PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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An understanding of these different meta-theoretical differences is important since
only three of the five identified discursive frameworks, namely ecological modernization,
reflexive modernization, and communicative rationality can be said to operate as
modern(ist) frameworks in the sense that they do not reject the Enlightenment project and
the Rational model. The Ecological Modernization framework is the most unabashedly
modernist framework of the five. Within the Reflexive Modernization framework, Ulrich
Beck predicts the rise of new “counter-modernities” but nevertheless assumes that these
will arise as a result of a break within modernity, rather than as an indication of its end.
Meanwhile, Communicative Rationality approaches base their discursive framework on
Jürgen Habermas’ Enlightenment-inspired ideas of communicative action and ideal
speech situations (see especially Habermas 1984). By contrast, the Political Economy
framework unites an amalgam of various pro-modern, post-modern and even anti-modern
views all aimed at formulating a broad range of arguments for greater social and
environmental justice in decision-making. Last but not least, the renunciation framework
features strongly nature-focused approaches such as Deep Ecology, radical
environmentalism or Gaia, which could be categorized as anti-modern.
3.3.3 Reconceptualizing Planning and Policy-Making?
To date, the modernity – post-modernity debate continues to rage in the planning
and public policy literature at full speed (see e.g. Brand 1999; Fainstein 2000;
Allmendinger 2001; Allmendinger 2002a), with some even proclaiming a “postpostmodernist”
perspective (Turner 1996; Alexander 2000). Although planning as a
discipline was once deemed to be a bastion of instrumental rationalism and positivism,
Also see the note on Sabatier’s Advocacy Coalition Frameworks later in this chapter.