JOHN MICHAEL ROBERTS is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Communication at Brunel University, UK. He has researched and written about the public sphere, free speech, voluntary activity and social theory. His previous publications include The Aesthetics of Free Speech: Rethinking the Public Sphere; Realism, Discourse and Deconstruction (co-edited) and After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere (co-edited).

• Introducing Competence and the Public Sphere The New Economy The New Economy as the Fetish of Financialisation The Competent Public Sphere of the New Economy Democracy and Participation in the Competent Public Sphere Silencing the Thematic Utterances of Workers Trade Unions, Participation, and the Proletarian Public Sphere Conclusion: Towards a Socialist Public Sphere