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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Two major premises guided this study. The first is that Habermas's theoretical and political writings provide a unique vantage point from which to consider major developments in postwar German history. The second is that historical contextualization of Habermas within the postwar German frame yields an entirely new understanding of what is central to his theoretical project. We begin with the first. The recivilization of West Germany within the framework of Western liberal institutions and values was a historical process of great significance for Europe and the world. Habermas's career illuminates this transformation. Consider his statement from the early 1990s:
In hindsight … I recognize that as a student and in the immediate years thereafter, I didn't have an adequate assessment of the historical consequences of Adenauer's greatest achievement – binding the Federal Republic strongly with the Western alliance and the Western social model … Nevertheless, our radical opposition to [the] spirit [of restoration] of the Adenauer era appears to me to be still justified. Without [it] … a sense of zivilisierter Bürgersinn, or a civic mentality as such, would never have been able to develop in the Federal Republic.
In this passage, Habermas achieved a new historical perspective on the Federal Republic, the state with which his intellectual and political career had long been intertwined.
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