French political science remains an enigma for the rest of our discipline. Despite its early involvement in establishing the study of politics, today it is relatively small, fraught with internal difficulties and largely unknown in the rest of the world. Notwithstanding these traits, this article argues that, over the last three decades, political science in France has institutionalized, internationalized and deepened its engagement with the public sphere. Indeed, not only are student numbers expanding, but colleagues in our discipline consistently produce original and robust data and publications. Based upon statistics and participatory observation over the last 30 years, this piece’s central claim is that although much could of course be improved, contemporary French political science is now well positioned to make more sustained contributions to our discipline as a whole. Understanding better and highlighting the positive aspects of its trajectory provide ways of striving towards this goal.

The editorial to the symposium briefly contextualises current debates on the European ‘public sphere’ and/or on absence thereof. In light of concern with the EU's so-called ‘democratic deficit’, the issue of how to create a polis without a demos has focused, in part, on the role of the public sphere (Öffentlichkeit) with respect, for example, to the mass media, law, and organisations within civil society. The editorial introduces the individual papers and seeks to identify their potential contributions to academic and policy debate within and beyond the EU.

The diffusion of social media has profoundly transformed the nature and form of the contemporary public sphere, facilitating the rise of new political tactics and movements. In this article, I develop a theory of the social media public sphere as a “plebeian public sphere” whose functioning is markedly different from the traditional public sphere, described by Jürgen Habermas. Differently from Habermas’ critical-rational publics, this social media public sphere is dominated by online crowds that come together in virtual gatherings made visible by a variety of social media reactions and metrics that measure their presence. It can be best described as a “reactive democracy,” a plebiscitary form of democracy in which reactions are understood as an implicit vote indicating the mood of public opinion on a variety of issues.

In many African countries, youths' participation in the public sphere is still limited despite the creation of legal instruments such as the African Youth Charter and myriad youth-centered national policies. Across the continent, marginalized youths face various constraints in accessing the public sphere. This article examines how one voluntary sports association, the Mathare Youth Sports Association, uses sports as an alternative public sphere to engage with government actors and the community on social justice issues.

This article offers the first empirical and cross‐national analysis of citizens’ views about the democratic importance of the public sphere. We first identify three normative functions that public spheres are expected to perform in representative democracies: they provide voice to alternative perspectives, they empower citizens to criticise political authorities and they disseminate information on matters of public interest. We then argue that citizens develop differentiated views about the importance of these democratic functions, depending on (1) their ability to influence political decisions through public debate, and (2) the extent to which voice, critique and information address democratic problems they particularly care about. Drawing on Wave 6 of the European Social Survey, the statistical analysis indicates that citizens in most European countries consider the public sphere very important for democracy, especially its role as a supplier of reliable information. However, certain groups tend to care more about different aspects of the public sphere. More educated citizens are more likely to assign greater importance to all three functions. Members of cultural and sexual minorities are more likely to emphasise the importance of giving voice to alternative perspectives, while citizens dissatisfied with the government are more likely to prioritise public criticism and access to reliable information. Finally, in countries with more democratic public spheres, differences based on education and minority status are wider, while differences based on government satisfaction disappear. These findings support the claim that citizens care more about the public sphere when they can effectively influence political decision making through public debate or when the public sphere addresses democratic problems that are especially important to them. Moreover, our results indicate that citizens see some of the functions that public spheres perform as core aspects of democracy, comparable in importance to free and fair elections and the rule of law. The article thus advances an empirically grounded defence of the centrality of public debate for democracy.

The emergence of a pan-European public sphere based on a common language, discourse and media sphere is generally held to be unlikely, if not impossible. Research has therefore mainly focused on measuring different degrees of Europeanisation of existing national media spheres. In applied research however, the notion of ‘Europeanisation’ often remains very fuzzy. The new agenda of ‘Europeanisation’ has been mainly applied as a pragmatic research strategy. As such, it still lacks theoretical grounding and methodological coherence. With this in mind, the article will raise the question of standards. This regards first of all theoretical standards to determine how Europeanisation relates to the transformation of the national public sphere. Second, methodological standards indicating how to measure Europeanisation must be set. Finally, public-sphere research must critically address the question of normative standards to determine whether Europeanisation meets the criteria of democratic legitimacy.

Although it has gained wide currency in the analysis of African politics, civil society remains a “mysterious” concept in need of proper grounding and understanding as an integral part of African social formation. This paper argues that one of the widely acclaimed canonical works in African studies, Peter Ekeh’s theory of colonialism and the two publics in Africa provides one of the most original perspectives for locating and understanding the character of modern civil society as a product of colonialism. In particular, the theory provides an explanation for why primordial attachments have remained fundamental to the structuration of civil society and why state–civil society relations have largely been fractured, instrumentalist, and dialectical in the post-colonial period.

The article examines problematic aspects of contemporary theoretical thinking about civil society within a Western liberal-democratic context. The impact of neo-liberalism upon narratives of civil society, the assumption that civility resides more conspicuously within the world of associational life, and the tendency to conflate ‘civil society’ with the ‘third sector’ are areas critically discussed. Such conceptual incongruities, it is argued, obscure the path to a more radical theoretical understanding of civil society. In the second part of the article an alternative model of civil society is proposed. Supporting Evers premise that ‘every attempt to narrow down civil society to the third sector seriously impoverishes the very concept of civil society’ (Evers, Voluntary Sector Review 1:116, 2010), it is argued that civil society is best understood as a normative political concept, as being contingent in nature and distinct from the third sector.

The introduction of Education for Citizenship into the Spanish school system has given rise to a strong controversy with the Catholic Church and other conservative actors in Spanish society, who claim that the students’ moral education is an exclusive realm, reserved for families. Challenging these criticisms, this article points to the reasons that justify both the substantive content of the subject and the competence of democratic government with regard to civic education.

This article examines the idea that the EU could export its promotion of the public sphere. The Commission perception of the public sphere is unclear and the EU is not exporting a public sphere paradigm in any comprehensive manner. The EU nevertheless continues to attempt to export its integration experience. The concept of a public sphere is particularly pertinent to certain advanced democratic societies. Its exportability and relevance for other parts of the world are limited.

This is a reply to Komárek’s criticism of our article “Europe’s political constitution”. We address the issues raised by our critic one by one. The topics range from the definition of the public sphere to the role that law blogs and social media play in it. The reply concludes by examining what it means to pursue truth in legal scholarship based on contrasting the views of Hans Kelsen und Stanley Fish.