The “deliberative bureaucrat”: deliberative democracy and institutional trust in the jurisdiction of the Finnish planner

Abstract

This article seeks to elaborate on Forester’s notion of the planner as a “deliberative practitioner”, aiming to add sensitivity to the institutional conditions of planning, focusing especially on Finland. In terms of trust, the concept of deliberative practitioner mostly focuses on interpersonal trust as a planner’s resource in mediating particular interests. Thereby, when applied to the Finnish context, institutional trust may be undermined as a key resource for the Finnish planner’s jurisdiction, justifying his/her proactive role and authority in bringing broader concerns to the planning agenda. This undermining prevents the acknowledgement of important institutional resources that the Finnish planner has in coping with the tensions between communicative ideals and neoliberal realities. A more context-sensitive and institutionally responsive theory of communicative planning is needed to help the planning professionals and other stakeholders conceive the deliberative ideals as supportive for the planners’ institutionally strong agency. Hence, the notion of the “deliberative bureaucrat”. The article seeks to develop an outline for such a theory by drawing upon studies of legal culture, the sociology of professions, deliberative democracy theory and the concept of trust.

Keywords:

• Legal culture
• trust
• deliberative democracy
• planner profession
• neoliberalism
• Finland

View correction statement:

Corrigendum

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to the editor of Planning Theory & Practice and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments that helped us to develop our argument.

Notes

1. As much as Schön’s model of the reflective practitioner has been used and refined by many scholars and practitioners (e.g. Forester, 2013; Yanar, 1999), it has also been criticized for some restrictions (e.g. Forester, 2013; Friedmann, 1987; Healey, 1997; Richardson, 1990). Healey has focused her critique on Schön’s assumption of consensus and equality between participants in a framing-analysis situation. In public discussions there are usually power relations which make the situation unequal (Healey, 1997; p. 258). Hajer and Hoppe (1993) have acknowledged this problem themselves, though. Forester, who values Schön’s pragmatist view of learning in practice, has remarked on Schön’s antipathy of politics which appears as social-psychological emphasis and disregard of social and political structures (Forester, 2013). In effect, Schön tends to overlook that people can change their identities and values during their interaction. New power relations can develop, people can become “we” instead of “I”. This makes deliberative settings more complicated and conflict-laden than Schön assumed.

2. The first generation of deliberative democracy theory is concerned with the normative justification of the theory. The consensus idea has a central role. Elstub (2010) mentions Habermas and Rawls as first generation theorists. The second generation “has moved away from the language of ’reason’ (…) to a focus on mutual justification” (Mansbridge et al., 2010, p. 67). A key term among second-generation theorists is “reciprocity”. According to the reciprocity standard, the reasons given in public deliberation must be mutually acceptable in that the reasons should be acknowledged by each citizen in circumstances of equal advantage (Gutman & Thompson, 1996, p. 54). Consensus is not considered realistic. Instead the goal is deliberative agreement, a so-called “agreement to disagree” (Gutmann & Thompson, 2004, p. 74) where the limits of agreement are mutually acknowledged.

3. The notion of jurisdiction as an attribute of an agent is not completely novel in planning literature either. Kithiia and Dowling (2010), for example, discuss the prerequisites of climate change-responsive planning and conclude that municipal governments ought to take responsibility in the process as they “have the necessary jurisdiction over the baseline issues underlying major environmental problems” (Kithiia & Dowling, 2010, p. 470).

4. Jurisdiction is closely connected to the term “legitimacy”. While jurisdiction here refers to a task given to a professional, legitimacy refers to the recognition, acceptance and support of the planning system by those who are governed. Buchanan defines legitimacy as the moral justification of an entity in wielding political power (Buchanan, 2002, pp. 689-690). David Beetham (1991) adds that there must be evidence of consent for this wielding of power and that it ought to be realized according to justified rules. There seems to be considerable incoherence in the way the terms are used in the planning literature. The object of planning is not legitimate or illegitimate; it is the planning system (as part of the political system) that may be evaluated for its legitimacy. Planning, that is the act of planning, is legitimate when it is realized within the scope of justified rules.

5. Jurisdictions also depend on the social organization of the profession itself. Some professions have stronger organization than others. They might have an absolute monopoly of practice, education, training, licensing, recruitment, for eample(Abbott, 1988, p. 59), though this is probably rare. In the case of Finnish planners, their professional organization is weak, almost non-existent, due to the lack of uniform planning education.

6. “Legal system” in Abbott’s The system of professions Abbott, 1988, pp. 59–65) refers to legislature, courts and administrative structures in general as formal arenas of controlling work. According to Abbott, this may include, for example, a monopoly of certain activities or control of certain settings of work. Abbott does not refer to the legal culture of any specific state or society. However, he identifies different legal establishments of professional rights in France, England and the USA. In the USA context, the social arenas of public opinion and workplace seem more interesting to him than the “extremely formal, fixed and static world” of the legal system that “rejects the living complexity of professional life” (p. 64).

7. See the debate between Hardin (1999) and Offe (1999).

8. Perhaps our use of the term “bureaucrat” may raise eyebrows especially among Anglo-American readers, due to the more negative connotations that they probably give to the term compared to the Finns – but precisely for this reason we want to use it to make a point – in quotation marks, though.