The preceding analyses highlighted how Habermas's general theory of modernity was framed in order to account for the dilemmas of welfare state mass democracies and what he describes as the ‘indissoluble tension’ between capitalism and democracy (Habermas 1987a, 345). This broad overall diagnosis is not mistaken but Habermas's theoretical formulation of the institution of modernity did not permit an entirely satisfactory approach to it. In retrospect, Habermas probably overestimated the extent to which the welfare state had altered the logic of the capitalist system and possibly underestimated the continuing significance of social labour. It is clear that the tendencies that Giddens's framework pointed towards, especially that of globalization, were changing the parameters of the tension between capitalism and democracy, even if contemporary developments were not entirely overtaking its earlier forms (Giddens 1990a). Habermas subsequently addresses these changes in a substantial manner. He questions some of the implications of modernizing reforms that are supposedly consistent with the logic of the new phase of modernity (Habermas 2001a). Habermas's and Giddens's distinct and overlapping approaches to the contemporary constellation of modernity strongly accentuate the processes of democratization.

Habermas and Giddens have made significant contributions to democratic theory. In part, this reflects their shared view that democracy is critical to the progressive transformation of contemporary society and that there are immanent tendencies toward the democratization of late- modern societies. The ensuing analysis explicates the ways in which Habermas's conception of communicative action's intersubjective format entails a commitment to democracy and how this leads to his revision of critical theory's notion of emancipation. On his view, individual autonomy is conditional on the autonomy of the other. Habermas is one of the major theorists of deliberative democracy (Habermas 1996a). This facet of discourse theory presupposes the communicative rationalization of the lifeworld, particularly with respect to the dimensions of post- traditional identity and civil society, whilst the institution of constitutional democracy is itself an aspect of this process of communicative rationalization (Habermas 1996a).

Giddens similarly endorses the notion of deliberative or dialogical democracy. He argues for the ‘democratising of democracy’, considering democracy to be a principle applicable from intimate interpersonal relations through to the global order (Giddens 1994a; 1998).