The Agora of the Competaliastae: Ancient Greek agoras are the classic archetype of an open and democratic public sphere (photo credits: flickr user wallyg)Having spent a considerable part of my professional and academic life thinking and writing about the public sphere, it still amazes me how nebulous this concept is, and how difficult it is to be clear about what we mean when we talk about "the public sphere." Academics write multi-volume books on this issue, and justifiably so: The public sphere is a constitutive element of democracy. Without it, citizens would not have a space in which to develop and articulate "public will," and no means to influence political decision making.