In the ideal speech situation, all participants have equal power, attempt to reach understanding, do not act manipulatively or strategically, and understand their obligation to offer reasons. In this situation, outcomes depend on what he calls 'the unforced force of the better argument'. Under the liberal account, rooted in the work of Thomas Hobes, politics is a process of bargaining, a matter of aggregating private interests.
Liberals define citizens as holders of negative rights against the state.
In the liberal view, politics is is a struggle among interest groups for positions and power. Civil republicans see rights not as negative constraints on goverment, but as promoting participation in political practices thorugh which citizens become authors of their own community. Consider the right ot free speech and the right to vote. For civic republicans, politics is a matter of discussion and self-legislation, in which people participate not in bargaining and compromise but in forms of reflection and talk. The oganizing theme of the book is Mr. Habermas's rejection of both views and his effort to defend instead what he calls 'deliberative politics' of 'deberative democracy'.