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ABSTRACT
This paper proposes approaching the emergence and evolution of the Europeanization of national planning using conceptual frameworks from historical institutionalism in order to shed light on the mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change arising from the influence of EU strategic planning. It seeks in particular to examine Europeanization in terms of the extent to which EU spatial planning has become a driving force for institutional changes in very different national planning systems. Returning to the changes that occurred in the Italian and English planning systems in the last two decades, the author provides insight into the attempts to insert and transpose EU spatial planning concepts and instruments into domestic systems, dealing with path dependency and European influence. By reading these processes from a historical institutionalist perspective, the paper aims to enhance understanding of the relative influence of European spatial planning on national planning systems, identifying mechanisms and trajectories of domestic change in different planning systems. Key findings concern the diverse modes and degree of institutionalization of EU strategic spatial planning, examining tendencies to replace the status quo through displacements in England and to progress through a path-dependent trajectory in Italy.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Valeria Lingua is assistant professor in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florence, Department of Architecture, where she is scientific director of the Regional Design Lab. Her research interests are concerned with spatial planning and regional design, with a focus on cooperative governance in strategic planning practices at regional and local levels.
Recent research activities concern the rescaling of planning systems and spatial planning across local boundaries, in the framework of a research project founded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research within the SIR Programme (Scientific Independence of young Researchers), aimed to support young researchers at the start of their independent research activity.
Notes
1 Faludi, “Positioning European Spatial Planning.”
2 Böhme and Waterhout, “Europeanization of Planning,” 232.
3 Faludi, “EUropeanisation or Europeanisation of Spatial Planning?” 155.
4 Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, “Europeanisation of Spatial Planning”; Janin Rivolin and Faludi, “Southern Perspectives on European Spatial Planning.”
5 Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation; Colomb, “Added Value of Transnational Cooperation”; Nadin and Stead, “European Spatial Planning Systems.”
6 ESPON 2006 Policy Impact Projects 2.3.1 ESDP Impact and 2.3.2 Governance (https://www.espon.eu/main/Menu_Projects/Menu_ESPON2006Projects/Menu_ThematicProjects/) and ESPON 2013 applied research project TANGO-Territorial Approaches for New Governance (https://www.espon.eu/main/Menu_Projects/Menu_AppliedResearch/tango.html, last accessed 21.03.2016).
7 Gualini, ‘“New Programming’ and the Influence of Transnational Discourses”; Multi-level Governance and Institutional Change; Twedwr-Jones and Richard, European Dimension of British Planning.
8 Giannakourou, “Europeanization of National Planning.”
9 Janin Rivolin, “Conforming and Performing Planning Systems in Europe”; Giannakourou, “Europeanization of National Planning”; Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation; Böhme and Waterhout, “Europeanization of Planning”; Waterhout, Institutionalisation of European Spatial Planning.
10 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously.”
11 Collier and Collier, Shaping the Political Arena.
12 Goodin, “Institutions and Their Design.”
13 Olsen, “The many faces of Europeanization.”
14 Acknowledged by Faludi’s contribution in this session.
15 Boèhme and Bengs, From Trends to Visions, 9–10.
16 Albrechts, Patsy, and Kunzmann, “Strategic Spatial Planning and Regional Governance in Europe.”
17 Waterhout, Institutionalisation of European Spatial Planning.
18 Janin Rivolin, “Shaping European Spatial Planning,” 68.
19 Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation, 362–7.
20 Capoccia and Kelemen, “Study of Critical Junctures.”
21 “Spatial Planning and Policy Integration.”
22 Giannakourou, “Europeanization of National Planning”; Lenschow, Liefferink, and Veenman, “When the Birds Sing.”
23 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 28.
24 Gualini, “Challenges to Multi-level Governance,” 620.
25 Börzel and Risse, “When Europe Hits Home.”
26
Thin learning occurs when an actor learns how to cope with a problem without changing preferences. For example, a member state can devise a new strategy to meet a EU target for social inclusion. By contrast, thick learning implies a change in preferences. For example, a member state may change its paradigm of labour market regulation as a consequence of its involvement in the European Employment Strategy. (Radaelli, “Europeanization, Policy Learning, and New Modes of Governance,” 244)
27 Mahoney and Thelen, Explaining Institutional Change.
28 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 28–31.
29 This is not only the case of most constitutional revisions, but also of new planning laws and policies that build on the prior system, and of the addition of new measures such as the EIA or SEA procedures in existing development control systems. See Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 30.
30 Mahoney and Thelen. Explaining Institutional Change, 18.
31 Waterhout, Institutionalisation of European Spatial Planning.
32 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 33.
33 Faludi and Waterhout, Making of the European Spatial Development Perspective.
34 Janin Rivolin and Faludi, “Southern Perspectives on European Spatial Planning.”
35 Janin Rivolin, “Conforming and Performing Planning Systems in Europe.”
36 Janin Rivolin, “Shaping European Spatial Planning.”
37 Tewdwr-Jones, Bishop, and Wilkinson, “Euroscepticism, Political Agendas and Spatial Planning.”
38 In particular, the Environmental law seems to have had the major impact on national legislation. See Tewdwr-Jones and Richard, European Dimension of British Planning.
39 Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation, 363.
40 Shaw and Sykes, “European Spatial Development Policy.”
41 Nadin and Stead, “European Spatial Planning Systems,” 41.
42 This document, delivered by the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions (2001), was intended explicitly to open the debate on the reform.
43 Nadin, “Emergence of the Spatial Planning Approach,” 45.
44 Tewdwr-Jones, Bishop, and Wilkinson, “Anatomy of Spatial Planning”; ODPM, Delivering Sustainable Development; Raco, “Sustainable Development, Rolled-Out Neoliberalism.”
45 Nadin and Stead, “European Spatial Planning Systems,” 41.
46 Swain, Marshall, and Baden, English Regional Planning 2000-2012.
47 Allmendinger and Haughton, “Post Political Spatial Planning in England”; Haughton, Allmendinger, and Oosterlynck, “Spaces of Neoliberal Experimentation”; Kunzmann, “Spatial Planning.”
48 Glasson and Marshall, Regional Planning.
49 CLGC, Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies.
50 Baker and Wong, “Delusion of Strategic Spatial Planning”; Baker, “Intervention or Interference?”
51 Dabinett, “Doing Strategic Planning Differently?”
52 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 25.
53 Conservative Party, “Control Shift” and Open Source Planning; Taxpayers Alliance, “Case for Abolishing Regional Development Agencies.”
54 Haughton and Allmendinger, “Spatial Planning and the New Localism.”
55 At the end of this plan preparation process, the DtC is conceived as legal evidence to demonstrate strategic issues have been undertaken appropriately for the plan being examined. PAS, Simple Guide for Strategic Planning; CLGC, Abolition of Regional Spatial Strategie.
56 Allmendinger and Haughton, “Challenging Localism.”
57 Allmendinger and Haughton, “Evolution and Trajectories of English Spatial Governance,” 18.
58 Haughton, Allmendinger, and Oosterlynck, “Spaces of Neoliberal Experimentation”; Allmendinger and Haughton, “Evolution and Trajectories of English Spatial Governance”; Olesen, “Neoliberalisation of Strategic Spatial Planning.”
59 Allmendinger and Hougton, “Evolution and Trajectories of English Spatial Governance.” They refer to neoliberalization theories and to a temporalization of neoliberalism in planning to identify six distinctive periods (eras) of planning between 1979 and 2010, highlighting for each one dominant paradigms for policy innovation and signature policy moments.
60 Boddy and Hickman, “‘Cambridge Phenomenon’ and the Challenge of Planning Reform.”
61 Baker and Wong, “Delusion of Strategic Spatial Planning”; Swain, Marshall, and Baden, English Regional Planning 2000-2012; Lord and Tewdwr-Jones, “Is Planning ‘Under Attack’?”
62 The Planning Advisory Service (PAS) first launched a campaign to enhance strategic planning within the framework of the duty to cooperate and now offers a scale of support for Local Planning Authorities in the making or updating of their local plans.
63 Lingua, “Strategic Planning in England in the Era of Localism.”
64 Cowell and Owens, “Land Use Planning,” 58–67.
65 Colomb, “The Added Value.”
66 Morphet, Janice (2013), How Europe Shapes British Public Policy, Bristol, Policy Press, cited in Cowell, “The EU Referendum,” 157.
67 Burn et al., EU Referendum and the UK Environment.
68 Cowell, “EU Referendum, Planning and the Environment.”
69 CEC, EU Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems; ESPON, Governance of Territorial and Urban Policies; Nadin and Stead, “European Spatial Planning Systems.”
70 Servillo and Lingua, “Innovation of the Italian Planning System.”
71 Janin Rivolin, “Conforming and Performing Planning Systems in Europe”; Cotella and Janin Rivolin, “Europeanization of Spatial Planning Through Discourse and Practice in Italy.”
72 Lingua and Servillo, “Modernization of the Italian Planning System.”
73 Janin Rivolin, “Shaping European Spatial Planning,” 64.
74 These procedures were experimentally adapted at the national level to manage the funds dedicated to these programmes, inducing local administrations to partake in transparent competitions based on defined criteria. Gualini, “New Programming … ”.
75 Fedeli and Gastaldi, Pratiche strategiche di pianificazione; Sartorio, “Strategic Spatial Planning.”
76 Cotella and Janin Rivolin, “Europeanization of Spatial Planning,” 47.
77 Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning.
78 Servillo and Van den Broeck, “Social Construction of Planning Systems.”
79 Lingua and Servillo, “Modernization of the Italian Planning System.”
80 This reform represented the formalization of an already-in-place process of regional planning differentiation started in the 1970s when regions were given extended legislative powers, also over spatial planning. But it was at the turn of the new millennium that the regional level became the centre of innovation, nonetheless with different forms and speeds. Various regional laws have emerged in the last two decades highlighting different approaches, with important differences in terms of instruments and their names, procedures, objectives and functions. The major innovation resulted in the constitutional reform concerning the change in the denomination of field of planning competences from ‘urbanism’ (urbanistica) to ‘government of the territory’ (governo del territorio), representative of a wider approach to spatial dynamics concerned with territorial policies rather than urban master-planning. See Vettoretto, “Planning Cultures in Italy”; De Luca and Lingua, “Evolution in Regional Planning.”
81 Servillo and Lingua, “Innovation of the Italian Planning System.”
82 In 2005, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport launched a process of experimentation in the regions of Southern Italy, encouraging major cities to engage in ‘strategic planning’ processes to obtain financial resources within the framework of the regional allocation of EU structural funds. For an account of these ‘voluntary experiments and special tools’, see Fedeli, “Planning in Italy.”
83 Salet and Gualini, Framing Strategic Urban Projects; Zanon, “Scaling Down and Scaling Up Processes.”
84 Servillo and Lingua, “Innovation of the Italian Planning System.”
85 Lingua, “When a Planning Tier … Disappears!”
86 Cotella and Janin Rivolin, “Europeanization of Spatial Planning,” 44.
87 Shaw and Sykes, “Investigating the Application of the ESDP” and “European Spatial Development Policy.”
88 Nadin, “Emergence of the Spatial Planning Approach,” 49.
89 Cotella and Janin Rivolin, “Europeanization of Spatial Planning,” 44, 47.
90 Nadin, “Emergence of the Spatial Planning Approach,” 45.
91 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 29.
92 Tsebelis, “Veto Players and Institutional Analysis,” 443.
93 Nadin and Stead, “European Spatial Planning Systems,” 41.
94 Allmendinger and Haughton, “Evolution and Trajectories of English Spatial Governance.”