Urban transport, the environment and deliberative governance: the role of interdependence and trust

Abstract

Today, actors in policy making and planning are often faced with demands of handling conditions characterized by increasing fragmentation, differentiation and complexity. In response to an apparent limited reach of traditional monocentric and top-down governing in dealing with those conditions, a range of deliberative and more interactive governance approaches have emerged. This article discusses the central role of interdependence and trust in such approaches, based on three cases, Aalborg (DK), Lund (S) and Groningen (NL), in which environmental objectives and strategies have materialized in local transport policy making and planning. The cases offer illustrative examples of policy processes and collaboration in which the development (or lack) of interdependence and trust have been decisive. In a concluding prescriptive endeavour, several aspects are tentatively suggested as being relevant in searching for new formats for collaboration and deliberative governance and, in particular, for generating trust among interdependent actors. The concluding remark holds that deliberative governance can illuminate conflicting relations and provoke or massage those early in policy and planning processes; conflicts that would have emerged and backfired on the process anyway. The early discovery in such processes of problems, imbalances and differences in interests and opinions may improve the chance to establish and implement workable compromises on goals and solutions.

Keywords:

• Governance
• deliberation
• collaboration
• policy making
• planning
• environment