Planning Corruption or Corrupting Planning?

Abstract

Problem, research strategy, and findings Here we illuminate the often overlooked, yet pernicious impacts of corruption in planning. We used a sequential mixed-methods approach, inclusive of a survey of 82 planning practitioners in Ghana and semistructured interviews with 17 of these survey respondents, to investigate planners’ experiences of corruption. We found that incentives for corrupt behaviors, structured by the particularities of planning culture, are necessary but insufficient to unpack corruption in planning, both in and outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Personal values and coercion also play roles in incentivizing corruption. We also learned that practitioners rely on social coping mechanisms to resist corruption, which speaks broadly to practitioners monitoring themselves when institutional corruption controls seem weak or nonexistent within a planning culture. Further research across planning cultures is called for to develop planning curricula and practices that can help students and professional planners understand and resolve corruption and other moral dilemmas specific to their planning contexts. Takeaway for practice Practitioners, educators, and students must better understand corruption and how it complicates planning. This understanding requires examining how workplace norms and cultures (re)produce coercion among practitioners, especially among gender, ethnic/racial, and other minority practitioners. Planning schools, professional associations, and workplaces must respond to these corruption realities by purveying context-sensitive anticorruption competencies to students and practitioners.