The Babel Fish Toolkit: Understanding and Using Behavioural Mechanisms and Interventions in Landscape Planning

Abstract

A better understanding of the general mechanisms influencing individual choices and of the specific rationales of politicians could help to put greater emphasis on environmental planning information in political decision-making. The aim of this paper is to show, in the context of landscape planning, how the uptake of environmental concerns could be improved by better understanding the behavioural mechanisms of politicians and by preparing environmental findings in a way that directly addresses the “language” and behavioural patterns of politicians. By adapting findings from behavioural sciences to the field of landscape planning, we can identify the following ways of how the use of environmental planning information could be enhanced in policymaking processes: First, to design the planning and decision process by differentiating the decisions according to whether they can be taken in an intuitive or analytical way, and by expanding the role of planning to accompany the decision-maker in the decision process. Second, to propose a behavioural toolkit that allows landscape planning to process the planning content into a system that encourages the uptake of landscape planning objectives by (i) setting defaults, (ii) simplification and competition, (iii) disclosure of information, (iv) splitting complex decisions, (v) reframing consequences in terms people care about and (vi) ownership.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christina von Haaren

Dr Christina von Haaren is Full Professor for Landscape Planning and Nature Conservation at Leibniz Universität Hannover. She has worked as scientific advisor to the German government on several environmental and planning committees. Prior to her university career, she was engaged in practical planning.

Frank Othengrafen

Dr Frank Othengrafen is Associate Professor for Regional Planning and Governance at Leibniz Universität Hannover (2013–present day). He was previously Visiting Professor at TU Dortmund and HafenCity Universität Hamburg. His interests lie in the fields of urban and regional planning and governance, planning theory, international comparative planning and planning culture.