What is required of the citizen to make planning more democratic? In this article, I argue this previously overlooked question illuminates key challenges for democratising planning in theory and practice. Distinguishing between deliberative and agonistic conceptions of communicative planning, I review the qualities these theories demand of citizens. Through examples from Scotland, I then contrast this with the roles citizens are currently invited to perform within a growth-orientated planning culture, drawing attention to techniques that use constructions of 'good' and 'bad' citizenship to manage conflict generated by development. I conclude by suggesting that while 'ordinary' citizens' experiences draw attention to the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative and agonistic accounts, they also highlight hidden costs associated with participation that present significant challenges for the project of shaping a more democratic form of planning.
The traditional relationship between politics and policy making has been challenged in recent years, highlighting how policy itself can generate political action. This raises questions about how confl ict produced or mediated through the policy process is managed, particularly within what has been described as a 'postpolitical settlement' where fundamental politicoideological issues are liable to be 'displaced' rather than opened up for debate. I argue that such displacement generates its own distinctive politicomanagerial logic. Drawing on the discourses and practices of planning reform in England, I suggest that ongoing systemic reform might be understood as a product of a politics of displacement that seeks to cover over the causes of the antagonism generated by the logic of urban development. Tracing this logic through the policy process, I further suggest that displacement has a range of underexamined eff ects on local democracy and the legitimacy of local government.
Universities of LeedsSince 2001 the English planning system, has been subject to a complex series of ofessional planners in the public sector. The discourse of culture change is rooted in the managerialist thinking that has been central to long-term processes of state restructuring. du Gay (1996) describes this as the identities of public servants. This article therefore explores the modernisation of planning through the experiences of public sector planners seeking to negotiate their identities within this change environment.
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