Habermas's *The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere* is a historical-sociological analysis of the emergence, transformation, and disintegration of the bourgeois public sphere. It combines materials and methods from sociology, economics, law, political science, and social and cultural history to examine the preconditions, structures, functions, and tensions of this central domain of modern society. The bourgeois public sphere, as a sphere between civil society and the state, was characterized by institutionalized critical public discussion of matters of general interest. It emerged in the specific historical circumstances of a developing market economy and was shaped by the bourgeoisie's interaction with the absolutist state. The public sphere was initially defined by the literary and political self-consciousness of the bourgeoisie, which was reflected in the rise of the novel, literary and political journalism, and the spread of reading societies, salons, and coffee houses. Habermas traces the interdependent development of this new class's literary and political self-consciousness, weaving together accounts of the rise of the novel and of literary and political journalism into a Bildungsroman of this "child of the eighteenth century." He notes the contradiction between the liberal public sphere's constitutive catalogue of "basic rights of man" and their de facto restriction to a certain class of men. He also traces the tensions this occasioned as, with the further development of capitalism, the public body expanded beyond the bourgeoisie to include groups systematically disadvantaged by the workings of the free market and sought state regulation and compensation. The consequent intertwining of state and society in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries meant the end of the liberal public sphere. The public sphere of social-welfare-state democracies is rather a field of competition among conflicting interests, in which organizations representing diverse constituencies negotiate and compromise among themselves and with government officials, while excluding the public from their proceedings. Public opinion is, to be sure, taken into account, but not in the form of unrestricted public discussion. Its character and function are indicated rather by the terms in which it is addressed: "public opinion research," "publicity," "public relations work," and so forth. The press and broadcast media serve less as organs of public information and debate than as technologies for managing consensus and promoting consumer culture. While the historical structures of the liberal public sphere reflected the particular constellation of interests that gave rise to it, the idea it claimed to embody—that of rationalizing public authority under the institutionalized influence of informed discussion and reasoned agreement—remains central to democratic theory. In a post-liberal era, when the classical model of the public sphere is no longer sociopolitically feasible, the question becomes: can the public sphere be effectively reconstituted under radically different socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions? In short, is democracy possible? One could do worse than to view Habermas's work in the twenty-five years since *Strukturwandel* through the lens of this question. That is not,Habermas's *The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere* is a historical-sociological analysis of the emergence, transformation, and disintegration of the bourgeois public sphere. It combines materials and methods from sociology, economics, law, political science, and social and cultural history to examine the preconditions, structures, functions, and tensions of this central domain of modern society. The bourgeois public sphere, as a sphere between civil society and the state, was characterized by institutionalized critical public discussion of matters of general interest. It emerged in the specific historical circumstances of a developing market economy and was shaped by the bourgeoisie's interaction with the absolutist state. The public sphere was initially defined by the literary and political self-consciousness of the bourgeoisie, which was reflected in the rise of the novel, literary and political journalism, and the spread of reading societies, salons, and coffee houses. Habermas traces the interdependent development of this new class's literary and political self-consciousness, weaving together accounts of the rise of the novel and of literary and political journalism into a Bildungsroman of this "child of the eighteenth century." He notes the contradiction between the liberal public sphere's constitutive catalogue of "basic rights of man" and their de facto restriction to a certain class of men. He also traces the tensions this occasioned as, with the further development of capitalism, the public body expanded beyond the bourgeoisie to include groups systematically disadvantaged by the workings of the free market and sought state regulation and compensation. The consequent intertwining of state and society in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries meant the end of the liberal public sphere. The public sphere of social-welfare-state democracies is rather a field of competition among conflicting interests, in which organizations representing diverse constituencies negotiate and compromise among themselves and with government officials, while excluding the public from their proceedings. Public opinion is, to be sure, taken into account, but not in the form of unrestricted public discussion. Its character and function are indicated rather by the terms in which it is addressed: "public opinion research," "publicity," "public relations work," and so forth. The press and broadcast media serve less as organs of public information and debate than as technologies for managing consensus and promoting consumer culture. While the historical structures of the liberal public sphere reflected the particular constellation of interests that gave rise to it, the idea it claimed to embody—that of rationalizing public authority under the institutionalized influence of informed discussion and reasoned agreement—remains central to democratic theory. In a post-liberal era, when the classical model of the public sphere is no longer sociopolitically feasible, the question becomes: can the public sphere be effectively reconstituted under radically different socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions? In short, is democracy possible? One could do worse than to view Habermas's work in the twenty-five years since *Strukturwandel* through the lens of this question. That is not,