Planning and Governance

Abstract

Based on the evaluation of the currently prevailing planning paradigms and in view of the limitations of integrative, consensus-focused and pluralistic approaches, this chapter aims to identify emerging radical political approaches on planning and governance in agonistic and subversive perspectives. It raises the question about the future of planning and governance in a contradictory context characterised by enhanced societal diversity and technical complexity, an increasing loss of democratic legitimacy, the strengthening of ‘post-truth’ populism, as well as an unreined advancement of market forces progressively undermining the political as the commonly assumed driving force of societal development. This chapter is divided into two main parts. In the first section, the communicative approach of planning and governance is confronted, in a comparative perspective, with the agonistic perspective. Thereafter, in the following section, we explore both approaches regarding to what extent they might contribute to the identification and development of more radical planning perspectives. Finally, in the concluding remarks, we discuss some theoretical gaps for supporting an agonistic and subversive perspective on planning as well as new challenges arising for planners in a context of growing socio-political conflictivity and the emergence of new forms of social activism, including civil disobedience.

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