Participative democracy and the transformation of the citizen - Some intersections of feminist, postmodernist, and critical thought

When understood as a public act of participation rather than solely as a pr ivate act of voting, political activity may be regarded either as an instru mental process in the pursuit of public ends or as a transformative process that fosters citizen development. In seeking to develop a discursive theor y of governance, Fox and Miller have built especially on the notions of par ticipative political process developed by Jurgen Habermas but, although the y reject Habermas's grounding in foundational moral principles, they have l argely retained his emphases on both rational procedure and instrumental pu rsuit. Drawing on intersections of feminist, postmodernist, and critical id eas around the nature of the moral experience, this article seeks to envisi on an alternative notion of public sphere discourse, one grounded less in t he rationality of argumentation and more in the nonrationality of human rel ationship.