
Habermas,hoped for vocal displays of "democraticindignation"publicly
criticizedthe vigils forjust this reason,suggestingthatthey were narcissistic
affairs that merely soothed the consciences of the participants.7Whether
Habermaswas rightor wrongin his generousestimateof the overall signifi-
cance of the demonstrations,the importantpoint is thatfor him, the aspect of
the demonstrationsthatexemplifiedconstitutionalpatriotismwas the aspect
that exceeded the narcissistic affirmationof a collective German identity.
Earlierin the same article,Habermashadcriticizedan editorialpublishedin
the FrankfurterAllgemeineZeitungthe day afterthe attackin Molln for just
such a self-reassuringposture.74The editorialnevermentionedwhat Haber-
mas calls the "complicity of officialdom"in the attacks;instead, it down-
played any possible connectionbetween the attackand the public discourse
aroundasylum policy, and it portrayed"therepublic,"and even the "repre-
sentatives of 'the system,' " as either the actualor possible targetsof right-
wing extremism,just like the murderedTurkishwomen. Consequently,the
editorialsuggestedthattherewas "nocall for mass demonstrations";instead,
it pleadedfor "sympathy,attentiveness,andvigilance,"which did not need to
be groundedin a "love for foreigners"but could rest instead on "love for
one's country,which should not be exposed to shame."75
Like the advocates of the strategy of redirection,in other words, the
FrankfurterAllgemeineZeitungeditorialassumedthatby cultivatinga posi-
tive attachmentto some centralimaginaryobject-the Germanrepublic-it
could help check the spreadof violence andracismin the newly unifiedGer-
many. For Habermas,by contrast,the demonstrationswere importantnot
because they expressedan identitybutratherbecausethey resistedan identi-
fication, that is, because they refusedthe claim of the state to be a true or an
adequateinstantiationof the will of the Germanpeople. The solidarity,anger,
and shamegeneratedby the combinationof right-wingviolence and govern-
ment complicity suddenly and momentarilymade what Habermascalls the
"elusiveness"of the demos manifest:on the streetsof Molln andMunich,the
people sloughed the skin of the German state. This is by no means an
endorsementof mob rule over the rule of law; the masses in the streetswere
not a trueor an adequateinstantiationof the will of the Germanpeople either,
althoughsuch spectaclesdo invitepopulistmisinterpretations.The demos as
such did not appearon those days, but its trace could be seen in the gap or
space thatsuddenlyopenedup betweenthe crowdsin the streetsandthe offi-
76
cials in Bonn. If normativeprinciplesalwaysdependon supplementsof par-
ticularitythatenablethemto become objectsof attachmentandidentification
but that also never are quite equivalent to the principles they purportto

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
58 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

embody, then perhapsconstitutionalpatriotismis best understoodnot as a

safe andreliableidentificationwith some pureset of alwaysalreadyavailable
universals butratheras a fragilepoliticalculturethathabituallyinsists on and
makesmanifestthis failureof equivalencefor the sake of the ongoing, always
incomplete, and often unpredictableproject of universalization.

NOTES

1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan,ed. Michael Oakeshott (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell,

1955), 104.
2. MichaelJ. Sandel,Democracy'sDiscontent:Americain Searchof a Public Philosophy
(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1996), 323. See also Charles Taylor, "Cross-
Purposes:The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,"in PhilosophicalArguments(Cambridge,MA:
HarvardUniversityPress, 1995); CharlesTaylor,"WhyDemocracyNeeds Patriotism,"in For
Loveof Country:DebatingtheLimitsof Patriotism,ed. JoshuaCohen(Boston:Beacon, 1996).
3. RogerScruton,"InDefence of the Nation,"in Ideas and Politics in ModernBritain,ed.
J.C.D. Clark(London:Macmillan, 1990), 65.
4. Variousversions of the distinctionappearin Yael Tamir,LiberalNationalism(Prince-
ton, NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1993);LiahGreenfeld,Nationalism:Five Roads to Moder-
nity (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1992); Benjamin Barber, "Constitutional
Faith,"in ForLoveof Country,ed. Cohen;AttractaIngram,"ConstitutionalPatriotism,"Philoso-
phy and Social Criticism22, no. 6 (November 1996): 1-18; Samuel P. Huntington,American
Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1981);
Michael Ignatieff,Blood and Belonging:Journeysinto theNew Nationalism(New York:Noon-
day Press, 1993); Julia Kristeva,Nations withoutNationalism,trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New
York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1993); Rogers M. Brubaker,Citizenshipand Nationhood in
France and Germany(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress, 1992); and MaurizioViroli,
For Love of Country:An Essay on Patriotismand Nationalism(Oxford,UK: Clarendon,1995).
(Viroli's terms are slightly different-he distinguishes"patriotism"from "nationalism"-but
the distinctionhas the same force since, for Viroli,patriotisminvolves "love of political institu-
tions and the way of life that sustains the common liberty of a people,"while nationalismis
directedat "thecultural,linguistic, and ethnic oneness of a people" [p. 1].) For critical discus-
sions of the distinction,see BernardYack,"TheMythof the Civic Nation,"CriticalReview 10,
no. 2 (Spring 1996): 193-211; Nicholas Xenos, "Civic Nationalism: Oxymoron," Critical
Review 10, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 213-31; Brian C. J. Singer, "Culturalversus Contractual
Nations: Rethinkingtheir Opposition,"Historyand Theory35, no. 3 (October 1996): 309-37;
and Philip Spencer and HowardWollman,"Goodand Bad Nationalisms:A Critiqueof Dual-
ism,"Journalof Political Ideologies 3, no.3 (October1998):255-74. Now see also Viroli's"On
Civic Republicanism:Reply to Xenos and Yack,"CriticalInquiry 12, nos. 1-2 (Winter-Spring
1998): 187-96, as well as Xenos's and Yack'saccompanyingresponses.
5. Barber,"ConstitutionalFaith,"36.
6. Habermasindicates that the term was coined by Dolf Stemberger.See JurgenHaber-
mas, "PoliticalCulturein Germanysince 1968,"in TheNew Conservatism:CulturalCriticism
and the Historians' Debate, ed. and trans. ShierryWeberNicholsen (Cambridge,MA: MIT
Press, 1989), 193.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 59

7. See, for example, AndrewMason, "PoliticalCommunity,Liberal-Nationalism,andthe

Ethics of Assimilation,"Ethics 109, no. 2 (January1999): 281; Yack, "The Myth of the Civic
Nation,"198-203.
8. My hope is thatthis mighthelpopen up the space for unexpectedalliances.Forexample,
the view of "universals"and their relationshipto affect and identificationdeveloped here has
affinities with the perspective advanced by Ernesto Laclau in a number of recent essays,
althoughLaclauhimself positions Habermasexclusively as an enemy. See the essays collected
in his Emancipation(s)(New York:Verso, 1996) and an extended review essay on Laclau by
LindaZerilli,"ThisUniversalismWhichIs notOne,"Diacritics 28, no.2 (Summer1998):3-20.
9. On Habermasand the Historikerstreit,see CharlesS. Maier,The UnmasterablePast:
History,Holocaust, and GermanNational Identity(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress,
1988); RobertC. Holub, JiirgenHabermas: Critic in the Public Sphere (London:Routledge,
1991), chap.7; EricL. Santner,StrandedObjects:Mourning,Memory,and Filmin PostwarGer-
many (Ithaca,NY: CornellUniversityPress, 1990); and JohnTorpey,"Introduction:Habermas
and the Historians,"New GermanCritique44 (Spring-Summer1988): 5-24.
10. JurgenHabermas,"Kbnnenkomplexe Gesellschafteneine rationale Identitatausbil-
den" (Can Complex Societies Forma RationalIdentity)(1974), in ZurRekonstruktiondes his-
torischenMaterialismus(Towardthe Reconstructionof HistoricalMaterialism)(Frankfurtam
Main:Suhrkamp,1976), 101. I haveused an abridgedtranslationof this address,which was pub-
lished as "On Social Identity,"Telos 19 (Spring 1974): 94.
11. Habermas,"On Social Identity,"94. Comparethis latterhornof the dilemma with the
later accusation,leveled by Germanjurist Ernst-WolfgangBbckenforde,that Habermas'scon-
stitutionalpatriotismis an " 'anodyne'academicidea";Habermasquotes this objectionin "On
the Relation between the Nation, the Rule of Law, and Democracy,"in The Inclusion of the
Other: Studies in Political Theory,ed. CiaranCroninand Pablo De Greiff (Cambridge,MA:
MIT Press, 1998), 132.
12. Habermas,"On Social Identity,"100.
13. On postconventionalego-identity,see JurgenHabermas,"MoralDevelopmentandEgo
Identity"(1974), in Communicationand the Evolution of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy
(Boston: Beacon, 1979); and, more recently,"IndividuationthroughSocialization:On Mead's
Theory of Subjectivity,"in PostmetaphysicalThinking:Philosophical Essays, trans. William
MarkHohengarten(Cambridge,MA: MITPress, 1992). On the "postconventional"as a stage in
the historyof social organization,see JurgenHabermas,The Theoryof CommunicativeAction,
vol. 2: Lifeworldand System:A Critiqueof FunctionalistReason, trans. Thomas McCarthy
(Boston:Beacon, 1987), esp. 153-97;andon the connectionbetweenindividualontogenesisand
the "historyof the species,"see JurgenHabermas,"HistoricalMaterialismandthe Development
of NormativeStructures,"in Communicationand the Evolutionof Society.
14. Habermas,"IndividuationthroughSocialization,"182-83.
15. Ibid., 183.
16. Ibid., 184-88. On this subject, see J. M. Bernstein,Recovering Ethical Life: Jurgen
Habermasand the Futureof Critical Theory(London:Routledge, 1995), 114-16.
17. Habermas,"On Social Identity,"100. Habermasdoes not actually use the term "post-
conventional"to characterizecollectiveidentityin this essay,butthe usage seems consistentwith
his intentionsin this piece and the contemporaneous"MoralDevelopmentand Ego Identity."
18. Habermas,"IndividualizationthroughSocialization,"186.
19. On Bitburg, see Geoffrey Hartman,ed., Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective
(Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1986); Maier, The UnmasterablePast, chap. 1; and
Holub, JurgenHabermas, 162-65.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
60 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

20. JurgenHabermas,"Defusingthe Past:A Politico-CulturalTract,"in Bitburgin Moral

and Political Perspective,ed. Hartman,46.
21. JurgenHabermas,"ApologeticTendencies,"in The New Conservatism,ed. and trans.
Nicholsen (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1989).
22. See, for example, the essays collected in JurgenHabermas,ThePast as Future,trans.
Max Pensky(Lincoln:Universityof NebraskaPress, 1994);andA BerlinRepublic:Writingson
Germany,trans.Steven Rendall (Lincoln:Universityof NebraskaPress, 1997).
23. Habermas,"ApologeticTendencies,"225.
24. Ibid., 227.
25. JurgenHabermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State:On the Pastand Futureof Sovereignty
and Citizenship,"in TheInclusionof the Other,ed. Croninand De Greiff, 115.
26. JurgenHabermas,"Citizenshipand National Identity,"Appendix II to Between Facts
and Norms: Contributionsto a Discourse Theoryof Law and Democracy,trans.William Rehg
(Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1996), 496.
27. Ibid., 492-500.
28. Habermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State,"117. See also Habermas,"Onthe Relation."
29. Habermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State,"117.
30. On the abstractand proceduralcharacterof constitutionalpatriotism,see Habermas,
"HistoricalConsciousness and Post-TraditionalIdentity,"in The New Conservatism,ed. and
trans.Nicholsen, 261.
31. I hope to give moreattentionto Habermas'saccountof individualidentityformationin a
subsequentessay on the appropriationof Mead'ssocial psychology in the workof Habermasand
Honneth,which will focus on the question of the unconsciousand the meaningof the "I."
32. Habermas,"IndividuationthroughSocialization,"183.
33. Habermas,"ApologeticTendencies,"227. For criticismsof Habermasthat chargethat
mere principles are too thin to sustain deep identification,see Yack, "The Myth of the Civic
Nation," 198-203; and Thomas Mertens, "Cosmopolitanismand Citizenship: Kant Against
Habermas,"EuropeanJournalof Philosophy4, no. 3 (December1996): 328-47. Forrecentver-
sions of the same criticismdirectedat "cosmopolitanism,"see manyof the respondentsto Mar-
thaNussbaumin ForLoveof Country,ed. Cohen.And foraninsightfulcritiqueof the association
of cosmopolitanismwith abstraction,thinness,and "boredom,"see especially the firstsection of
Bruce Robbins, "Root, Root, Root: MarthaNussbaum Meets the Home Team,"in Feeling
Global: Internationalismin Distress (New York:New YorkUniversityPress, 1999).
34. The terms"facticity"and "validity'morepreciselyreflectthe Germantitle of the work,
FaktizitatundGeltung:BeitragezurDiskurstheoriedes Rechtsunddes demokratischenRechts-
staats, revised and expandeded. (Frankfurtam Main:Suhrkamp,1994).
35. All page numbersin parenthesesin this section referto Habermas,Between Facts and
Norms.
36. Habermas'sanalysisheredrawson his treatmentof Durkheimin Theoryof Communica-
tive Action, vol. 2, 43-76.
37. Infact, filling this motivationaldeficitis only one of threeways in which Habermassays
thatlaw supplementspracticalreason.Moraljudgmentmakesformidablecognitive demandson
persons, which political legislation, positive law, and the courts relieve by "decid[ing]which
normscount as law" and "settl[ing]contests of interpretation" (p. 115). Law also helps resolve
problemsof coordinationandorganizationthat,in complex societies, mightotherwisehinderthe
satisfactionof positive duties in particular(pp. 116-17).
38. Habermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State,"116.See also Ingram,"ConstitutionalPatriot-
ism," 7-8.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell / CONSTITUTIONAL PATRIOTISM 61

39. On interpellation,see Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

(Notes towards an Investigation),"in Lenin and Philosophy,trans. Ben Brewster (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1971), 170 ff. The phrase"imaginedcommunity"is that of Benedict
Anderson, Imagined Communities:Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism,
revised ed. (London:Verso, 1991).
40. Habermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State,"111-12.
41. On this, see Tamir,LiberalNationalism,chap. 5. Here, I am only makinga claim about
the motivationaleffectiveness of identification,while Tamirmakesthe further,normativeclaim
thatthe fact of an identificationwith some communitygives one a good reasonto give it prefer-
ence in one's action.
42. JurgenHabermas,"TheLimitsof Neo-Historicism,"in Autonomyand Solidarity:Inter-
views with JiirgenHabermas,ed. PeterDews, revised and enlargeded. (London:Verso, 1996),
239. In anotherinterviewin the same volume, Habermassays aboutabstractionsandimages:"In
specific historical moments, where we can recognize a real social movement, real historical
struggles, we also become aware that people do not fight for abstractions-despite the three
great and ineradicablegoals of the FrenchRevolution.People do not fight for abstractions,but
with images" (p. 145).
43. Habermas,Between Facts and Norms, 136.
44. JurgenHabermas,"PopularSovereigntyas Procedure,"Appendix I to Between Facts
and Norms,486. The will of the people does notjust resist representation;it also, contra Rous-
seau, resists immediatepresentation.Formoreon Habermas'scritiqueof Rousseau,see Patchen
Markell,"ContestingConsensus:RereadingHabermason the PublicSphere,"Constellations3,
no. 1 (January1997): 384-86. Fora similarview of the demos as mobile, episodic, and resistant
to form, see Sheldon S. Wolin, "Normand Form:The Constitutionalizingof Democracy,"in
AthenianPolitical Thoughtand the ReconstructionofAmericanDemocracy,ed. J. PeterEuben,
John R. Wallach,and Josiah Ober (Ithaca,NY: Cornell UniversityPress, 1994).
45. Habermas,"The EuropeanNation-State,"113. I have altered the translationin one
place, substitutingthe moreliteral"substrate"for "basis."Forthe original,see Die Einbeziehung
des Anderen: Studien zur politischen Theorie, enlarged ed. (Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp,
1997), 137.
46. Habermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State,"116.
47. Ibid., 115.
48. For anotherbrief criticism of the "filter"image, see Vincent P. Pecora, "Habermas,
Enlightenment,and Anti-Semitism,"in Probing the Limitsof Representation:Nazism and the
"Final Solution,"ed. Saul Friedlander(Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversityPress), 157.
49. Habermas,"HistoricalConsciousness and Post-TraditionalIdentity,"263.
50. Even froma cognitiveperspective,Habermasinsists thatthe philosophicalspecification
of abstractprinciples is "exposed ex post facto as an artifice. No one can credit herself with
access to a system of rightsin the singular,independentof the interpretationsshe alreadyhas his-
toricallyavailable.'The'system of rightsdoes not exist in transcendentalpurity"(BetweenFacts
and Norms, 129).
51. Habermas,"HistoricalConsciousnessand Post-TraditionalIdentity,"257. See also Jur-
gen Habermas,"YetAgain-German Identity:A Unified Nation of Angry DM-Burghers?"in
Whenthe Wall Came Down: Reactions to German Unification,ed. Harold James and Marla
Stone (New York:Routledge, 1992), 96.
52. Habermas,"HistoricalConsciousness and Post-TraditionalIdentity,"262.
53. JiirgenHabermas,"Strugglesfor Recognitionin the DemocraticConstitutionalState,"
in The Inclusion of the Other,ed. Croninand De Greiff, 225.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
62 POLITICALTHEORY/ February2000

54. Habermas,"TheLimits of Neo-Historicism,"499-500; "Onthe Relation,"146.

55. Habermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State,"117.
56. Ibid., 115 (emphasesadded).
57. LaurenBerlant,TheAnatomyof National Fantasy:Hawthorne,Utopia,and Everyday
Life (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1991), 5.
58. ThusbothYackandSinger(andbothwith referenceto the FrenchRevolution)arguethat
the dilution of "politicaldefinitions"of nationhoodby principlesof descent and territoriality
might have been the conditionof the possibility of the emergenceof a politically tolerant(but
limited) publicsphere.See Yack,"TheMythof the Civic Nation,"208; Singer,"Culturalversus
ContractualNations,"332-37.
59. Fora sophisticatedandsensitiveexplorationofthe themesof memoryandresponsibility
that uses Habermas'swritings on constitutionalpatriotismas a touchstone (and that conse-
quently captures more of the tensions that inhabit those writings than do most readers), see
W. JamesBooth, "Communitiesof Memory:On Identity,Memory,and Debt,"AmericanPoliti-
cal Science Review93, no. 2 (1999): 249-63.
60. JurgenHabermas,"Onthe Public Use of History,"in The New Conservatism,ed. and
trans.Nicholsen, 233. This passage has been discussed by TracyB. Strongand FrankAndreas
Sposito, "Habermas'sSignificant Other,"in The Cambridge Companionto Habermas, ed.
StephenK. White (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1995), andby Maier,The Unmas-
terablePast, 59-61, 151-54. StrongandSposito claimthatin passagessuch as this, which pursue
universalitythroughappeals to a particular"we,"Habermasthreatensto give the impression
that, say, Germans,Europeans,or Westernershave privilegedaccess to valid normativeprinci-
ples. My aim here is not to defend Habermasagainstthis chargebut simply to observe thatthis
threatperfectlyexemplifies the way in which the defense of an imagined political community
can inspireexclusionandprejudice,andto insistthatsince the pursuitof universalityrequiresthe
risky supplementof particularity,the answercannotbe to abandonthe projectof pursuinginti-
mations of universalityfound in ambivalentand dangerousparticulars.
61. Kwame AnthonyAppiah, "CosmopolitanPatriots,"Critical Inquiry23, no. 3 (1997):
622.
62. JaneMansbridge,"UsingPower/FightingPower:The Polity,"in Democracyand Differ-
ence: Contestingthe Boundariesof the Political, ed. Seyla Benhabib(Princeton,NJ: Princeton
UniversityPress, 1996), 56.
63. Habermas,"TheEuropeanNation-State,"119.
64. See especially Habermas'schapter on civil society in Between Facts and Norms,
althoughpartof the purposeof the book is to show how communicativepower can be manifest
within the state as well as outside it.
65. Stephen Kinzer, "3 Turks Killed; GermansBlame a Neo-Nazi Plot," The New York
Times,November24, 1992, Al, A7; Rand C. Lewis, The Neo-Nazis and German Unification
(Westport,CT: Praeger,1996), 61-62.
66. Onthe local demonstrations,see Lewis, TheNeo-Nazisand GermanUnification,63-64;
BaschaMika,"HalbMollnprotestiertgegen das Pogrom,"Tageszeitung,November25, 1992,5.
On the nationwidedemonstrations,see Stephen Kinzer,"GermanLeadersVow to Battle Vio-
lence; MunichRally Called,"TheNew YorkTimes,December4, 1992, A3; "300,000 in Munich
ProtestViolence,"TheNew YorkTimes,December7, 1992, A8; "GermanyAblaze: It's Candle-
light, Not Firebombs,"TheNew YorkTimes,January13, 1993, A4.
67. JurgenHabermas,"TheSecond Life Fictionof the FederalRepublic:We HaveBecome
'Normal'Again,"New Left Review 197 (January-February 1993): 65. The translationis modi-
fied;the originalessay is "Die zweite LebenslugederBundesrepublik:Wirsind wieder,Normal'
geworden,"Die Zeit, December 11, 1992, 48.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Markell/ CONSTITUTIONALPATRIOTISM 63

68. Habermas,"The Second Life Fiction,"65.

69. "Die Seele des Volkes verbogen,"Der Spiegel, November 30, 1992, 14-25; Ignatieff,
Blood and Belonging, 92; EckhartKauntz,"Wirsind zuerstMenschen, dannerst Tiirkenoder
Deutsche:Die Trauerfeierfurdie Opfervon M6lln,"FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung,November
28, 1992, 3.
70. Quoted in Kinzer,"GermanLeadersVow to Battle Violence,"A3.
71. NorbertKostede," 'Ich Hbrtedie Turkenschreien,'" Die Zeit, November27, 1992, 3;
KenanZanderand SakirCal, "SchamtEuch!"Tageszeitung,Hamburged., November27, 1992,
36. See also "Abscheuund Emporungreichennicht aus,"Tageszeitung,Hamburged., Novem-
ber 24, 1992, 17.
72. Josef Joffe, "Fackelzuge-Lichterketten,"SuddeutscheZeitung,February1, 1993, 4.
73. Eike Geisel, "Triumphdes guten Willens,"Tageszeitung,December 17, 1992, 10.
74. Habermas,"The Second Life Fiction of the FederalRepublic,"60.
75. EckhardFuhr,"Gegendie Republik,"FrankfurterAllgemeineZeitung,November 24,
1992, 1.
76. JacquesRanciereoffers an analogousexample of Frenchprotestsduringthe Algerian
war:

Formy generationpolitics in Francerelieduponan impossibleidentification-an identi-

ficationwith the bodies of the Algeriansbeatento deathandthrowninto the Seine by the
Frenchpolice, in the nameof the Frenchpeople, in October1961. We could not identify
with those Algerians,but we could questionour identificationwith the "Frenchpeople"
in whose namethey hadbeen murdered.Thatis to say, we could act as political subjects
in the intervalor gap between two identities,neitherof which we could assume ("Poli-
tics, Identification,and Subjectivization,"in The Identityin Question,ed. John Rajch-
man [New York:Routledge, 1995], 67).

Now see also Jacques Ranciere,Disagreement:Politics and Philosophy,trans.Julie Rose

(Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1999).

Patchen Markellis an assistant professor of political science at the Universityof Chi-

cago. He currentlyis completinga book titled Bound by Recognition:The Politics of
IdentityAfter Hegel.

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:29:51 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions