Monitory Democracy as Citizen-driven Participatory Planning: The Urban Politics of Redwatch in Sydney

Abstract

This article analyses a case of citizen-driven participation in urban planning in Sydney, Australia. Drawing on a case study of the local resident action group REDWatch the analysis is undertaken within the context of the hybrid forms of technocratic, participatory and neoliberal planning that are operating in the New South Wales planning system. Framed by the concept of monitory democracy, the analysis explores the four key features of monitory forms of civic action: (1) monitoring powerful social actors; (2) encouraging difference, disagreement, debate and change; (3) making formal power structures more transparent and accountable; and (4) fostering new forms of informal political power. The findings demonstrate that analyses of formal community consultation events and participatory planning policies are far too narrow to determine the civic utility of citizen participation in planning. Expanding the analytical borderland beyond the formal structures of the planning system exposes important informal citizen participation practices that are operating from outside of planning systems. Unlike formal state-driven participatory planning events and policies, these informal citizen-driven participatory planning practices can deal with planning hybridity and conflict, which are increasingly central to many contemporary planning systems.