This is a revised personal version of the article that is published in Environment and Planning A. Please cite as: Van Assche, K., Duineveld, M. & Beunen, R. (2014) Power and Contingency in Planning. Environment and Planning A, 46 (10): 2385 – 2400 More papers can be found on the website governancetheory.com
Power and Contingency in Planning Kristof Van Assche, Martijn Duineveld, Raoul Beunen Kristof Van Assche is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Extensions, University of Alberta, Canada, Wageningen University, the Netherlands and Centre for Development Research, Bonn University, Germany | Martijn Duineveld is Assistant Professor at the Cultural Geography Group at. P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands
[email protected] | Raoul Beunen is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Management, Science & Technology, Open University, and visiting researcher at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
Abstract. In this paper we analyse the role and reception of poststructuralist perspectives on power in planning since the 1990s, and then ask whether a renewed encounter with the works of poststructuralist theorists Foucault, Deleuze, and Luhmann could add something to the points that were already made. We make a distinction between the power of planning (the impact in society), power in planning (relations between players active in planning), and power on planning (the influence of broader society on the planning system), to refine the analysis of planning/power. It is argued that an interpretation of Deleuze, Luhmann, and Foucault, as thinkers of power in a theoretical framework that is based on the idea of contingency, can help to refine the analysis of power in planning. Planning then can be regarded as a system in other systems, with roles, values, procedures, and materialities in constant transformation, with the results of each operation serving as input for the next one. The different power relations constitute the possibilities, the forms, and the potential impact of planning. Keywords: power, contingency, acting space, governance, evolution
Introduction Power is an important and often debated concept and issue in contemporary planning. This importance is reflected in the literature on the political character of planning practices (Flyvbjerg, 1998b; Swyngedouw et al., 2002), on the ways planning deals with conflicting interests and perspectives (Pløger, 2004; Hillier, 2002; Gunder and Hillier, 2009), and on the possibilities for planners to make a difference in society (Grange, 2012; Miraftab, 2009). The current prevalence of the topic owes much to the efforts of a group of power theorists in the 90’s, who opened the door to a renewed reflection on power in planning, after a period of relative silence. We can mention among others Flyvbjerg (1998b; 2001; 2004), Hajer (1995; Hajer and Versteeg, 2005), Yiftachel (1998, Yiftachel and Huxley, 2000), Allmendinger
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(Allmendinger and Tewdwr-Jones, 2002), Hillier (2002, but already Hedgcock et al., 1991), Throgmorton (1996), Tewdr- Jones (Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998), Crush (1994), or Fischler (2000). Their appearance in planning can be seen as a belated arrival of postmodernism in planning, a tardiness understandable in a discipline and field often closely associated and identifying with governments steeped in high modernist ideologies of knowing, steering and remoulding society through spatial interventions (Scott, 1998; Ferguson, 1994; Hillier, 2002). Many of these theorists were inspired by authors now often described as poststructuralist: including Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, and Barthes. Foucault, who explicitly focused on power relations in government and society, and on the functions of expertise in governance, figured most prominently in the thinking of the power theorists in planning. With all the differences between the early post- structuralists from the 60’s and 70’s (in the case of Lacan arguably even earlier) and between the later planning theorists, one can say that what seeped through in most cases was the idea of a social, discursive, construction of reality. Science lost its privileged access to truth and science- based planning had to be scrutinised carefully in its claims. Planning in the Foucault- inspired perspective introduced then, appears as inherently political, and ought not to present itself as a value- neutral and/ or scientific endeavour (Flyvbjerg, 1998a). It operates in a field of contested and shifting forms and expectations of state power and within that, planning power (Hillier, 2002; Hajer, 1995). It requires a mix of formal and informal institutions to exert influence (Wood, 2009; Van Assche et al., 2012a). Planning, in this perspective, takes place in a fragmented society, marked by networks mixing state and non- state actors, and all of these can use or oppose planning (Rydin, 2010; Booher and Innes, 2002; Munro, 2000). Moreover power and knowledge are intimately entwined in any institutionalised form of planning. This is the case in each step of the process, from the definition of issues, actors and procedures, to the forms of reinterpretation in implementation, and the strategic uses of maintenance and neglect (Scott, 1998; Ferguson, 1994; Gunder, 2010). By now many planning scholars believe reflections on planning should carefully reexamine its assumptions, like its discursive construction and the embedded power relations, and carefully avoid mixing up wish and reality, description and prescription (Yiftachel, 1998; Yiftachel and Huxley, 2000; Fischler, 2000). Since the wave of power theory in planning in the nineties many of these ideas have become commonplace. Nonetheless, we argue, there are a couple of reasons for further reflection. Firstly, both in theory and in practice, some of the lessons have sunk in only superficially. Many authors pay lip- service to some of the tenets above, but then happily proceed to mix prescription and description, to exaggerate the power of social engineering, to assume a unity of community that is clearly fictitious, to omit any substantial reflection on 2
assumptions or on the form of democracy that is implied in research, planning and/ or the plan (for the critiques, see Gunder, 2010; Moulaert and Cabaret, 2006; Van Assche and Verschraegen, 2008; Wood, 2009; Allmendinger and Haugton, 2007). Some of this is can be ascribed to funding politics, and to existential anxiety in the (anticipated and feared) absence of modernist forms of government. It can also be ascribed to the influence of neighbouring disciplines where a positivist mind-set lingered on for a longer time, e.g.: environmental studies, transport studies and development studies (Abbott, 2012; Ferguson, 1994; Latour, 2004; Miller, 2002). Another reason is that in the analysis of power, in planning and in other disciplines, much has happened, and one cannot purely present recent developments as filling in the details of the picture that emerged in the nineties. Different lines of post-structuralist investigation continued to alter and expand the repertoire of images of planning and power, e.g. the recent work on complexity and non-linearity (Van Assche and Verschraegen, 2008; De Roo and Silva, 2010). In this paper we want to revisit some of the post- structuralist tenets on power already present in planning theory, bring new developments under the attention, and re- articulate a set of older and newer insights in a new frame, organised around the ideas of positionality (the place of planning in society) and contingency (Pottage, 1998; Teubner, 1989). Contingency, as that what is possible, but not necessary, as that what is but could have been different, has a philosophical lineage dating back to Aristotle. It was revived by medieval scholastics, then largely forgotten in the Renaissance and subsequent philosophies looking for universal principles and laws. It re-entered academic debates with structuralism (Levi- Strauss, Greimas) and in post- structuralism it accumulated new meanings. We will investigate the utility of such post- structuralist expanded version of contingency, for the understanding of power and planning. We argue that planning theory can benefit from the understanding of power as essential to the daily functioning of a planning system, the continuous evolution of a planning system and the dynamic relations with its environment. Understanding these different manifestations of power can shed a new light on the way planning comprehends itself and its environment, and on the ways it tries to organise itself and its environment. We therefore distinguish power in planning and power of planning, and we connect the steering attempts of planning with its attempts to know itself and the world it aspires to intervene in. We also pay attention to the influence of society on planning, on planning systems and practices, and speak there of power on planning. Power of planning, we will argue, cannot be understood without reference to power on planning and power in planning, and power in all these forms can only be comprehended as interwoven with knowledge, as part of power/ knowledge configurations. This basic conceptual structure already owes much to the insights accrued by the application and development of various lines of post- structuralism (e.g. Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Lacan, Luhmann, Latour) in more policy- oriented research. Although we cannot give a 3
comprehensive overview of both planning theory and post- structuralism here, we intend to indicate which concepts and perspectives are still useful to rethink power in, on and of planning. The scheme of power in/on/of planning helps to structure insights in power dynamics stemming from different strands of post- structuralism in a way that might facilitate a revisiting of the positionality of planning. Using the scheme as an ordering principle, we assemble a version of post- structuralist power theory that helps to deepen the analysis of planning practice and the role of planning in society. Leaning on the work of Alain Pottage, who combined in novel ways Deleuze, Luhmann, Foucault and Latour in power analysis, and also leaning directly on Luhmann, Deleuze and Foucault, we emphasise the potential role of contingency as a cornerstone concept of a theory of power and planning. An orientation on contingency can give a sharper delineation of the positionality of planning in society and of the possibilities and limitations to influence that society from a certain position. Before introducing such conceptualisation of power and planning we reflect on the historical presence of power in planning theory. We contextualise and analyse the role and reception of perspectives on power in planning since the sixties, a genealogy of power concepts in the context of planning theory that adds to the understanding of that discursive landscape. This we believe to be helpful in our reformulation and development of post- structuralist power concepts in that same context.
Power in planning: it comes and goes as a topic of reflection Power is not a new topic in planning. In the seventies, Friedmann (1971, 1973) discussed in detail power relations and their importance for local and regional economic development, as well as the restrictions they impose on planning as a practice of policy integration. Earlier already, case studies had shown that in the delineation of preferable scenarios for future development, and notably in their implementation, power, its use and abuse, was something that could not be overlooked (see for example Forester, 2001; Fischler, 2000). Davidoff (Davidoff, 1965) and other advocacy planners wanted to bring planning closer into the orbit of politics. It was also acknowledged that planners themselves, supposedly representing ‘the people’ in a quest for the common good, availed themselves of various power tactics and strategies that would appear questionable now (e.g. Jacobs, 1961; Hardy, 1991). Robert Moses in New York can be mentioned as one of the giants of planning that knew how to play the power game to push his plans forward, against the resistance of many (Brown, 1986). Already early on, planning had its critics, and many of those critics referred to the questionable legitimacy of planning and planners, to the questionable accumulation of power in the hands of planners and networks around them that escaped democratic control (Gunder, 2010). Also its steering power was questioned (Boyce, 1963; Friedmann, 1973). In the sixties and seventies, a neo- Marxist wave of critique could be noticed in the literature of mostly 4
neighbouring disciplines, a perspective that often analysed the planning enterprise as de facto reproducing the socio- economic status quo of certain classes and elites (Harvey, 1973; Henri, 1968; Kiernan, 1983). In the seventies, policy analysts in the line of Wildavsky added to the choir of planning sceptics, doubting not only the realism of many planning expectations, but also the democratic quality of both policy formation and implementation (e.g. Wildavsky, 1979). One could observe a parallel movement more clearly located within the planning discipline, where planners were seen as the ones that had to deal with power (negatively defined) in their quest to further the common good (most famously: Forester, 1989). Many planners were aware early that the plan- making process itself could be captured by various interest groups, and that plans could be routinely ignored, reinterpreted, selectively enforced or misrepresented after adoption (see e.g. Friedmann’s reflections, Friedmann, 2008). In other words, from the early days, planners in the US and in Europe were forced to think about power on a daily basis, and had to devise strategies to navigate the minefields of a practice that was always politicised. Even when and where planning as such was embraced and theoretically legitimised, many planners were aware that their power could not be taken for granted. They were aware that it was not limitless, and that their work required a continuous reflection on the balance of power. Yet, when in the late nineties, Michel Foucault’s work seeped into planning academia, it caused a shock (Lacan, Deleuze and Latour arrived later -see below). The works of the power theorists mentioned above all drew the attention to a widely experienced philosophical shift towards post- structuralism, and some included in the discussion its philosophical predecessors, such as Nietzsche and Machiavelli (Flyvbjerg, 1998b; Hillier, 2002). Some of the critics (e.g. Forester, 2001) pointed out that not much new could be found. A combination of factors can help us to understand both the irritation and the fascination the ‘power theorists’ of the 90s evoked. By now, with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that indeed the claim of discovery of the irrational and of power games in planning was exaggerated, partly for rhetorical effect. This exaggeration can also be explained by the ascendance in the previous decade of communicative planning theories, often inspired by Habermas, who portrayed power as something negative, as oppressive. Good planning was the search for power- free deliberations (e.g. Healey, 1997; Forester, 1989; Sager, 2006). In other words, the emphasis on (Habermasian) rationality caused a Freudian return of the repressed, a new discovery of irrationality and of power in all its guises (e.g. McGuirk, 2001). Rediscovery of power was rediscovery of context, of the multiple embeddings of planning in society. Also outside that communicative paradigm, the topic of power had been lingering in the shadows of the discipline. The spur of neo- Marxist interest in the 60s and 70s mostly took place in geography, sociology, political science and philosophy. Many planners had gone back easily to a silent identification with the powers that be (cf. Wildavsky, 1979; Friedmann, 1998; 5
Hoch, 1992). Baum in 1983 noticed the ambiguity many planners felt about discussing power (Baum, 1983). Simultaneously, both in politics and in academia, many voices questioned both the steering power and the legitimacy of steering ambitions of the state. Both neo- liberal critiques and leftist critiques seemed to argue for a smaller state, and for a shift from government to governance (Wildavsky, 1979; Hardy, 1991; Hajer, 1995; Hillier, 2002). This was a fertile ground for a renewed reflection on the position of planning. And, as said, the new theorists’ post- structuralist leanings were felt more as shocking in planning than in most other disciplines, because of usually tacit assumptions regarding the possibility of direct access to truth, either through (rational) science or (rational) discussions, an access seen as a precondition for intervention (Scott, 1998; Miller, 2002).
Conceptual frame: revisiting power and finding contingency We define planning broadly as the coordination of policies and practices affecting spatial organization (Van Assche and Verschraegen, 2008). This definition enables us to look at a wide variety of planning practices and aspirations. Power we understand, at this initial stage of definition, and in line with much of the Foucauldian- inspired planning literature, as something that is always present and consist of ‘relations that exist at different levels, in different forms; (…) power relations are mobile, they can be modified, they are not fixed once and for all’ (Foucault, 1997, p. 291-292). Power should be understood ‘as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization; as the process which, through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them; as the support which these force relations find one other, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them from one another’ (Foucault, 1998, p. 92). It produces some discourses, realities, knowledge, subjects, objects and values and pushes others into the background (Foucault, 1998, p. 81-102, cf. Foucault, 1994). Alain Pottage shows, drawing on Luhmann (largely absent from planning theory) and an extensive knowledge of the full conceptual trajectories of Deleuze (very recently proliferating in planning theory) and Foucault, that for all three, reality consists of events, and that over time, recursive repetition of events leads to new structures, with both elements and structures, both objects and subjects, to be considered products of transformation and starting points for further transformation (Pottage, 2004; Pottage, 1998). This comes close to Deleuze’s concept of the fold (Deleuze, 1993), Lacan’s idea of a gap (Žižek, 2003; Žižek, 2012) or Luhmann’s differentiation (Luhmann, 1989; Luhmann, 1995), as the creation of discontinuities that need continuous reproduction to stabilise temporarily. In this perspective, Foucault’s later assertion that ‘power comes from power’ (1994, p. 238) and his perspective that power is always relational, appears more meaningful. Power in 6
process, is power that needs to be reproduced in a recursive manner, from one event to the next one. Pottage persuasively argues that such concept of power, away from object- subject distinctions, away from moralising too, and away from rigid subject- structure distinctions, is the only way to read the late Foucault consistently (Pottage, 1998). This concept of power helps to preserve the two meanings of power, as the fuel of the universe (a Machiavellian legacy) and as, in one small sub- domain, the potentiality emerging in relations between individuals and structures. It allows seeing power as a relational effect and understanding the performative effects of particular attribution of power to objects or subjects (c.f. Allen, 2003). In Deleuzian terms, one can speak of embedded machinic assemblages, with different evolutionary speeds. Pottage’s interpretation brings Deleuze, Foucault and Luhmann closer to each other, in insisting on the importance of contingency concepts in structuring their theory, and their understanding of power and strife (cf. Pløger, 2004; Mouffe, 2000). Contingency itself acquires a new meaning in this reinterpretation of the post- structuralists: not only the idea that the identity of something is not necessarily as it is, but more radically, the idea that literally everything is contingent: elements, structures, relations and operations. A contingency that is only compatible with a structured universe because of the recursive operations of power. “In place of ontological substances and structures, 'emergence' deals instead with structures, processes and theories that produce themselves out of their own contingency” (Pottage, 1998, p. 3). It is this theory of emergent elements and processes that furthers the laterFoucault’s notion of power “clearly and unequivocally distinguished from 'sovereign' or 'repressive' power” (ibid p. 25) and that creates new linkages and compatibilities between the different post- structuralists, between their visions of what is and what can be. Both the actual modes of reproduction of discourses, systems, machines, and the ascriptions regarding elements, structures and effects in this reproduction, embody power and have power effects. Such contingency perspective is gaining ground in complexity theories and it has produced novel insights in the working, effects and limitations of steering and coordinaton attempts in disciplines like economics, law, and public administration (MacKenzie et al., 2007; Walker et al., 2008; Teubner, 1989). Structures and elements, subjects and objects, all evolve in a manner that relies on power (Foucault, 1994; Foucault, 1976; Foucault, 1975) and none are entirely stable. In policy and planning, this entails that no insertion of a new formal institution can be equalled to a new de facto coordinative structure, while no new structure can alter reality by itself. It is precisely in the continuous interaction between objects and subjects, between elements and structures, between discourses and materialities, that realities are changing (Pottage, 2004; Duineveld et al., 2013). As we will see, giving such contingency concept central place in planning theory alters the perspective on the impact of plans and planning, while allowing for an agency of space, both planned and unplanned. 7
Power in, on and of planning Contributing to the developments sketched above, and for the reasons mentioned in the introduction, we will now refine the analysis of planning/power and for that we distinguish three foci of attention: power in planning, power on planning, and power of planning. Power in planning refers to the mechanisms of power that mark the planning system itself. Understanding power in planning is about understanding the relations in the planning system. Power on planning refers to the influence of broader society on the relations in the planning system. Power of planning refers to the impacts of planning discourses and practices in society at large. This can entail literal implementation and partial implementation, but it can also entail various political, economic, social and cultural effects. For each relation, we will highlight contributions from different lines of research, different lines of post- structuralism to the understanding of each relation. Some of the concepts introduced are new, others not so much, and among those, some have been introduced previously to planning theory, others not. We indicate, as far as possible their provenance, novelty and added value. This also helps to further clarify the structure and genealogy of our perspective and its added value. Power in planning Within the context of planning, power relations define not only the strategic interactions between actors, but also the definition of actors, issues, realities, problems, methods and solutions (Hillier, 2002, cf. Ferguson, 1994). Following Foucault, we consider power omnipresent in the construction of possible and desirable futures in the planning system: in micro and macro- relations, strategies, tactics, institutions, knowledge, and in the framing of what is real, possible and desirable (Gunder and Hillier, 2009). The planning system needs an image of the outside world to operate on, as well as tools to implement decisions, plans, and policies in that outside world. Complexity theory (e.g. Chettiparamb, 2006; Innes and Booher, 2010; De Roo and Silva, 2010; Beunen and van Assche, 2013) and social systems theory (e.g. Van Assche and Verschraegen, 2008; Valentinov, 2014) argue that the reduction of complexity within the planning system enables it to reproduce itself and to interact with society at large, while at the same time this reduction obscures many features of that larger reality. This is similar to Foucault’s observation that the selectivity of discourse at once opens up reality and closes alternative interpretations (Foucault, 1969; Foucault, 1975). Internal complexity of the planning system is needed to accommodate a model of the outside world that is subtle enough to operate upon, but on the other hand, an established model becomes quickly entrenched and easily obscures alternative planning options and strategies (Luhmann, 1990). The focusing of attention creates a grip on the world but in the long run, by necessarily closing off other understandings (and their 8
institutionalization), the trade-offs can be less understanding, steering and control (cf. also Latour, 1996). A second aspect of the reduced internal complexity is that in a large organization, or in a web of organizations, power is just as well the power to block as the power to push (cf. Foucault, 1994). Blocking can take the shape of hiding information, slowing down, spreading rumours, evading responsibility or action, undermining legitimacy or public image, and so forth. If a planning system becomes more complex, there are many cogs to hamper it, and the cogs tend to be less visible (Luhmann, 1990). If one considers planning an activity that is not limited to the state apparatus, then the relation with the various faces and evolutionary stages of power that Foucault described, have to be assessed in that light (Sayer, 2004). Indeed, whether in the form of juridical power or bio- power (Foucault, 1976), the state cannot be seen as a single- handed creator of objectivity and subjectivity (Kooij, 2014). It is in the game of interactions between state and non- state actors that these actors receive their shape and role (cf. Hillier, 2008). Such assertion is in line with the late Foucault, where power became dissociated from intentionality and subjectivity more clearly, and with a Deleuzian perspective of planning as assemblage (Allen and Cochrane, 2010; Pottage, 1998). An insight from actor- network theory (a rather recent variant of post- structuralism, tracing its lineage via Latour to Foucault) that can be incorporated here, is that in this game of powers material objects can play various roles (Sayes, 2014). That is, objects can be more than passive resistance. They can have agency and be actants, actively co-guiding the development of planning (Latour, 1996; Rydin, 2010 for a pointed defence). One can think here of infrastructure and irrigation networks, but also of physical spaces that clearly result from previous planning efforts, as objects upholding legitimacy and underpinning the versions of reality circulating (for strong parallels in development policies see Scott, 1998 and Ferguson, 1994; for the organizational scale Czarniawska-Joerges, 2008). If one looks at the productivity of planning in this manner, it is also easier to reconcile Foucault with the insight of Deleuze and Luhmann that reality is made up of events, events that occur and leave no trace (DeLanda, 2006; Deleuze, 1988). Indeed, in our contingency concept (introduced above), drawing on a combination of the three authors, structures appear in a process of emergence, of recursive repetition. Moving closer to planning, and adding to the older presence of post- structuralism in planning theory, one can say that structures, such as discursive structures, but also configurations of actors and institutions, appear and disappear, and are part of an emergent order that is immanent, but at the same time perfectly capable of constraining the internal and external linkages that make up actors in a governance network (DeLanda, 2006; Hillier, 2008). Again in Deleuzian terms, but drawing on the newly integrated conceptual frame presented here, one can say that a planning system, as the web of actors, rules, documents, and built spaces, that reproduces itself, can be presented as a mutual 9
imbrication of a machinic and an enunciative assemblage (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004), together capable of producing a wide variety of effects. Power on planning The external influences on the planning system cannot be discussed without reference to its internal mechanics. In A thousand plateau’s, Deleuze and Guattari (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) seem to dismiss planning together with the project of the modernist state intending to order its territory by means of oppressive gestures and molar thinking. Also for the early Foucault (e.g. Foucault, 1966; Foucault, 1969) planning would have looked as an activity strongly tied to power/knowledge regimes that lost legitimacy. Yet, as Hillier (2008) and others have pointed out, both planning practice and planning theory have transformed and opened up themselves in so many ways, that the association between planning and the enterprise of high modernist state craft does not seem warranted anymore. If one tries to grasp the array of influences of society at large on the planning system, and consider the multiplicity of potential relations between planning and society, it makes sense to place Deleuze in line with many mainstream theories giving importance to complexity and evolution, such as institutional economics and social systems theory (Van Assche et al., 2014). Planning requires a level of complexity, a series of emergent orders enabling a structure of interaction that is not only capable of machining, of relating various elements and producing somewhat predictable effects, but also of stabilising itself for a while. One could argue that the move from modernist planning to more flexible and adaptive forms of spatial governance represents a new ‘plateau’, a new pattern of interactions that represents an evolutionary achievement. This does not stop evolution however. Actors in the planning system, as well as the role of planning in society and the role of government in society will keep evolving. This irrevocably changes the effects of society on planning, but also the effects of planning in society. The decoupling of power and intentionality, present with Foucault (see e.g. Fischler, 2000), Deleuze (DeLanda, 2006) and Luhmann (Van Assche and Verschraegen, 2008), ought to be remembered here. In our developing perspective, this de-coupling is compounded by a dissolution of ‘actors’, and the emphasis on contingency, which implies that linkages between actors, intentions and effects are observer-dependent descriptions that are or could have been different for different observers (Borch, 2005). What counts as an actor is very different in different places and times and the effects of their actions are related to their intentions in myriad manners (Yiftachel, 1998; Hillier, 2002; McFarlane, 2009). In addition, the consistencies in these intentions are shaped and reshaped continuously (Hardy and Leiba-O'Sullivan, 1998; Flyvbjerg, 1998a). The plans themselves can be called actants, and what was said about actors also applies to them. External factors influencing their internal functioning and internal or external factors shaping 10
their role in the world, can shift at any moment, and the reconstruction of the reasons for these shifts will often have to follow the intricate and unpredictable pathways of the rhizome, unveiling unexpected linkages between individual or collective desires, anxieties, concepts, objects, and instances of pure coincidence (Hillier and Gunder, 2005). Disappointments in society with planning, or with a political party, with an ideology, with a certain life style tied to images of collective identity, events that are felt as traumatic, pasts that are reinterpreted, all these can cause shifts in the planning system and the position of planning in society, and thus affect the dynamics of power there (Wildavsky, 1979; Friedmann, 1971; Gunder, 2010). This perspective also has direct implications for the types of knowledge that play out in the internal games of the planning system. Certain actors identify with certain discourses, either scientific or otherwise, and in other cases they deploy them to maintain or improve their position in the system (See e.g. Hoch, 1992, but, again, Friedmann, 1998 and especially 2008). Competition, as a productive tensions between different perspectives, tends to speed up the transformations of power/knowledge configurations and to speed up the selection and delineation of actors in the system, and of shifts in the pattern of linkages between the web of planning actors and their environment (Van Assche et al., 2011). Changes in society affect directly or indirectly the forms of knowledge that can play out within the planning system, either adopted by actors in the system, or by adding and removing actors (Gunder, 2010; Hardy, 1991; Kiernan, 1983). Since planning is also a form of spatial policy integration, there will be a need to decide on first ordering principles, in terms of types of knowledge allowed to order space first and in terms of types of use. Power of planning The power of planning in society, as in the effects of planning in society, has to be considered, as mentioned before, extremely varied. If we maintain the combination of contingency and interdependency (in distributed agency) envisioned by Deleuze, Luhmann and the late Foucault, then the effects of efforts at spatial coordination in society can be wildly varied. This does not at all mean that planning has no use or that we have to assess the effects of plans and planning as negative or futile, because what usually happens is different from what was at some point predicted or desired. One does not need implementation or steering in the sense imagined by the modernists to make ongoing attempts at coordination of spatial policies and practices worthwhile. Rather it implies that the assessment of planning effects cannot be reduced to a set of categories produced within the planning system (Allen and Cochrane, 2010; McFarlane, 2009). For understanding the impact of planning in society, it is useful to remember that although the overt function of planning is coordination, the success of planning hinges on the dissemination of its articulations in society, that is: the distribution and acceptance of 11
concepts, strategies, forms, and materialities (Van Assche et al., 2012b). Hence Luhmann’s famous assertion that planning is possible if people are used to being planned (Luhmann, 1997, p. 41). The planning system, and society at large, can be seen as interlocking assemblages, each capable of producing lines of flight, of conceptual innovation, including new ways to consider the future (Hillier, 2008). The imaginary order can be considered an immanent pool of resources for these endeavours (Žižek, 2004). Planning fantasies can be potentially totalitarian, and they can be emancipatory. Fantasies in and of the community at large can restructure the imaginary of planning, and, under certain circumstances, it can also happen the other way around. ‘Steering’ and ‘implementation’ look different in this unfolding perspective. Luhmann’s assertion is compatible with what can be deduced from the late Foucault and Deleuze on steering and implementation. Our integrated perspective therefore helps in establishing the afore- mentioned middle ground between cynical apprehension of steering attempts and blind belief in the possibilities of steering. Indeed, actions can have effects that are predictable to a certain degree, but an interpretation of effects as results of steering remains just that: an interpretation (Luhmann, 1990; Luhmann, 1995). Power in this sense, as Grange, drawing on Dryberg, has argued, should be understood as that which authorises the retroactive construction of the ability, authority or identity to plan, as if this was a presupposed capacity, possible to posit in the subject (Grange, 2012; Allen, 2003; similar to Seidl, 2005 on organizational strategy). A further reduction of steering ideology into one concept of ‘implementation’ makes it only more difficult to observe the process of linkages between players, objects, and knowledges that can produce effects (Wildavsky, 1979; Scott, 1998; Ferguson, 1994). It obscures the productive structure of the machinic and enunciative assemblages even more. A related ideology, compounding the opacity, is that of politics (and planning as a helper) as the centre of society, enabling it to have a full and ‘objective’ overview of society, improving its chances to successfully intervene in society (Luhmann, 1990; Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). Thus, assumptions of steering, implementation and politics, compound to veil the view of the functioning of the assemblages from within. This combination of machining and veiling the machining (of producing and naturalising the product) is a classic trope of post- structuralism, but can appear now as grounded in a more generally applicable theory of power, and the link with distributed agency makes a balanced re- assessment of steering in planning more easy. Lacanian- inspired research in planning (Gunder and Hillier, 2007; Hillier and Gunder, 2005; Wood, 2009) and beyond (Žižek, 2003, 2004, 2012) can help us to grasp why these steering ideologies persist, despite disappointment after disappointment, and why they inspired successive phases of overconfidence and lack of confidence in the power of planning 12
(Both Wildavsky, 1979 and Friedmann, 2008, report this wavering). Planning is underpinned by interlocking phantasmagoric constructions, and planning theory ought to entail a reflection on this substructure of planning, it ought to be a traverse of the fantasy, in Lacanian terms (Hillier and Gunder, 2005). Yet, ‘fantasy’ sounds too negative and draws one away from the performative and coherence- creating functions of the imaginary order (Žižek, 2012; Žižek, 2003).
The imaginaries of planners, the planning community and the community at large, in other words, can resonate in patterns that are hard to predict, with different desires competing, sometimes attenuating, sometimes magnifying each other. In a Deleuzian perspective, each planning process can be described as a game of de- and re-territorializations that reshape the planning machine in each case. Yet, if planners consider this, there is still a danger of to silently assume that what makes the planner more powerful is good for the community, so the strategies to advocate for more planning are considered legitimate in advance (Hoch, 1992; Fischler, 2000; Gunder, 2010; Grange, 2012). An empowering role in society could better be described as a continuous vigilance, in making society sensitive to new combinations of powers, actors, values, objects and places. We believe that the specific simplifications of the world pertaining to high modernist ideologies (Scott, 1998) created indeed a powerful position for planning in society. It also created a tendency to de- politicize planning activities, since consensus and assumed neutrality allow for expert prominence (Wildavsky, 1979; Hoch, 1992). It produced a nostalgia with many planners for days of prominence, and a continuous identity crisis. Both the ideological underpinnings of planning and its cognitive limitations are forgotten over and over again, and cognitive closure makes it harder to adapt. Friedmann noted, in 1971: ‘Wisdom has it that to be a good planner is to be acutely aware not only of what our work can reasonably be expected to accomplish, but also what it cannot; as professionals, we have to be aware of our cognitive limitations’ (p. 251). Žižek, (2004), talking about the powers and dangers of cyberspace, as a place where reinvention of futures and identities is maybe too easy, sees a way to tame the beast: ‘This, then, opens up the possibility of undermining the hold a fantasy exerts over us through the very overidentification with it, i.e., by way of embracing simultaneously, within the same space, the multitude of inconsistent fantasmatic elements’ (p. 381). This might apply to planning too, where, to open up the cognitive closure lamented by many, an exaggeration might be one therapeutic way to become aware of the fantasmatic character of a planning ideology that sustains itself by excluding reflection on the power- structures upholding it. Then, it might become clear, but also easier to accept, that for some places and problems spatial planning might not be the most appropriate answer and that where planning does emerge, it might be without planners bearing the label ‘planner’ (Abbott, 2012). This however, should not lead us to 13
abandon the project of planning. It is just that some of the assumptions regarding the power of planning and planners are metamorphosed remnants of a modernist ideology.
Discussion and conclusion Distinguishing between power in, on, and of planning is useful to explore and disentangle the different foci of attention in the power/ planning debates, and to integrate known and not so familiar post- structuralist strands of thought for the analysis of planning in society. It allows us to see planning as a system within society where power-relations constitute the possibilities, the forms and the potential impact of planning. Using and developing the concept of contingency, we show how the co-evolution of the planning system and its environment is driven by the productive collisions between irreconcilable perspectives in a pattern of agency that is far more distributed than usually assumed. It involves more relations and possible patterns of relations, yet also more possible states of temporary stability, heightened predictability of effects and coordinative power. Co- evolution means that changes on one side spur changes on the other side, and that the structure and functioning of one side can be explained by looking at the history of the two sides and their form of relation. The positionality of planning in a particular case is therefore to be understood as the result of a coupled evolution of planning and society. Power of and power on planning are to be analysed as two sides of the same coin, as the dual force driving the evolution. Power in planning is framed by that duality. The mechanics of power in planning can be deduced from the specific entwining of the two other aspects of power. Changes in the relationship between power of and power on planning are bound to affect power in planning, while changes in the power landscape in planning itself only have wider effects if mediated by a particular position of planning in society. Actors, their patterns of interaction, and the potentiality embedded in these interactions are emerging and contingent structures. They arise out of events, to which they cannot be reduced (DeLanda, 2006; Pottage, 1998; Sayer, 2004). Recursive events enable evolution and self- transformation. Power, in such perspective, is the force in the contingent construction and reconstruction of the elements that constitute planning. Power is located in synchronic and diachronic relations; relations in networks of discourses and materialities, structures and elements, subjects and objects. All these networks reproduce themselves, with the previous state of the world as the input for the next one. Such recursivity is important, since it explains the crystallization of identities and structures in and by assemblages, social systems, or dispositifs (for Deleuze, Luhmann, Foucault respectively). Neither individual agency, nor structures ‘explain’ power, or are the essential point of intervention. Rather should agency be seen as distributed, ambiguous, and evolving.
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Remaining within the same perspective, one can also account for power in the more narrow sense, as the potential to get things done, in planning, and for planning in society. This potential exists, but is subjected to the mechanics of contingent reproduction of society and its elements described above. Power as the potential to influence is continuously reshaped. The configuration of potentialities is both the outcome as well as the precondition for the recursive operations of power. Just as the subjects, their values, and the power attributed to them, can only be understood as ‘folds’, or temporary discontinuities and densities in the fabric of reality, the power relations between subjects are subjected to the same processes of selftransformation. Cause, effect, intentionality and its cohesive version, rationality are considered ascriptive (and a posteriori) in character. Also references to values, and associated descriptions as oppression and subjugation emerge in the same process. Spatial planning, as the coordination of policies and practices affecting spatial organization, cannot assume stability in actors, values and procedures. Places assigned to ‘actors’ and the recognition as actor are already political gestures. Political gestures have to be recognised as such, as they will confer more power and stability on these actors and make their values more prominent. This is not an argument against planning in its many forms, like participatory planning, it is an argument for reflexivity in planning and for the recognition of planning as politics. Very similar points can be made and have been made about policy analysis and public administration (Wildavsky, 1979; Miller, 2002), environmental studies (Hajer and Versteeg, 2005; Luhmann, 1989), and development studies (Ferguson, 1994; Escobar, 1988; Abu-Lughod, 1990). Also in management studies, steering power has been systematically overestimated and lack of reflexive insight in power relations is mentioned as one of the main reasons (Seidl, 2005; Czarniawska-Joerges, 2008; Hardy and Leiba-O'Sullivan, 1998). The idea that planners can know, either in advance or during the process, what is good for a community or what is the best procedure to get there is a trace (in the Lacanian sense of a stain) of a modernist configuration of power. A configuration whereby planners silently take the role of the king, the position that enables overview, a unified perspective that can define the place of everything (Pottage, 2004; Luhmann, 1990; Scott, 1998). The stress on contingency does in no way diminish the potential power of planning. It does undermine the hopes of ever stabilising a planning system or of ever perfectly tying it to a community. This point, both critical and hopeful, emerges from our integrated perspective on power, from a contingency perspective that stresses emergence, continuous reconstruction, distributed agency and a homology between power on planning and power of planning. It can help in finding a middle ground between radical deconstructions of planning as oppressive or completely disconnected from the life in communities, and, on the other hand, overly optimistic expectations regarding the steering power of planning and a perfect fit with a community.
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Our perspective establishes connections between power in/on and of planning. It shows planning as self- transformation, shaped by previous states of planning, current states of society, modes of coupling between them. It shows new sources of flexibility in planning, unexpected effects of actions and ascriptions, and unobserved agencies that can modify planning efforts. Discerning new linkages between power in/on/of planning makes it impossible to define a priori each aspect. Agency and effects in any direction can only be grasped after understanding the whole. Looking back at the evolution of the power discussion in planning, it is even clearer now that the reception of post- structuralist perspectives on power was deeply entwined with the identity politics of the discipline and the profession, traditionally identifying with government, community or civil society (Van Assche et al., 2013). Indeed, as Friedmann (1971; 1973; 1998; 2008) and others (Brooks, 1988; Hoch, 1992; Hillier, 2002; Gunder, 2010) indicated again and again over the decades, the drive to be applied in the ‘real’ world often led to limited theoretical efforts and a limited understanding of that ‘real’ world. This was bound to lead to never ending disappointments in practice. Unfortunately, the self- referential character of the planning community usually led to a further doubting of theory, or calls to tie theory even closer to current practice (to bridge a ‘gap’). Yiftachel (in Flyvbjerg, 2001, and echoing older observations by Friedmann and Wildavsky) speaks of ‘a normative and inward- looking discourse’ (p. 291). The anti- intellectual slant made it even more difficult to introduce new insights and made it more likely to jump on new, hastily assembled theories (such as communicative planning) that seemed to promise straightforward application and a regained prominence of planning in society. It also made it more likely to be recaptured in positions that reinforced the status quo (Gunder, 2010; Harvey, 1973; Jaret, 1983; Scott, 1998). Luckily, a more diversified reflection on the roles of planning in society has developed over the last few decades. The post- structuralist power theorists of the nineties, we believe, played a major role in this development. In deepening the engagement with theoretical developments outside planning, and building on the insights already taken, we think a contingency interpretation of post- structuralism, bringing Foucault, Deleuze and Luhmann closer to each other in their conceptualization of power, is useful to consider. Such conceptualisation offers a refinement of power-analyses in planning as well as additional insights in the dialectical relation between planning and society. It puts forward an evolutionary perspective that recognizes how traces of the past shape the existing structures that are the precondition for transformation of the planning system. Contingency therewith provides further insights in the way planning efforts build upon existing configuration of power/knowledge and of actors and institutions, and it allows for a more realistic delineation of the spaces for change.
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Much in line with the tradition of American pragmatism (Pellizzoni, 2003), it looks like continuous reflection in governance, as an organisation of friction between perspectives, and an organised sensitising for alternative world- views, is of the essence if one wants to avoid the emergence of governance systems that are experienced as oppressive. Increased reflexivity and flexibility might avoid a situation where planning is seen as ‘an old-fashioned, static ideology devised chiefly to advance the interest of a few professions in climbing to positions of dominating influence in the society’ (Friedmann, 1971, p. 317).
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