Between Input Legitimacy and Output Efficiency: Defensive Routines and Agonistic Reflectivity in Nordic Land-Use Planning

Abstract

The article describes tensions generated in land-use planning practices in Norway, Finland and Sweden, due to the shift towards New Public Management in actual governance practices, while the ideals of deliberative democracy in planning discourses and legislation have been retained. These tensions are studied empirically by making comparative observations of planning systems and practices in each country. The theoretical approach is developed by combining democracy and legitimacy theories with double bind theory and organizational learning theory. Based on this theoretical work, the article offers insights for reflectivity on the tensions. The Nordic ideal of deliberative democracy, expressed in the primary aims of our planning laws, may prohibit open acknowledgement of the uneasiness which follows from the fact that liberal democratic values (rights of landownership, free enterprise, etc.) are also secured. Thereby planners act and speak in terms of mixed messages, potentially habituated into defensive routines that may prohibit metacommunication on the basic tensions. The idea of agonistic reflectivity is offered as an approach to planning, which would acknowledge the tension between input legitimacy and output efficiency as a legitimate condition in itself, requiring ongoing political debate where the tension has to be continually discussed without actually ever being resolved.

Notes

http://www.plan-og-bygningsetaten.oslo.kommun.no/planer_og_foringer_2/vedtatte_omradeprogram_mv.

According to Wilden, “[i]t is a necessary function of pathological communication to deny its own pathodology at some level while admitting and using it at other levels” (Wilden, 1980, p. 210).

Argyris (1993, p. 148). Metacommunication is communication about communication. It is a message that frames another message (or other messages), by defining the context against which this message is supposed to derive its meaning (see Bateson, 1987, pp. 186–89). Examples of metacommunicative messages are, “I was telling the truth!”; “I am not speaking to you as your employer, but as your friend”; “I love you”. Every concept metacommunicates that which it represents. The specific property of language is that it can talk about itself; that is, it can metacommunicate (Wilden, 1980, p. 171).

Originally published in the article: Bateson et al. (1956).

For a closer study of double binds in the land-use planning context, see Mäntysalo (2000). In this work, also the potentialities for reflection and creativity, inherent in Bateson's concept of double bind, are discussed. In the context of organizations, Engeström and his colleagues have made important methodological development in utilizing the potential of double bind situations to transcend their own contradictions (Engeström, 1987, 1995, 2008). In philosophy, Bateson's double bind theory has influenced authors, such as Wilden (1980), Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1995) and Deleuze and Guattari (1984, 1988). Associations have also been made to Nietzsche (Brigham, 2001, p. 390) and Derrida (Brigham, 2001, pp. 382–383; Wilden, 1980, p. 399). Concerning planning research, Bateson's general approach to communication has influenced Forester (1989). Argyris has influenced planning research especially through his collaboration with Donald Schön.