, Habermas has identified new social movements as attempts to hold back the incursions of this instrumental or self-steering 'system' of power and money into the non-instrumental or goal-orientated 'lifeworld' of civil society. However,contra republican readings of civil society, and broadly in line with liberal thought on the topic, Habermas wants to preserve - make normative even - the separation of sphere between state, civil society and economy. For Habermas argues that civil society, given the complexity of modern decision-making and the need to pretect certain levels of efficiency, cannot govern, but can only 'influence' or 'sensitise' the state through democratic will formation. Thus he states the 'the public opinion that is worked up via democratic procedures into communicative power (in civil society) cannot 'rule' of itself, but can only point the use of administrative power in specific directions...' (Habermas 1994 : 9-10). That is, the pure republican formations of political will by elements of the public sphere,constituted through civil society, are 'only catalysts and not the end results of political action' (Ely 1992: 178); or, as Habermas puts it: