Strategic planning and republicanism

Abstract

The paper develops two main linked themes: (i) strategic planning reveals in practice limits that are hard to overcome; (ii) a complete planning system is efficacy only in the framework of a republican political, social and government culture. It is argued that the growing disappointment associated to strategic planning practices, may be due to excessive expectations, and the difficulties encountered by strategic planning are traced to three main issues: (a) the relationship between politics and planning; (b) the relationship between government and governance; and (c) the relationship between space and socioeconomic development. Some authors recently supported an idea of development as consisting in the qualitative evolution of forms of social rationality and argued that a reflection about the relationships between physical transformations and visions of development could be a way of testing innovations. But such strong demands might be satisfied only if we manage to make a 'new social and territorial pact for development', recreating a social fabric imbued with shared values. The re-creation of a social fabric imbued with shared values requires a rich conception of the political community and the possibility that the moral purposes of the community may be incorporated by the state. All this is missing today. Outside a republican scheme planning activities are principally instruments for legitimising vested interests and facilitating their investments, and the resolution of the conflicts that arise between the planning decisions of the various levels of government becomes at least impracticable. A complete planning system can be practised if can be referred to the authority and syntheses expressed in and by statehood, which suggests that in a democratic system planning is republican by necessity rather than by choice.