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PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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longstanding, ongoing and mutually inspiring, yet often contradictory discourses related<br />

to the objectives of transport and land-use development in Europe.<br />

Over the course of the last few years, Tim Richardson and Ole. B. Jensen have<br />

published several articles applying a discourse theoretical approach to European Union<br />

policy in the areas of transport and spatial development (Richardson 1996; Richardson<br />

and Jensen 2000; Jensen and Richardson 2001). They employ Foucauldian discourse<br />

analysis and declare their intellectual affinity with Bent Flyvbjerg’s work on rationality<br />

(or rather: Realrationalität) and power in planning. This present chapter is in many ways<br />

complementary to their ongoing research, although it is overall somewhat less explicitly<br />

Foucauldian than their work. The other obvious influence is Maarten Hajer’s work on<br />

environmental discourse and storylines (also see below). The central proposition of this<br />

chapter is what I term the “Conflicting-Storylines” proposition. It assumes that<br />

1) EU decision-making for Pan-European transport investments lacks consistence<br />

and sustainability due to the existence of several, partially complementary, but<br />

also partially competing EU development objectives, and<br />

2) these objectives are in turn expressed through several, partially conflicting<br />

Leitbilder and spatial storylines. 1<br />

So this chapter focuses on identifying the specific discursive practices by means<br />

of which the European Union advances its underlying eco-modernist transport investment<br />

rationales. Note that this chapter is deliberately limited in scope in the sense that there is<br />

an explicit focus on infrastructure investments, thus excluding discourses that are more<br />

1 A Leitbild (guiding vision) can be very broadly understood as an overarching storyline. For more precise<br />

definitions, see below.

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