Introduction

This chapter examines the possibilities of simultaneously achieving consistent recommendations, democratic values, and liberal qualities in public planning processes. The study is a contribution to planning theory and the related fields of policy analysis and public administration. The chapter focuses on communicative planning and the logical possibilities of combining dialogical values with efficiency and consistency. The term ‘critical pragmatism’ is sometimes used when the critical function of dialogical and participatory planning processes is accentuated. The core of the social choice branch of economics is the examination of hard trade-offs between non-cycling decisions on the one hand and political ideals like democracy, liberalism, and unmanipulated decision processes on the other. The basic assumption of social choice theory is that individual preferences are to influence collective decision-making or, in the present context, the recommendation of a planning alternative. The meaning of an ‘institution’ varies across the disciplines of social science although it often refers to a stable, valued, recurring pattern of behaviour.