PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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“discourse coalitions” and “storylines”, while immensely attractive as an analytical
method, is sometimes too lenient in its assumptions about initial stakeholder preferences.
In my view, personal agency and deliberate agenda-setting by particular actors tend to
disappear from view when structural discourses are over-emphasized. Consequently, the
following chapters represent an attempt to “rescue” discourse theoretical approaches for
theorists like myself who are extremely wary of overstating the social constructivist case.
At this point, it is also necessary to emphasize a fundamental difference between
at least two different camps of “discursively-minded” researchers in the field of planning
and policy analysis. On one hand, there are researchers who, like myself, are interested in
employing discourse-centered strategies to better understand the rationality of urban,
regional, transport planning and/or environmental policy. In this case, discourse analysis
is mostly seen as a means to an end. Closer attention to language is seen as a helpful
device for revealing underlying rationales for decision-making and power relationships
(see especially Hajer 1995; Richardson 1996; Flyvbjerg 1998; Baeten 2000). Note that
for me, this means learning from Foucault and rejecting the excesses of instrumental
rationality, but it does not necessarily mean adopting a full-blown poststructuralist
position which questions rationality as such. In particular, it should not mean reneging
on an overall political economy perspective which is predominantly concerned with
issues of equity, redistribution and social justice.
However, contrary to such more Foucault-oriented scholars, there is one other
main strand of discourse theory. This second group of scholars relies heavily on the work
of Jürgen Habermas. To them, the question of how discursive interaction is organized
becomes itself the key question that determines what is “good” versus “bad” planning