The democratic rule of law is constituted by means of the internal tension between law and politics because, besides its own functions, since law must regulate interpersonal or collective conflicts of action while politics must carry out collective programs of action, each one must perform reciprocal functions concerning the other, since politics, as an instrumental pole, must provide juridical norms with the capacity of coaction, while law, as a normative pole, must lend its own legitimacy to political decisions. For the foundation of the principles of the rule of law an inter-subjective reconstruction of popular sovereignty is necessary based on the theory of discourse according to which sovereignty is not localized in any concrete subject, but is dispersed in the broad net of communication that underlies the public sphere, where the communicative power is formed, being capable to neutralize the social power of pressure groups and form a public opinion that orientates decision making and the administrative power of the rule of law institutions.
Habermas; law; politics; discourse; power