ABSTRACT

Politics and Conflict in Governance and Planning offers a critical evaluation of manifold ways in which the political dimension is reflected in contemporary planning and governance. While the theoretical debates on post-politics and the wider frame of post-foundational political theory provide substantive explanations for the crisis in planning and governance, still there is a need for a better understanding of how the political is manifested in the planning contents, shaped by institutional arrangements and played out in the planning processes. This book undertakes a reassessment of the changing role of the political in contemporary planning and governance. Employing a wide range of empirical research conducted in several regions of the world, it draws a more complex and heterogeneous picture of the context-specific depoliticisation and repoliticisation processes taking place in local and regional planning and governance. It shows not only the domination of market forces and the consequent suppression of the political but also how political conflicts and struggles are defined, tackled and transformed in view of the multifaceted rules and constraints recently imposed to local and regional planning.

Switching the focus to how strategies and forms of depoliticised governance can be repoliticised through renewed planning mechanisms and socio-political mobilisation, Politics and Conflict in Governance and Planning is a critical and much needed contribution to the planning literature and its incorporation of the post-politics and post-democracy debate.

part I|1 pages

Existing and Emerging Paradigms on Spatial Planning and Governance

chapter 2|17 pages

Crisis in Planning Theory

20Is the Political a Way Out of the Impasse in Planning?

chapter 3|18 pages

Planning and Governance

Towards Radical Political Approaches

part II|1 pages

Conflict in Governance and Planning Practices

chapter 4|16 pages

Multilevel Power Relations and Planning Conflicts in a ‘Land of Exception’

59The Case of the Sughereta Di Niscemi Reserve in Sicily

chapter 5|18 pages

Engaging in Politics of Participation

Managing Power through Action Research

chapter 6|19 pages

Different Understandings of ‘Public Interest’ as a Source of Conflict

Portuguese Spatial Planning and Practice

chapter 7|18 pages

The Conflict between Free Market Capitalism and Social Policies

Mexican Housing Policy

part III|1 pages

New Attempts to Overcome the Post-Political Trends in Planning and Governance

chapter 9|18 pages

Politicising the Regional Scale?

The Politics of Metropolitan Governance in Germany, Canada and Brazil

chapter 10|17 pages

Local Welfare Governance and Social Innovation

The Ambivalence of the Political Dimension

chapter 11|18 pages

Politicisation of Community Development

Universities as Boundary Objects

chapter 12|20 pages

A Counter-Movement to ‘Place-Less’ Power

Planners as Progressive Place-Based Leaders

part IV|1 pages

Reflections and Conclusions

chapter 13|16 pages

Scientific Knowledge and Decision-Making in Planning

226Understanding Emotional Aspects

chapter 14|14 pages

Afterword

I Am Realistic. I Expect Miracles