With this essentially liberal focus, premised upon the notion of a separation of spheres with civil society programming the state in society’s interests, we come full circle back to Habermasian approaches to civil society that are common currency for the New Left. For whether it is articulated in the form of a liberal counterweight to state power, or as a ‘lifeworld’ outside of the state for the generation of a critical public sphere, few commentators would now disagree with Habermas that