The Social and the Political in Luhmann

Abstract

This article examines Luhmanns contributions to contemporary political theory from a different light than has been made available thus far in Anglo-American political theory. More specifically, I argue that social systems theory makes a provoking and productive intervention in the ongoing debate on competing conceptions of critique and normativity. I first compare Luhmanns approach with that of Foucaults and show that systems theory powerfully interrogates the sociological validity of the structure of normativity often found in the currently prominent liberal-universalist political theory. Later in the article, however, I identify a central theoretical problem in Luhmanns brand of systems theory – namely a highly constricted notion of politics. This, I argue, stems from a strong apolitical structure of its overarching concept, the social. I trace this problem by analyzing the peculiar character of Luhmanns normativism, or what I call reluctant normativism, and then by putting his central concepts alongside the recent developments in the theories of the political.