Social dilemmas and the communicative planning paradox

Abstract

A few years ago Judith limes wrote a stimulating assessment of communicative planning theory, in which she asserted that... a new type of planning theorist is beginning to dominate the field. These theorists make the gap complaint between theory and practice moot because they take practice as the raw material of their inquiry. In this they differ from their predecessors, who did primarily armchair theorising and systematic thinking about planning. (Innes, 1995, 183)1The word 'dominate' especially has captivated me, since it not only reflects the perception of the author about the work of many of her colleagues, but it becomes more clear if we read further:They (the communicative action theorists) cross reference each other and build on each other's work (for example Forester and Healey), while referring only infrequently to the work of the systematic thinkers. They address different subjects and questions for different purposes, and they use different methods of inquiry and standards of evidence than do the systematic thinkers. (Innes, 995, 183)2Evidently this picture corresponds to the 'theory of scientific revolutions' of Kuhn, but if we accept this explanation what does the observation of Innes actually mean? In my view at least two things-first, that communicative planning theory is developed without much communication with the outside 'armchair theorising' planning community. The search for 'shared values' is apparently more appropriate for planning practice than for the academic planning world. Second, if Kuhn's theory is applicable in this situation, then we know that the current 'dominance' of communicative planning will be replaced sooner or later by another 'paradigm'. Clearly an academic must recognise that all 'paradigms' including those fashionable today will have both advantages and disadvantages. A critical question then is will the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?No doubt the communicative ideology has an obvious meaning in current planning practice, as it is also clearly demonstrated by among others Healey (1997) and Faludi and Korthals Altes (1994). It may be a coincidence, but its popularity remarkably coincides with the current political 'libertarian' climate that appears to be dominated by the adage 'steering by the market'-a concept that currently seem to be embraced in Europe by both 'right wing' and 'left wing' politicians. This alone should make any academic suspicious and fortunately some are.This paper is the result of some 'armchair theorising by a systematic thinker' about communicative planning. The point of departure of this paradigm is the assumption that reality is socially constructed rather than that 'facts' can be known. Its epistemology is based on multiple forms of understanding which are beyond the reach of science and technology, at least according to the proponents of this paradigm. Communicative planning takes many forms of which collaboration, persuasion, learning, mediation, negotiation and bargaining are essential ingredients.3 Although there exist different views and interpretations of communicative planning, the terms 'communicative', 'participatory' and 'collaborative' will be regarded as equivalent for the purposes of this paper. Communicative planning is in this paper interpreted as a 'pro-active' way of planning with and by stakeholders. It is not the intention of this paper to argue against collaborative or participatory activities in planning, which are no doubt necessary requirements for good planning. However, I want to show that communicative planning is not the 'Holy Grail' some enthusiastic proponents seem to suggest.In her propagation of the communicative paradigm Innes (1995, 184) lists a number of problems that 'systematic thinkers' could not 'solve', such as:* the tragedy of the commons (Hardin, 1968), the prisoner's dilemma (Rapaport and Chammah, 1965), the failure of collective action (Olson, 1965);* 'wicked problems' because of shifting problem definitions and the impossibility of aggregating incommensurable values (Rittel and Webber, 1973);* the limitations of systematic analytic methods, like cost-benefit analysis (Rivlin, 1971);* the indeterminacy of the implementation process (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973);* the inevitability of uncertainty in goals and technology for planning problems (Christensen, 1985);* the impossibility of aggregating the public interest so that its optimisation can be amenable to rational systematic analysis (Altshuler, 1965; Lee, 1973). …