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ALJ 1/2015 Authoritarian Liberalism 75 longer determined by active citizens and their representatives. Rather, the political process is controlled by administrative and economic elites, in particular in the context of transnational governance structures.62 Putting the matter starkly, representative institutions appear to have become soft and conciliatory. They do not take risks or leave toying with hazardous ideas, such as leaving the Union, to the parties on the right end of the political spectrum.63 They behave as though they had understood that it is their task to lend symbolic “mass support” to the demands of administrative and economic rationality.64 In the terms of Habermas’ legal philosophy, such a development implies a disturbing reversal of the democratically legitimate cycle of power. According to Habermas, democratic politics is in good shape so long as it originates from the “communicative power” that is being built up in the public sphere.65 This power, which is based on mutual understandings arrived at in the course of communicative action, is supposed to determine, by means of law, the exercise of administrative power.66 In light of Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action,67 such power must always appear to be a countervailing force offsetting the “functional imperatives” originating from the systemic repro- duction of the economy and the administrative system of the state. It can prevail over such func- tional imperatives by constraining or directing administrative action through laws. It is through legislation that the defiant momentum of communicative power resists the demands of func- tional imperatives. When, however, a lively and energetic public disappears and the people become apathetic68 the functional imperatives of the economic and the political system no longer encounter resistance. They begin to “colonise” the political process. The focus of politics comes to rest on system- stabilisation, which is then pursued with great indifference towards the institutional or moral background rights of the people. Assuming that notions such as “post-democracy” and the image of a “reversal of the cycle of power” are helpful in capturing current developments69 they should nonetheless not be mistaken 62 See COLIN CROUCH, POST-DEMOCRACY 4, 19 et seq (Polity Press, 2004). 63 Britain, to be sure, is a special case. 64 Such a reduction of democracy to the function of lending mass support to economic and administrative impera- tives has been a topic of critical social theory in the 1970s. See CLAUS OFFE, CONTRADICTIONS OF THE WELFARE STATE 53 (J. Keane ed, MIT Press, 1984). and JÜRGEN HABERMAS, LEGITIMATIONSPROBLEME IM SPÄTKAPITALISMUS 17 (Suhrkamp, 1973). 65 This is a more attractive view of democratic legitimacy compared with the dreary talk of “input legitimacy”. The latter does not recognize the role of civil society and the type of power that originates from the public sphere. 66 See JÜRGEN HABERMAS, FAKTIZITÄT UND GELTUNG: BEITRÄGE ZUR DISKURSTHEORIE DES RECHTS UND DES DEMOKRATISCHEN RECHTSSTAATS 187, 209 (Suhrkamp, 1992). 67 See JÜRGEN HABERMAS, THEORIE DES KOMMUNIKATIVEN HANDELNS, VOL. 2: ZUR KRITIK DER FUNKTIONALISTISCHEN VERNUNFT (Suhrkamp, 1981). 68 Popular apathy may be occasioned by a variety of factors, for example, a widespread sense of disempowerment of the impression that, at the end of the day, there are not really any alternatives to what the elite consensus presents to be the reasonable way. 69 Arguably, they are particularly helpful when one is confronted with a case like Greece. The European Commis- sion is not only quite outspoken about what it perceives necessary to remedy Greece fiscal crisis (e.g., combat- ting tax evasion, privatizations and, of course, flexible labour markets) it also expects Greece to adopt its liberal model of social policy. See Tsoukala, note 60 at 266: “[…] [D]espite the continuing lack of formal exclusive compe- tence on social policy, the substance of the measures required by the MoU is such that in reality they are dictat- ing social policy to the finest detail for the countries subjected to them under the guise of fiscal emergency.” It seems, hence, that supranational institutions tap the opportunity to recreate democratic polities in the image of a model competitive solidarity that endorses entrepreneurship, flexible labour markets and a minimal social safety net. See, generally, WOLFGANG STREECK, COMPETITIVE SOLIDARITY—RETHINKING THE “EUROPEAN SOCIAL MODEL”, available at http://www.mpifg.de/pu/workpap/wp99-8/wp99-8.html (accessed 14 March 2014).