PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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creator of an idea or storyline. Rather, the key to discursive success in the world of
communicative competition is the successful constitution of consensual meaning through
adapting and re-defining a universally appealing storyline. 9
Storylines cluster
knowledge, position stakeholders and, ultimately, create coalitions. In identifying four
major spatial storylines which have provided justifications for EU infrastructure
assistance in the transport sector, I adapt Hajer’s concept of storylines to the particular
case of transport infrastructure decisions in the European Union.
6.3.2 The Context: The Trans-European Transport Networks (TENs)
The idea of developing a coherent map of Trans-European Transport
Infrastructure pre-dates the European Union and was already actively discussed in several
other international forums, especially within the UN Economic Commission for Europe
and within the OECD/European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT). The
concept of the so-called international E-routes was developed in the 1980s, but this was
9 Note that Hajer especially turns his attention away from agency when he defines his second key element
to his “argumentative approach” (a phrase borrowed from Forester and Fischer, 1993): discoursecoalitions.
The concept is somewhat ambiguous (p.65):
Discourse coalitions are defined as the ensemble of (1) a set of storylines; (2) the actors who utter these
storylines; and (3) the practices in which this discursive activity is based. … Discourse coalitions are
formed if previously independent practices are being actively related to one another, if a common
discourse is created in which several practices get a meaning in a common political project.
According to this definition, discourse coalitions are an amalgam of language, of people and of the rules
governing people’s behavior at the same time. Note the use of the passive voice in the second part of
Hajer’s definition, indicating that in contrast to typical uses of the term coalition, referring to groups of
actors, the emphasis in Hajer’s definition is not on the people who make up the coalition, but rather on the
storylines that are “seen as the discursive cement that keeps a discourse-coalition together” (p.65). Hence
“storylines, not interests, form the basis of the coalition” (p.66). Nevertheless, Hajer subsequently
recommends “searching for politics in new locations, looking for the activity of the actors who produce
storylines” (p.66). He proceeds to use ecological modernization as an example to illustrate the concept of
discourse coalitions. Yet in the end, the relationship between the developed discourse and the discoursing
subjects remains unclear in Hajer’s definition of discourse coalitions. Most importantly, the role of the
creators of a storyline are left ambiguous inasmuch as it is uncertain whether the creators of a particular
storyline consciously develop this story line for use in a particular political (or social) context, or simply
happen to come up with it “by chance.” As we will see in our example of different discourses surrounding
EU transport infrastructure decision-making, both is possible.