Discourse, Performativity, and the Irish Marriage Equality Referendum Debate

This article seeks to explore key aspects of Habermas’s critical social theory through the prism of Ireland’s 2015 Same-Sex Marriage Equality Referendum. Beginning with an exploration of the Kantian and Hegelian basis of Habermas’s theory of modernity, this article traces how Ireland rejected in this instance the inherited tradition and practices of its past when it voted to strike down a constitutional clause prohibiting marriage between same-sex couples. Also discussed are the historical obstacles to this self-generated normativity and the role of performativity in the lead-up to the plebiscite, a topic that leads inevitably to an exploration of the scholarly synergies between Habermas’s thesis and the works of Judith Butler.