L'esfera pública simbólica. Del discurs nacionalista com a complement de la publicitat burgesa per legitimar l'Estat de dret modern

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates that the epistemic transformations that took place in two steps between the mid 17th century and the third 18th century in Europe did not only change the form of the knowledge structures but coincide with the changes in the structures of legitimacy on which the modern States of right are founded. The work of Jürgen Habermas about the transformation of the bourgeois public sphere can thus, be inscribed, not only chronologically but epistemologically too, in such a transformation of knowledge. Therefore, the problem of the identification of the bourgeois public that in the work by Habermas was left open could be, then, solved. The contextualisation of the transformation of the bourgeois public sphere allows the identification of nationalism as a complement with a symbolic character that would complete the rational characteristics of the public sphere with values of collective identification, and beliefs of unity (Gemeinsamkeitsglauben). The third part of the thesis, then, explores the discursive features of the nationalist discourse in order to demonstrate the plausibility of such a complementation with the bourgeois public sphere to legitimate, ultimately, the role of the State of right; with the relevance of broadening the notion of media of communication in favour of the incorporation of devices usually displaced from the media discussion: theatre, literature, painting, music, architecture, museums, etc. At the centre of the picture, finally, the apparatus of the modern State of right can be identified as the cause and articulation of its own apparatus of legitimacy: the symbolic public sphere formed by a normative sphere of rational treats and another symbolic granting cohesion and identity.

Date of Award	2 Jul 2010
Original language	Catalan
Supervisor	Jordi Berrio Serrano (Director)