Controlled Decontrolling: Involution and Democratisation in Dutch Rural Planning

Abstract

The debate between proponents of collaborative planning theory and their critics on the dynamics of power in planning highlights a discrepancy between the norms and the practices of democratic planning. According to the norm of democratic planning, all participants should have an equal opportunity to influence and to realise a plan's objectives, but practice has shown that power is unequally divided between people, privileging some and excluding others. This raises the important issue of how normative aspirations of deliberative planning can be reconciled with actual planning practices. This article discusses this question, exploring the power relationships and institutional transformations that influence planning using two case studies about conflicts over Dutch rural land use.

Keywords:

• Rural planning
• power
• institutions
• involution
• The Netherlands

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the AESOP congress The Dream of a greater Europe, in Vienna, 13–17 July 2005 and at the Nordic Symposium Local Planning and Change in Uppsala, 18–20 August 2005. It is part of a doctoral dissertation completed at the Department of Rural Sociology at Wageningen University, concerning the way in which value-conflicts in rural land use policy are resolved in practice. The authors would like to thank the editors and three anonymous referees of the journal, Sofie Joosse, Arnold van der Valk, Terry van Dijk and Timothy Beatley for their valuable comments on this article.

Notes

 1. Despite his lucid concept of the “double bind of power”, Foucault (1978 [2000b], p. 336) fails to give an account of how these two dimensions of power function in society simultaneously. In his early work he showed that the way in which we understand ourselves, our own identity, is a historical and cultural product of power relations. In his later work he focused on how power “works”, i.e. how we necessarily invoke power relations when we act.

 2. It is argued that this consensual tradition originated in the time of the Dutch Republic (1588–1795) when the political system was based on a spreading and sharing of power in a highly decentralised federation. Political decisions always required long and intensive accommodation and compromise. The traditional plurality and dissensus required consensus-building institutions (Hendriks & Toonen, 2001; Mels, 2005).

 3. The case of the Koningsdiep Land Consolidation Project is reconstructed through the use of literature (Bouma, 1961; Bouma & Nijboer, 1963), project documentation from the TRESOAR archive in the city of Leeuwarden, and from articles in the local newspapers Friese Koerier and Drachtster Courant.

 4. The Nature Policy Plan (Natuurbeleidsplan), the Fourth Memorandum on Spatial Planning (Vierde Nota Ruimtelijke Ordening), the Structure Scheme on Green Spaces (Structuurschema Groene Ruimte), the Nature and Environment Policy Plan (Natuur- en Milieubeleidsplan) and the Nature Protection Act (Natuurbeschermingswet).

 5. The information on this case is derived from interviews with the main participants, newspaper articles from De Leeuwarder Courant, Het Friesch Dagblad, Het Agrarisch Dagblad, Intermediar and project documentation.

 6. The study leaves aside the internal struggle between the Farmers' Union and the other ROM participants over this issue (see Boonstra, 2006b).

 7. This was done through papers and columns in newspapers. Compare the following titles: “Ammonia, a blessing for ozone” (Leeuwarder Courant, 24 May 1993) and “Ammonia from manure is an environmental problem” (Leeuwarder Courant, 26 March 1994).

 8. This term is derived from Elias' civilisation theory and was previously used by Mastenbroek (1999) to analyse the socio-genesis of negotiation.

 9. Recently, legal scientists have tried to measure the development and growth of Dutch regulation quantitatively. Since 1980 regulation has grown with 700 laws a year, which amounts to an average growth of 2.7 per cent per year (De Jong & Herweijer, 2004). It is striking that the Ministry of Agriculture, despite its relatively small size, produces much regulation in comparison with other ministries (Brenninkmeijer, 2004).

10. Of course, this process is not exclusively Dutch. See, for other examples: Rose & Miller (1992); Stoker (1998); Edwards et al. (2001); and Marinetto (2003).

11. Whether or not an inclusive participation of stakeholders really contributes to democratisation and in what way is a highly debated question that focuses, for example, on the range of stakeholders that is included, and their representativeness in relation to elected bodies in a representative democracy, including the possibly slackening democratic potential of these bodies. Young (2001) has insightfully outlined the different ideal-typical positions in this debate.