PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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different approach, moving away from narrow three-part definitions of sustainability and
sustainable transport. Instead of seeking to further define the concept of sustainability,
and considering how EU policies measure up against this definition, I seek to describe
and analyze the larger discursive framework in which EU definitions of sustainable
transport are being formulated and advanced as policy. In a sense, I take the very
existence of the tern “sustainable transport” as indicative of a larger phenomenon, namely
the rise of environmental concerns in modern societies. We thus enter a much broader
debate over different approaches to the environment and to development more generally.
3.3 Modernity and Modernization: Some (Meta-)Theoretical Considerations
3.3.1 A Discourse Analytical Approach to Planning & Policy-Making
How can we restore the concept of rationality in light of post-empiricist/postmodern
challenges? Such questions can hardly be avoided when taking a discursive
approach. Many regard it as the core challenge for planning and policy-making in the
21 st century (also see chapter 3). Rather befittingly, Frank Fischer and John Forester
opened their 1993 volume on The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning
with the following question: “What if our language does not simply mirror or picture the
world but instead profoundly shapes our view of it in the first place?” One possible
response is that we need to pay closer attention to rhetoric, albeit without forgetting
reality (i.e. power relationships).
Fuelled by the publication of Maarten Hajer’s (1995) well-argued and wellreceived
book The Politics of Environmental Discourse, there has been a rapidly evolving
literature on environmental discourses in planning and public policy. Its interdisciplinary