Public debate is an important form of public sphere activity that has significant normative weight. Its claim to representativeness, which ensures that the sides represented in a debate are drawn from a wider spectrum of available opinions, as well as its status as a respectable format, means that it contributes to constructing the borders of the public sphere (Chambers, 2018).
The participants in debates typically have competing expectations about their interaction. Some expect deliberative disagreement, with participants articulating their arguments in a way that makes them acceptable, relevant and meaningful (cf. Booth 2004, on the ‘listening rhetoric’ and Kock, 2018, on the ‘principle of accommodation’). Other participants conceive of public debate as an opportunity to advance and disseminate their own ideas and beliefs, and they may seek to achieve this goal by criticizing or sanctioning the other side’s contributions in the hope that they will improve their own argumentation.
In the case of the Munk Debates, it is possible to see how this push-back on settled knowledge can lead to democratic repercussions. For its supporters, the debate demonstrated an example of democratic praxis in which two influential politicians were able to discuss their differences over what the future of Western democracy should look like. For its opponents, however, the debate legitimized far-right ideologies and reinforced the idea that the right is a legitimate frame for considering these issues.