communicative planning theory
TRANSCRIPT
Title:
Communicative planning theory: change needed to change practice
Author:
Karel Martens
Address:
Karel Martens
Institute for Management Research
Radboud University Nijmegen
P.O. Box 9108
6500 HK Nijmegen
the Netherlands
Contact:
E-mail: [email protected]
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Communicative planning theory: change needed to change practice
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Abstract
Communicative planning theory has largely neglected the way in which entrenched
modes of governance can be changed into more democratic forms of decision-making.
The aim of this article is to view communicative planning theory through this prism of
change and discuss four possible implications for the theory. First, communicative
planning theorists need to overcome the narrow emphasis on the planner, and instead aim
to identify the real-life change agents and learn from their actions. Next, communicative
planning theory has to acknowledge that power is not just the evil force which has to be
neutralised, but is as much a modality for change which can force democratic practices
on dominant actors. Third, more research is needed into the struggles that precede
experiments with communicative planning, because it are these struggles that shape the
new modes of governance. Finally, a change perspective on communicative planning
theory also implies a new evaluation standard, one that is as much rooted in the local and
historical context as in the communicative ideal.
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1. Introduction
Communicative planning theory has developed as one of the leading planning approaches
during the past decade. It envisages a political arena in which decision-making on shared
issues is made by all the people involved. Rooted in practice, communicative planning
theory has obviously a strong normative layer. The ideal for the various theorists is to
replace existing entrenched ways of decision-making by practices which adhere to the
ideal of communicative theory, however defined.
Communicative planning theory implies a fundamental change in the existing modes of
governance. For communicative planning to gain solid ground, dominant actors have to
be willing to share their power, organisations have to be willing to change their routine
practices of decision-making, people have to be willing to open their minds to new ways
of looking at the world. Communicative planning, therefore, requires change on
numerous fronts. For communicative planning theory to be practical – an ambition which
is shared by all the authors in the field – it will have to address more deeply the issue of
change then it has done so far.
The main objective of this paper is to engage in this task and discuss communicative
planning theory from the perspective of change. I will argue that a communicative
planning theory that embraces the issue of change, should at least address four
interrelated issues. The first issue I will turn to concerns the emphasis in communicative
planning theory on the planner as the key actor to change entrenched ways of decision-
making. I will then turn to discuss the role of reason and power as modalities of change.
The third issue that needs to be addressed from the perspective of change, concerns
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‘temporal boundaries’ of communicative planning research: the focus on communicative
processes and the neglect of the struggles that preceded these processes. The last issue to
be discussed in this paper relates to the evaluation standards for new communicative
practices. Together, these four issues pose a comprehensive challenge to communicative
planning theory to encompass the issue of change within its body of thought and line of
reasoning. The final section of this paper will outline the implications of this challenge
for the theoretical and practical research that needs to be done.
2. Planners versus planners’ universe
Change in the existing modes of governance does not come about without change agents.
Experiments with new participatory practices of decision-making will only get off the
ground if somebody takes the initiative and manages to convince others of the importance
of such an experiment. The quest for change is thus also a quest for possible change
agents. Following a substantial body of literature on “planners at work” (Fischler, 2000a),
most communicative planning theorists implicitly or explicitly suggest that the most
obvious actor that should take up the role of change agent is the planner working through
government institutions. These theorists urge this planner “to function as a watchdog, as a
‘guerrilla in the bureaucracy’, as an agent of radical change or as one who monitors
communication flows and guards against the dissemination of false information”
(Brooks, 1996: 118). Forester (1999a: 3), for instance, sees it as the challenge for
planners to make “participatory planning a pragmatic reality rather then an empty ideal”.
For Throgmorton the “challenge for contemporary planners ... is ... to construct new
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forums which enable public and democratic argumentation” (Throgmorton, 1996b: 257).
And for Hoch (1996: 42) the “big question for the pragmatic analysts is how practitioners
construct the free spaces in which democratic planning can be institutionalised. The idea
... is to uncover examples of planning that are both competent and democratic, and then
to explore who were the practitioners who did it, what actions they took to make it
happen, and what sorts of institutional conditions helped or hindered them”.
Yet it remains to be seen whether real-life planners are willing and able to live up to this
“wishful thinking about planning and planners” (Flyvbjerg, 1996: 387). There are good
reasons to assume that this will not be the case (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones, 2002:
16). The institutional context within which most planners work sets many structural
constraints for communicative action, ranging from economic constraints to institutional
codes of behaviour, and from dominant discursive frames for problem shaping to
loyalties to specific actors in the planning arena (Brooks, 1996: 118). Within this
institutional context only few planners are likely to engage in a ‘battle’ to change the
routine modes of governance into more participatory practices. Empirical research shows
that planners tend to do quite the opposite in their daily work: they often prefer to defend
institutional positions to opening up the decision-making arena (Foley & Lauria, 2000:
221-222), they often prefer to deceive the public to speaking sincerely (Flyvbjerg, 1996:
386-387), they often prefer to hide behind technical skills to subjecting their proposals to
public scrutiny (Baum, 1996: 373-374). And when planners are willing and able to widen
the scope of involved actors, they often prefer to open up only to interests that are close
to their own world-views (Spain, 1993: 168). It may be expected, then, that the vast
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majority of planners will not take up the role of change agent, unless outside pressures
force them to do so.
Thus, we may conclude, that “planners, as any other professional group, are not the good-
willed change agents” of a society (Flyvbjerg, 1996: 386). This does not imply that
communicative planning theory should not urge planners to take up the role of change
agent. Such an appeal is not simply naive, as many critics of the communicative approach
claim, but can shape planners expectations and actions and in this way change practice. It
does imply, however, that it is naive to put all hopes on the planner alone (Huxley &
Yiftachel, 2000: 337; Huxley, 2000: 375). If planning is viewed as a communicative,
interactive enterprise involving many people, why focus on the planner to bring about
change? Why not look at the broader spectrum of actors involved in – or excluded from –
decision-making efforts? Such a shift in focus will most likely reveal that the seeds of
change are sown by all kinds of actors operating within or on the edges of the planning
arena. Experience from Israel and the Netherlands shows that at least two types of actors
indeed do take up the challenge that communicative planning theory poses to them:
NGOs and private consultancies.
NGOs are probably the most obvious actors that might take up the role of change agent
(Coston, 1998; Foley & Lauria, 2000; Maier 2001; Yishai 2005). Where planners may
prefer to hide behind the comforting walls of bureaucracy, NGOs traditionally take up the
role of ‘watchdog’ over the activities of governments. From the perspective of many
NGOs the existing routines of governance are often part of the problem. These routines
often favour certain actors and world-views above others, leaving ‘weaker’ or less
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institutionalised actors outside decision-making arena’s and marginalizing opposing
world-views. Many NGOs, therefore, have an interest in changing the existing routines
into more democratic modes of governance which give these weaker actors and opposing
world-views a voice. Yet, both the NGOs and the academic literature tend to focus on the
impact of NGOs on the content of decisions (see e.g. Yishai, 1991 and Drezon-Tepler,
1990 for the Israeli situation) and on the role of NGOs in empowering citizens (see e.g.
Sandercock, 1998). The structural and long term impact of NGOs on the process of
decision-making has received much less attention (e.g. Alfasi, 2003). From the
perspective of change it is exactly this issue that needs to be addressed if we are to
understand the possible role of NGOs in bringing the communicative ideal closer. The
research which I have conducted in Israel shows that NGOs that engage in a continuous
struggle with dominant actors can indeed change the process of decision-making
(Martens, 2004, 2005).
A less obvious group of actors that might take up the role of change agent, are private
consultants. The main interest of private consultants is to maintain or enlarge their share
in the market for consultancy jobs. One strategy to attain this goal is to excel in
innovative solutions. The basic characteristic of such a solution is the fact that it proposes
to solve the problem of a client – often a government agency – in a new way. When
marketing innovative solutions, consultancy firms try to convince their clients that their
new, innovative way of solving a given problem will yield better results than the well-
known ways of tackling the problem. In this process of convincing their clients and
selling their products, the consultancy agents are actually changing existing practices of
problem solving and decision-making. And when these consultancy firms take up
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communicative planning techniques as an innovative solution to be marketed, they may
actually contribute to a change in the existing ways of decision-making. Experiences in
industrialised countries show that many consultancy firms in the field of planning have
indeed taken up this challenge and are marketing communicative decision-making
techniques. A quick look on the internet sites of leading Dutch consultancy firms, for
instance, shows that nearly all of them offer products like ‘process management’,
‘interactive policy making’ or ‘integrative planning’. This abundance points out that the
consultancies represent a huge potential for change. While many of them may only ‘ride
a wave’ of attention and are not among the ones that introduce new communicative
techniques into the planning arena, it is also clear that they do not merely follow a trend
among their government-based clients but are actively involved in shaping this trend.
These examples are not meant to show that NGOs or consultants are more likely to be the
“good willed change agents” of a society than planners. Just like planners working for
government institutions, NGOs and consultants will in many cases prefer to keep within
the boundaries of existing routines or even act as regressive agents (Yiftachel, 1995). Yet
NGOs and private consultants may take up the role of change agent and it is in this
quality that they deserve due attention in the communicative planning literature. And this
is not just true for NGOs and private consultants, but also for developers, politicians or
unorganised citizens when they engage in struggles to change entrenched ways of
decision-making. Communicative planning literature, then, should not limit itself to
studies of planners at work (Huxley & Yiftachel, 2000: 337), but instead have an open
eye for all actors that make up the planning universe.
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Such a shift in focus of communicative planning research may be beneficial for planning
theorists, planners and other actors constituting the planning universe. It may learn
planning theorists about the role of diverse actors in shaping “new forums which enable
public and democratic argumentation” and about the barriers they encounter in this effort,
thus learning communicative planning theorists more about the way in which domination
and manipulation work in everyday practice. It may learn planners willing to change
entrenched practices how other actors in the planning arena can help them in their efforts,
thus strengthening planners which are more often than not “members of a weak
professional community working as employees in vulnerable occupational positions”
(Hoch, 1996: 40). A shift in the research focus from the planner to the planners’ universe
might, finally, also be valuable for ‘non’ planners. They might become more aware of the
importance of their everyday work in shaping planning practice. Insight into these
broader implications and into the theories that can frame them may enhance the way in
which these ‘non’ planners are challenging entrenched ways of decision-making. This
also implies that planning education should focus more on these ‘non’ planners and
realise that many of them will turn into planners once they engage in true communicative
deliberations about planning issues.
3. The bright side of power
What is the modality through which change can be achieved? The main debate here is
between reason and power. Actors that take up the role of change agents rely on reason if
they merely use arguments to convince others to change entrenched ways of decision-
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making. In this case, the driving force behind change is simply the force of the most
persuasive argument. Change agents revert to power, in turn, when they manage to
induce other actors to change the existing modes of decision-making in accordance with
the opinions of the change agents. Change agents might provide arguments in these cases,
but these are not necessarily considered to be decisive by the other actors. Where change
agents that rely on reason use a form of persuasion that totally respects the freedom of
other actors, change agents that rely on power actively try to limit this freedom in order
to get their way (Pellizoni, 2001: 60-62).
The communicative planning theory literature does address the tension between reason
and power extensively, but its main focus is on the role of power and reason within
communicative processes. Communicative planning theorists assert that power in its
diverse forms distorts proper deliberation about what is at stake and which way to go.
Exertion of power within processes of deliberation leads to the dominance of certain
world views above others, to the exclusion of participants, to unfounded appeals to
rationality, to strategically obscuring issues, or to manipulation of opinions (McGuirk,
2001: 197). The goal of communicative planning theory is to establish practices that
minimise these (systematic) distortions and let reason dominate the deliberative
processes. For this purpose, the communicative planning theorists turn to the
Habermasian notion of the ideal speech situation and use it as a normative standard to
judge deliberative processes (Healey, 1997: 265). The ideal of the communicative
planning theorists is a world in which existing (distorted) practices of decision-making
are replaced by communicative forums that adhere to all the Habermasian criteria. Thus,
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within communicative processes, communicative planning theory calls for the
‘neutralisation’ of power for the sake of reason.
Communicative planning theory is less clear about the role of reason and power when it
comes to the question of how existing practices can be replaced by more democratic ones.
Most authors seem to stress the importance of reason. Healey, for instance, emphasises
the analytical and discursive skills of change agents. For her, the initiators of change “are
merely those with the capacity to see and articulate to others a strategic possibility”
(1997: 270). Throgmorton (1996; 1997) urges planners to improve their discursive skills
in order to become actors of change. For planners to become true promoters of a public
democratic discourse, they should learn to “listen to their audience stories”, learn “to
persuade their audience” and learn “that their rhetoric has the potential to create new
communities and a new culture of interaction” (1996: 360-361). Clearly, these advices of
Throgmorton appeal more to reason as the modality to bring about change, than to power.
Like many other theorist from the communicative school, he “relies on rationality as the
main means for making democracy work” (Flyvbjerg, 1998: 234).
Forester (1989; 1999a; 1999b) is one of the communicative planning theorists who
addresses the issue of power most explicitly. While he stresses the fact that power “takes
positive and negative forms” (1999b: 176), he focuses in most of his work on the ‘dark
side’ of power. Power, in Forester’s account, is first and foremost a tool in the hands of
the powerful. And “those in power are likely to systematically lie, to withhold data, to
further their own interests, and to exclude others, even as they claim the most noble
ideas” (1999b: 183). Planners can only promote participatory planning processes if they
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realise that they are doing their work “in the face of power” and if they learn “to
anticipate practically the play of power” (1999b: 185). Planning researchers can help
practitioners by looking “more carefully for the limits and vulnerabilities of power” in
order to “inform possible progressive planning responses” (1999b: 185). For Forester,
then, power is not so much the modality through which change can be brought about, but
first and foremost a modality which prevents change from happening. Planners can and
should also employ powers to counteract the dark sides of power, but the roots of this
power lie to a large extent in the analytical and discursive skills of planners, such as
critical judgement, listening, and sensitivity to information distortions. Based on these
and other skills rooted in the modality of reason, planners should be able to promote
deliberative decision-making processes.
These brief accounts show that reason plays an important role in communicative planning
theory, either as the prime modality for change or as the basis on which the power of
change agents is based. Much less attention is being paid to the possibilities ‘bold’ forms
of power offer for change. Such ‘bold’ forms of power are not so much rooted in reason,
rationality or argument, but simply in the capacity of actors to limit the freedom of choice
of other actors. In most cases this capacity rests in the hands of dominant actors, and it is
this fact which gives power its stigma of being on the ‘dark side’ of society. Yet, bold
forms of power do not only offer ways to manipulate or dominate. They may just as well
be employed as a modality to change existing entrenched ways of decision-making. It is
time that planners stop rediscovering the dark side of power and instead focus on the
ways in which power can and is used to enable change.
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The research I conducted in Tel Aviv and Haifa, Israel, underscores the importance of
such a shift in focus (Martens, 2004, 2005). In Tel Aviv, green organisations and
neighbourhood groups have been successful in opening up the decision-making about
new urban developments in a large metropolitan park. By employing classical tools such
as demonstrations, lobbying and legal action, they have managed to set the terms of the
debate, riding the wave of increasing environmental awareness among Israeli citizens and
exploiting the continuous favourable press coverage. The resulting ‘public outcry’ about
the plans for the park has forced the local city council to revert to a new way of decision-
making. A special committee that included representatives of green organisations and the
local green party has been installed to look into the issue. While the composition of this
forum is far removed from the communicative ideal, it has meant a break in the routine
modes of governance and an opening-up of the government dominated decision-making
procedures.
The Haifa case shows even more clearly how the exercise of power can change modes of
governance. Here, environmental NGOs and an increasing number of neighbourhood
groups have been opposing the ‘high speed development philosophy’ of the municipality
for some years. Building on the experience gathered in the seventies and eighties, these
opposition groups have been using all possible ways to obstruct the normal, entrenched
procedure of decision-making. They have been exploiting the (minimal) opportunities for
public input offered by the Israeli planning and building law and have been using
procedural failures to block projects via the courts. These strategies have paid off and
have resulted in the (temporary) blockage of several projects, among which one of the
flag projects of the municipality. Faced by the growing and increasingly successful
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opposition, the mayor has decided to install a special committee consisting of
representatives of the municipality, environmental NGOs and academia. The task of this
committee was to investigate the ways to involve the public in the preparation of future
spatial plans and projects. The exercise of power by the NGOs and neighbourhood groups
thus led to an explicit decision to revise the existing modes of decision-making.
These Israeli cases are certainly not exceptional. There are plenty of examples around the
world which can teach us how power can be employed to challenge entrenched ways of
decision-making and replace them with more democratic ones. Innes et al. (1994) and
Innes (1996a), for instance, show that the capacity of governmental and non-
governmental agencies to block decision-making was in many cases the impetus to
engage in a consensus building effort as a means to break the policy gridlock. Both
planning theorists interested in more democratic decision-making and planning
practitioners that want to take up the role of change agent could learn a great deal from a
thorough study of such cases. Planning theorists might learn about the factual importance
of reason and power, instead of theorising about reason as the main modality for change
(Flyvbjerg, 1998). They might learn about the importance of other actors in the planning
universe in shaping planning practice, most likely about NGOs and citizen groups.
Planning practitioners, in turn, might learn how to identify ‘enabling’ powers at work and
gain insight into the possibilities to strengthen these powers. They might also – and this is
crucial – learn about the ways in which straightforward power struggles can be
transformed into an opportunity to replace routine modes of governance by more
democratic practices. Planning theorists and practitioners should, in short, discover the
bright side of power.
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4. Why planning researchers start too late
A change perspective on communicative planning theory reveals another bias in much of
the research being done from the communicative point of view. This bias concerns the
‘temporal boundaries’ of this research. Most case-studies into communicative practices
focus on the new forms of governance themselves (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones,
2002), and largely ignore the processes that lead to the formation of communicative
practices. Examples of such case-studies abound and can for instance be found in Innes
(1992; 1996), Wheeler (1993), Innes et al. (1994), Helling (1998), Hoekema (1998),
Pestman & Van Tatenhove (1998), Hajer & Kesselring (1999), Woltjer (2000), Kumar &
Paddison (2000), McGuirk (2001), Soneryd (2004), and Ericson (in press). These and
other studies typically address questions considered vital in assessing to what extent the
new practice adheres to or deviates from the communicative ideal. The communicative
case-studies thus address questions like the way in which stakeholders were selected, the
level of inclusiveness that was attained, the design of the deliberative process, the
characteristics of the arenas in which deliberations took place, the shaping of the agenda,
the level of consensus that was achieved and the level of satisfaction with the process
among the different participants. Typically, too, the role of the planner in shaping the
communicative practice is elaborated upon.
The emphasis on the shape of the communicative practices themselves can be traced back
to the preoccupations of communicative planning theory. Many of the leading
communicative planning theorists have paid due attention to questions concerning the
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ideal form of communicative planning (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones, 2002). They
have addressed issues like the institutional design of communicative processes (Healey,
1997), the role of information and scientific knowledge in policy deliberations (Dryzek,
1993; Innes, 1996; Elster, 1997), the procedural demands for communicative processes
(Healey, 1997; Bohman & Rehg, 1997), and methods of collaborative discussion (Innes
& Booher, 1997). This preoccupation with the ideal form of communicative planning has
led to a strong emphasis on the forms that actual experiences with communicative
planning take. As a result, the communicative practices have been studied largely
detached from existing arenas of policy formulation and ongoing processes of decision-
making (Woltjer, 2000: 131). To put it in the words of Huxley & Yiftachel (2000: 338):
“the communicative school asks questions generally about how (is current practice
conducted) and not ... why (it is like this)” (emphasis in original).
By focusing on the ‘how’ question and largely ignoring the ‘why’ question, researchers
from the communicative school ignore two fundamental questions. The first lies at the
heart of communicative planning theory and concerns the question of domination and
selective attention shaping. When researchers working within the communicative
tradition cover only the process of the communicative efforts themselves in their work,
they loose sight of the phase that preceded these efforts. It is in this preliminary stage –
which takes place before involved stakeholders are brought together to engage in a
communicative effort – that the shape and scope of most communicative practice is
decided upon (Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones, 2002: 9-10). It is in this phase that
decisions are made about which policy issues to subject to a communicative effort and
which policy issues to move through the regular avenues of decision-making. It is in this
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phase that the institutional context for a communicative effort will be delineated,
connecting the communicative effort to formal policy products like a regional plan or
state legislation. It is in this phase, too, that decisions are made about the authorities and
powers transferred to the participants and about the territorial boundaries within which
the participants will work (see e.g. Cowell and Murdoch, 1999). For sure, some of these
questions can be called to trial in the communicative processes themselves, but in many
cases stakeholders will either take them for granted or will have to invest so much energy
in the communicative deliberations themselves that no intellectual capacity is left to ‘step
outside’ the framework of the deliberations. For researchers in the communicative
tradition who want to address issues of domination, then, it is crucial to dive into the
processes that preceded communicative efforts and learn about the actors, the institutions
and the struggles that shaped these efforts. Without knowledge of these early phases, the
communicative researchers will not be able to shape truly communicative planning
practices.
The second question that is ignored by most communicative researchers concerns the
issue of change. By focusing primarily on the shape of actual communicative practices
and largely ignoring the process that preceded them, communicative researchers fail to
gain an understanding of why traditional modes of decision-making are supplanted by or
augmented with communicative processes. Yet, as discussed above, the big steps towards
communicative planning are not made within the communicative practices themselves,
but in traditional arenas of decision-making. These arenas hardly mirror the ideals of true
communicative practice, but are more likely to be characterised by deception,
misinformation, struggle, conflict, partisanship and the exercise of power. If it is the aim
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of communicative researchers to show how entrenched ways of planning can be
transformed into more democratic modes of decision-making, they should focus less on
the emerging communicative practices and more on the processes that made them happen
in the first place (Hoch, 1996: 42). Research into these processes may learn planning
practitioners and other actors in the planning arena eager to change planning practice,
first, that it is possible to change entrenched ways of governance and, second, what
strategies might be successful in making these changes come about.
Thus, much of planning research does not only stop too early (Forester, 1999: 175, 182),
but also starts too late. By ignoring the process that precedes experiments with
communicative planning, planning researchers do not only loose sight on the way
dominant actors are shaping and thus distorting these experiments even before they
begin. They also miss the opportunity to learn about the way in which their ideal is and
can be ‘forced’ upon unwilling actors hiding behind technical expertise, ‘inevitable’ top-
down procedures or ‘unavoidable’ exercise of power. For planning research to be truly
progressive, then, planners have to dive into the small, messy struggles that together
decide about the fate of the communicative ideal.
5. Evaluation of the long durée
The last issue which emerges if communicative planning theory is viewed through the
prism of change is the issue of evaluation. While communicative planning theory has not
paid much systematic attention to the way in which new communicative practices should
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be evaluated, a clear line of thought can be discerned from the theoretical and empirical
work of communicative researchers. The dominant theme in this line of thought is the
central place of the communicative ideal in evaluating actual practices of communicative
planning.
Dryzek (1990, 1993) and Healey (1997) are among the communicative theorists that take
the communicative ideal as the starting point for the evaluation of experiments with
communicative planning. Both authors view the Habermasian notion of the ideal speech
situation and the related principles of comprehensibility, integrity, legitimacy and truth as
a suitable basis for such an evaluation. Innes & Booher (1999) show the same tendency to
use the ideal communicative model as the yard-stick to assess consensus-building efforts.
According to them, a consensus building process is good if it: “includes representatives
of all relevant and significantly different interests; is self-organising, allowing
participants to decide on ground rules, objectives, tasks, working groups and discussing
topics; (...) incorporates high-quality information of many types and assures agreement
on its meaning; seeks consensus only after discussions have fully explored the issues and
interests (...)” (Innes & Booher, 1999: 419 – emphasis added). While these criteria are not
only derived from the normative requirements of communicative planning theory but also
from the performance-oriented approach of complexity theory, it is clear that the ‘ideals’
of both theories have been the starting point for developing the evaluation framework.
The tendency to turn the ideals of communicative planning theory into the evaluation
standard can also be observed in case-studies of experiments with communicative
planning. These case-studies typically focus on issues like the level of inclusiveness, the
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use of different kinds of information, the (distorting) role of power in the deliberative
process and the level of consensus that was achieved (see previous section). Based on
these criteria, many of the communicative researchers come to the conclusion that the
practical experiments are still far removed from the normative ideal.
The communicative theorists and researchers thus have the same tendency to be
‘backward looking’. They start with the communicative ideal and then ‘measure’ how far
the communicative practice is still removed from this ideal. Because the evaluation
standards are rooted in normative theorising and idealising, the standards that are
proposed and employed are universal and context-less, despite the lip-service paid to
importance of the particularities of ‘specific times and places’ in much of the
communicative planning literature. The communicative researchers thus fall for the
rationalist ‘trap’ of ignoring the context within which specific communicative practices
are situated. Yet, from the perspective of change this local and historical context is just as
important as the normative ideal. What counts as change does not depend on the
normative ideal that one uses, but on the difference between the old – the context – and
the new – the communicative experiment. A close look at the differences between old
and new – context and experiment – as part of the evaluation effort would shed a totally
different light on many communicative experiments. Instead of revealing “unjustifiable
practices” or a gap between reality and normative ideal, it would show to what extent and
in what way a communicative experiment is a change in routine modes of governance.
Where the first form of evaluation is ‘backward looking’, an evaluation based on the
local and historical context is ‘forward looking’ in the sense that it takes the past as the
basis for evaluation.
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The perspective of change has still further implications for the way to evaluate
experiments with communicative planning. The next element in such an evaluation would
be to encompass the longue durée and assess the (possible) long term impacts of
communicative experiment(s). Such an evaluation is based on the idea that new modes of
governance often start “as experiments by individual reformers” (Fischler, 2000b: 363).
Innes & Booher (1999) are probably one of the first in their attempt to integrate this
perspective of the longue durée into an evaluation framework for communicative
planning. Among the outcome criteria that they have developed as part of their
framework are the “changes in attitudes, behaviours and actions (...) and new practices or
institutions” that result as a consequence of a consensus-building effort (Innes & Booher,
1999: 419). However, Innes & Booher do not specify which changes are considered to be
positive and which negative or regressive. Where they over-emphasis the importance of a
normative ideal in their process criteria, they tend to under-emphasis this ideal in the
outcome criteria. Yet, for a proper assessment of changes in the longue durée such a
normative ideal is indispensable. Just as we need two points to know whether we are on
the right track when we are on a hiking trip, we also need two points to assess changes in
the longue durée: the local and historical context where we are coming from and the –
ever changing – ideal that we are striving for. It is here where the ‘forward’ and
‘backward’ looking modes of evaluation meet.
23
6. Conclusion
Communicative planning theory envisages a radical change in the present modes of
governance. It aims at replacing entrenched ways of decision-making by democratic
practices that allow for inclusive forms of policy deliberation and policy setting. Yet, as I
have tried to show in this article, communicative planning theorists largely ignore the
way in which change may come about. By doing so, they follow the footsteps of the
majority of planning theorists in that “they know where to they would like to go but not
how to get there” (Flyvbjerg, 1996: 384). The argument developed in this article suggests
that communicative planning theory has to widen its scope in order to encompass the
issue of change within its body of thought and line of reasoning. The four issues
discussed above point out that communicative planning theorists and researchers need to
engage in a theoretical and empirical effort that addresses at least three issues.
First, the perspective of change leads to a shift in the focus of much of the
communicative planning research. The current emphasis on practical experiments with
communicative planning needs to be supplemented with research into the struggles that
precede and thus shape the communicative experiments. The research into these
everyday, messy struggles should overcome the current emphasis on planners as the main
change agents and on reason as the main modality for change. Instead of focussing on
planners working within government institutions, the aim should be to identify the real-
life change agents, whatever their institutional context or professional background may
be, and learn from their actions. And instead of assuming that planners derive most of
24
their power from the force of reason, the aim should be to learn about the factual
importance of reason and power as modalities of change (Flyvbjerg, 2004).
The prism of change points, secondly, at the necessity to develop an evaluation
framework that encompasses the perspective of the longue durée. Such an evaluation
framework will have to integrate both the local and historical context in which
experiments with communicative planning are situated and the (communicative) ideal
that the evaluator is striving for. Together such a framework creates two points of
reference – context and ideal – which will enable an evaluator to asses in what way a
change in the routine modes of governance constitutes a change in the desired direction.
The development of such an evaluation framework for the longue durée is a daunting
task. It requires evaluators to develop a ‘tool’ that will enable them to look beyond the
communicative experiments and pinpoint the long term impact of the experiments on the
attitudes, behaviour and practices of different kinds of actors. It will also demand from
evaluators to develop a set of criteria that enables a relatively easy assessment of different
local and historical contexts in a comparable way, but still leaves enough room for the
particularities of each of these contexts. Despite these problems in developing a
framework for the longue durée, there are good reasons to engage in such a task. The
most obvious of them is that such a framework would enable a much deeper assessment
of the impact of a communicative experiment on the local routines of governance, thus
providing change agents and planners alike with a deeper understanding of the
importance of local experiments and trial-and-error processes as the stepping stones
towards the communicative ideal.
25
The third issue relates to this and concerns the relation between actor and structure,
between agency and institution, between micro and macro. How do the grand ideals
embodied in the emerging communicative paradigm become rooted in the everyday
governance practices of different actors and localities? And how do local experiments
with communicative planning turn into routine ways of decision-making, new institutions
and professional traditions? From the perspective of change, these are the core questions
to be answered if we want to gain an understanding of how modes of governance are
changed and can be changed in the desired direction.
The questions of actor and structure, agency and institution, micro and macro, small and
big, are as much empirical as they are theoretical. They are empirical in the sense that
planning researchers should simply start to ask how the small becomes bigger and how
the big becomes rooted in the small (Fuchs, 2001: 26). Detailed analyses of the first
relation can reveal why some bottom-up experiments have been devoid of any external
impacts, while other local initiatives have turned into routine modes of governance
(Fischler, 2000b: 362-363). Thorough study of the second relation may show how some
top-down initiatives for change break down on local resistance and inertia, while other
forms of institutional design take root among a wide array of local actors (Putnam, 1993;
Flyvbjerg, 1998: 234-236). Taken together these analyses can increase our understanding
of how change can come about, so that those who want to transform entrenched ways of
governance into participatory practices can move more easily ahead.
The questions of actor and structure are theoretical in the sense that planning researchers
need to develop – or borrow – the language and research tools that are necessary to grasp
26
the ways in which the small can become bigger and the big becomes inscribed in the
small. Here, there is no obvious way to go. Philosophy, sociology and anthropology offer
an abundance of repertoires to deal with the relation between actor and structure and,
increasingly, also to overcome this divide. Within the confines of this article, I can only
pinpoint to some directions in which planning researchers might look for inspiration. One
possibility might be to turn to one of the philosophers that has inspired communicative
planning theorists as well as opponents of the communicative approach: Foucault. His
genealogical method could be used as a tool to show how local planning solutions –
whether they have communicative qualities are not – lead to the emergence of a coherent
set of new practices (Fischler, 2000b). Researchers that are interested in this development
from ‘small to big’ but would like to take communicative practices as their starting point,
might also be inspired by event-history analysis (see e.g. Greve et al., 2001). Researchers
interested in the opposite direction of change, from idea(l) to practice, might turn to
sociological theories about the spreading of beliefs and opinions (e.g. Ridgeway &
Erickson, 2000). And for those that would like to overcome the divide between actor and
structure, inspiration might be found in the actor-network theory as developed by Callon,
Latour and Law (see e.g. Murdoch, 1997, 2001). These are of course just examples of the
possible theories planning research might draw on. What is important is to develop a
language and methodology that both allows for a description of the processes that turn
small into big and vice versa and for a deep insight into the role of diverse change agents
– among them planners – in these processes. If planning researchers manage to develop
such a language and methodology, they can really start to contribute to the emergence of
a new communicative planning paradigm.
27
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