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→Cohen Joshua
* '''Domain of common concern''': "... discussion within such a public presupposed the problematization of areas that until then had not been questioned. The domain of ‘common concern’ which was the object of public critical attention remained a preserve in which church and state authorities had the monopoly of interpretation. [...] The private people for whom the cultural product became available as a commodity profaned it inasmuch as they had to determine its meaning on their own (by way of rational communication with one another), verbalize it, and thus state explicitly what precisely in its implicitness for so long could assert its authority." (loc.cit.)
* '''Inclusivity''': However exclusive the public might be in any given instance, it could never close itself off entirely and become consolidated as a clique; for it always understood and found itself immersed within a more inclusive public of all private people, persons who – insofar as they were propertied and educated – as readers, listeners, and spectators could avail themselves via the market of the objects that were subject to discussion. The issues discussed became ‘general’ not merely in their significance, but also in their accessibility: everyone had to be able to participate. [...] Wherever the public established itself institutionally as a stable group of discussants, it did not equate itself with the public but at most claimed to act as its mouthpiece, in its name, perhaps even as its educator – the new form of bourgeois representation" (loc.cit.).(from <ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sphere#J.C3.BCrgen_Habermas:_bourgeois_public_sphere Public sphere. Public sphere. (2014, March 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.]</ref>)
==Robert Dahl==
Dahl suggest that no modern country meets the ideal of democracy, which is as a theoretical utopia. To reach the ideal requires meeting five criteria<ref>Dahl, R. A. (1989). Democracy and its critiques. New Haven: Yale University Press.</ref>:
# '''Effective participation''': Citizens must have adequate and equal opportunities to form their preference and place questions on the public agenda and express reasons for one outcome over the other.
# '''Voting equality at the decisive stage''': Each citizen must be assured his or her judgments will be counted as equal in weights to the judgments of others.
# '''Enlightened understanding''': Citizens must enjoy ample and equal opportunities for discovering and affirming what choice would best serve their interests.
# '''Control of the agenda''': Demos or people must have the opportunity to decide what political matters actually are and what should be brought up for deliberation.
# '''Inclusiveness''': Political quality must extend to all citizens within the state. Everyone has legitimate stake within the political process.
==Cohen Joshua==