Debating Dominence and Relevance: Notes on the ‘Communicative Turn’ in Planning Theory

Abstract

During the last decade, a growing number of planning theorists have taken a 'communicative turn' (Healey, 1996) in describing and theorizing urban and regional planning. A rapidly growing amount of work drawing on Habermasian, ethnographic and related frameworks has prompted some to articulate the emergence of new forms of 'collaborative' or 'deliberative' planning (Healey, 1997; Forester, 1999, respectively), and to declare the ascendancy of a 'new paradigm' (Innes, 1995), or the existence of 'consensus' among scholars about key theoretical and methodological questions (Mandelbaum, 1996).In what follows, we wish to question some of these claims by advancing two main arguments. First, that communicative planning, despite its marked contribution to the understanding of planning, is but one in a number of recent approaches to theorize planning. Second, that some aspects of the communicative approach are problematic as a theoretical basis for planning, mainly because they draw attention away from the underlying material and political processes which shape cities and regions.We will also observe a persisting confusion in planning theory, linked to the inability of theorists to agree on two fundamental definitions: what is 'theory' and what is 'planning'. In our work, we define 'planning', after Lefebvre, as the public production of space; that is, all policies and practices which shape the urban and regional environment under the auspices of the modern state.The central subject of this essay -'theory' -can also be defined in many ways. We lean towards the meaning identified by Raymond Williams (1983: 316-18) of theory as 'an explanatory scheme', or in the words of the Oxford English Dictionary, 'suppositions explaining a phenomenon; a sphere of speculations and concepts as distinguished from that of practice'. To be sure, analysis can never be neatly separated from normative and ethical assumptions, though we stress the explanatory, conceptual, analytical, deconstructive and critical aspects as the main 'pillars' of the theorizing endeavor, without which the prescriptive and normative aspects of theory are often shallow and ineffective (see also Yiftachel, 1989;Fainstein, 2000).

Agir aux marges de la concertation de quartier : le conciliabule autour de la conversion de l’église Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jésus à Montréal

“…Encore faut-il s'entendre sur l'accès à tous à la délibération. La rationalité communicationnelle se heurte à l'idée de ville juste, de laquelle émanent les principes de la reconnaissance de la diversité, de l'accès équitable aux acteurs disposant de peu de ressources à l'espace de délibération et d'une distribution juste des effets de la planification (Healey, 1992(Healey, , 1996(Healey, , 2003Innes, 1995 ;Yiftachel et Huxley, 2000). La tension entre les principes de rationalité communicationnelle et l'idée de ville juste tient finalement aux relations de pouvoir qui conditionnent le processus décisionnel (Fainstein, 2000(Fainstein, , 2014Allmendinger et Tewdwr-Jones, 2002).…”

Socio-Psychological Factors Affecting Participatory Planning Processes At Interactional Level

“…This transformation can be explained as a shift from rational-comprehensive planning to procedural planning. This paradigm change in planning has occurred in parallel to a shift from instrumental rationality to communicative rationality, and Habermas' work on the nature of communicative action is commonly accepted as having had a transformative impact on the planning field (Forester, 1989;Healey, 1997;Innes, 2004;Yiftachel and Huxley, 2000). Although not the only procedural planning approach, participatory planning approach based on Habermas' communicative rationality has come to dominate as a planning approach (Healey, 1992;1997;Innes, 1995;1996).…”

The Changing Discourse of City Plans: Rationalities of Planning in Perth, 1955–2010

“…By the early 2000s, the "interpretive, communicative turn in planning theory" (Healey, 1997: 28) was firmly established -some would say dominant Yiftachel and Huxley, 2000) -in the academy. This entailed an understanding of knowledge, social relations, ethics and rationality as constructed through discourse, as well as a normative commitment to participatory democracy, at least insofar as this meant the inclusion of affected people in informed, principled decision making.…”

“…Attention turned to social institutions and institutional capacity (Healey, 2005a(Healey, , b, 2007Healey et al, 2002), complemented by increasing reference to "governance" as a framing idea (Coafee and Healey, 2003;Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003;Healey, 2004b) for understanding planning agencies" engagement with partners in the private and civil sectors. Critiques of the communicative focus of the 1990s (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998;Yiftachel and Huxley, 2000) were accompanied by calls for a return to the physical focus of planning -a "spatial turn" (Davoudi, 2009) which would place attention back on the product ("the plan") and outcomes of planning. Traditional land-use plans lost traction in favour of "spatial" plans which provided strategic frameworks for a broad range of place-related issues (Albrechts, 2004), increasingly informed by a relational view of geography, with space shaped by networks of social relations and activities (Graham and Healey, 1999).…”