Planning as agonistic communication in a trading zone: Re-examining Lindblom’s partisan mutual adjustment

Abstract

The article re-examines Charles E Lindblom’s theory of partisan mutual adjustment (PMA), by reflecting on the recent ideas on cross-cultural cooperation and communication, developed in sociological studies of science and technology. While the critical arguments of the so-called communicative (or collaborative) planning theorists on PMA are well known and well placed, they may have overlooked the complexities of planning communication. Especially Peter Galison’s concept of ‘ trading zone’ offers a fresh outlook on these complexities. In the article, Lindblomian bargaining and compromise-seeking are re-interpreted in terms of creating a local trading zone between the stakeholders representing different cultures of meaning and value. This approach challenges two assumptions that have become commonplace in the planning theoretical debate around PMA: firstly, that trading between interests would not necessitate mutual dialogue and generation of a realm of shared understandings, and secondly, that approaching planning communication as trading between interests would mean adopting the political ideology of (neo)liberalism.