The Open Society Revisited

The open society is under threat from populism and fake news. But what do we mean by the ‘open society’? The notion was made popular by Bergson and Popper. Under the impact of totalitarianism, Popper distinguished open from closed societies. They differ by their degree of institutionalized critical scrutiny of political and societal practices. Modern sociological theory uses the notions of differentiation (or complexity) and reflexivity to distinguish these types of society (Habermas, Giddens). Reflexivity goes beyond critical scrutiny; it describes the constant examination and revision of social practices in the light of incoming information. An evaluation of these criteria shows that a necessary and sufficient condition for the distinction between open and closed societies is the degree of institutionalized critical scrutiny (contestability) and, even more, reflexivity. Openness is not a function of the complexity of societal development. It is a function of appropriate political structures. Therein lies its deeper connection with democracy: drawing upon several historical and contemporary examples thisarticle suggests that open societies can be characterized by critical scrutiny and even more reflexivity. In the final section, this article analyses the malaise of modern democracies with respect to the risks posed by populism and disinformation through social media. But rather than focusing on immigration or the economy, it considers the risks in terms of the erosion of institutional trust. Institutional trust is one of the civic virtues which the Enlightenment regarded as an essential feature of a democratic society. I conclude that populism and the deliberate spread of false information undermine civic virtues; a return to civic virtues is an important feature of the survival of democracy as an open society.