ABSTRACT
Spatial planning aspires to be an interdisciplinary and cross-cutting coordinator of sectoral policies and decisions with spatial impacts, including those concerned with the environment, infrastructure and regional economic promotion. In the course of ever-changing social and spatial challenges, it has to continually reposition itself, proving its social value and long-term capacity to function and solve problems. Thus, for instance, Friedmann states that 'within any given setting, planning must continuously reinvent itself as circumstances change. In contemporary societies, politics, institutions, economies, technologies and social values are all subject to continuous, often radical, change, so planners often feel beleaguered, their profession perpetually on the brink of an existential crisis'. This refers to both the formal and the informal institutions that determine planning practice. The research on Europeanization has contributed new insights and explanations on the relationship between agency and change and on the impact of supra-national politics and policies on domestic institutions.
