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Journal of Planning Education and
Research http://jpe.sagepub.com

Pragmatism, Planning, and Power

Charles J. Hoch
Journal of Planning Education and Research 1984; 4; 86
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X8400400203

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© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

Pragmatism, Planning, and Power
Abstract
Many contemporary planning theories
share a pragmatic conception of action
which does not adequately account for
questions of power After a brief
illustration of this limitation, the historical
and structural criticisms of recent Marxist
theories are analyzed It is argued that
since both Mainstream and Marxist
theories of planning both use the
consequences of action as the ultimate
test of theoretical validity, they tend to
overemphasize their different interpretation
of power as mutually exclusive The paper
examines the work of four contemporary
theorists the author calls Radical
Pragmatists whose writings undermine
this antagonism by introducing critical
insights that broaden the meaning of what
counts as action The result is a concept
of power that critically combines our
experience of what it means to choose,
our knowledge of what it means to
communicate without distortion, and our
expectation of what it means to govern
ourselves democratically
86
© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
Charles J Hoch
The University of Illinois at
Introduction
Planning as problem solving remains
popular shorthand account of what
planners do Even practitioners and
theorists who possess dramatically
different conceptions of what should be
done refer to planning as a problem
solving process This paper begins with a
comparison of two antagonistic theoretical
interpretations of planning Mainstream’
and Marxist, arguing that both share a
common pragmatic platform upon which
their respective theories of planning are
built This common foundation is
uncovered by contrasting the conceptions
of power proposed by Mainstream and
Marxist approaches Despite disagreement
about the nature of the problem (individual
vs class), the criteria for analyzing
alternative solutions (instrumental vs
dialectical) and the form of implementa-
tion (pluralist consensus vs class conflict),
both approaches rely on the common
elements of pragmatic action-expenence,
inquiry, and participation-to link theory
with practice
Focusing their differences, rather than
on
their common pragmatic structure, leads
planning theorists within each approach to
overlook the limits of those aspects of the
pragmatic structure that their respective
interpretations import. These short-
comings become most obvious when
exploring how their contrasting interpre-
tations of power share a precarious
attachment to a too narrow conception of
instrumental efficacy The ideas of recent
critics of Mainstream and Marxist planning
theorists alike are reviewed and combined
into a critical revision of the major
elements of this pragmatic orientation
This Radical Pragmatism reflects a
different conception of power in planning
based on a reconstruction of ideas drawn
from both Mainstream and Marxist camps
The bare skeleton of the argument is
outlined in Table 1 Column 1 includes the
elements of pragmatic planning or
problem solving common to all theories
discussed in the paper The three
corresponding aspects of planning action
are listed in column 2 The last three
columns represent in schematic form what
each theoretical orientation -Mainstream,
Marxist, and Radical Pragmatist-
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Chicago
incorporates within their interpretations of
planning The content under the Radical
Pragmatist headmg represents a selection
a and synthesis of the content listed under
the Mainstream and Marxist column
headings For example, the radical
pragmatic approach rejects the
Mainstream emphasis on individual
experience as well as the Marxist
attachment to class alienation, while
combining the Mainstream concept of
problems as disruptions in the continuity
of human experience with the Marxist
conception of social expenence The table
is offered only as a general schematic
outline for the arguments developed in
the text
An Overview of the Argument
Planmng theorists with a Mainstream
orientation treat power as the capacity
individuals possess to learn from exper-
ience Powerless individuals are those who
remain committed to dogmatically circum-
ascribed ideas, even when they do not
work The presumption is that we already
possess a natural capacity to respond to
environmental barners we encounter along
the pathway of development This
capacity enables us to grasp the meaning
of social conflicts as developmental
obstacles to purposeful action Solving
these problems requires the application of
an instrumental method that assesses the
relative effectiveness of alternative
solutions through mutual collaboration
and communication of those groups
experiencing the problem Mainstream
planmng overcomes the situational barriers
to shared human purpose (experience) by
assessing the effectiveness of possible
responses (inquiry) in cooperation with
others (participation) (See Table 1,
column 3 )1
According to Marxist critics, this
conception of power ignores the particular
historical class relationships that distort
public life in capitalist society The
Mainstream theorists presume what the
Marxists argue has yet to be created-free
individuals The Marxist planning theorists
treat power as the exercise of political
domination based on the exploitation of
the working class by the capitalist class2
The histoncally developed experience of
alienation is the starting point for their
cntical analysis of the formal individuals of
capitalist society Hence, the significance
of Marxist planning theory depends on its
contnbution to forming the class con-
sciousness of workers whose struggle to
socialize the relations of production is a
necessary prerequisite for a non-alienated
society in which the practical fulfillment of
individual and social purposes will be
mutual In other words, the historical
expenence of class alienation (experience)
constitutes the point of departure for
critically assessing alternative strategies
(inquiry) which can be used by the
political allies of the working class in their
struggle agamst capitalism (participation)
(See Table 1, column 4 )
Despite the fact that Mainstream and
Marxist planning theonsts disagree about
what sorts of action are crucial to social
development, both base their theoretical
understandmg on action For both
approaches, &dquo;People come to know the
world by how they exist or act in it, but
that knowing, in turn, becomes a part of
the social reality mthm which their actions
are located&dquo; (Damico 1981, p 656) This
common foundation accounts for the
intense antagonism between the con-
ception of power m Mainstream and
Marxist planning But even more
importantly, it offers a promising point
of departure for assessing recent
contributions to the planning theory
literature that resolve this antagonism
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© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
Some authors, such as Peter Marns and
John Friedmann, have become disen-
chanted with the limitations of mainstream
voluntarism Accordmgly they have sought
to integrate aspects of the Marxist
structural critique of power into their
theories of planning without sacrificing
Mainstream theorists’ attention to
individual learning and communication
Other authors, namely John Forester and
Dudley Burton, frustrated by a frequently
rigid Marxist structuralism, have tried to
integrate pragmatic conceptions of com-
munication in their theories of planning
This does not suggest that these authors
have consciously developed theories to
resolve this antagonism between Main-
stream and Marxist interpretations of
power, or that a single labeling scheme
(Radical Pragmatist) can &dquo;capture&dquo; their
ideas Rather it argues simply that their
work, when taken as a whole, promises to
incorporate and transcend many of the
antagonistic elements separating the
interpretations of power in Mainstream
and Marxist theories of planning
Marns reconstructs the pragmatic
conception of experience by focusing
the structure of meaning rather than
action Using this concept, he binds
together a Marxist influenced conception
of historical experience with a mainstream
conception of individual experience
modifying both to include the formation of
emotional attachments. Marns’ insights
greatly reduce the significance of the
Mainstream theorists’ insensitivity to
historical experience, while expanding the
meaning of significant problems to include
disruptive experiences other than class
alienation (See Table 1, column 5 )
Forester incorporates the emancipatory
promise of Marxism into his theory of
planning by expanding the meaning of
critique to include the pragmatic
prerequisites for nondistorted
communication In doing so, he de-
emphasizes the pnmacy of class struggle
along with the abstract instrumentalism of
the Mainstream concept of pragmatic
inquiry Finally, both Burton and
Fnedmann integrate the pluralism of the
Mainstream theories of planning with an
analysis of the contradictory aspects of
participation central to the Marxist analysis
of political conflict Burton emphasizes the
political aspects and Fnedmann the spatial
aspects of the participatory polity In both
theones the Marxist emphasis on class
relations is diminished, along mth the
Mainstream trust in liberal pluralism with
its reliance on interest group consensus
The remainder of this paper has been
on divided into four parts The first part
illustrates in some detail how even an
intelligent and insightful planning theorist
such as Donald Schon is severely limited
in accounting for the exercise of power by
his reliance on a mainstream conception
of action The second part of the paper
briefly summarizes the arguments of
planning theorists who use Marxist theory
87
to criticize mainstream planning theory at
its most vulnerable point-the treatment
of power However, while a Marxist
analysis can account for the distortions of
class power m planning, its application to
planning undermines efforts to provide a
coherent theoretical justification for an
emancipatory politics of community
planning The third part reviews the work
of the four theorists mentioned above who
present promising revisions to Mainstream
and Marxist theories of planning Part four
summarizes the insights each of these
theorists contributes Together they
provide a theoretical approach to power
and planning that integrates important
strengths of both Mainstream and Marxist
theories of planning
The Mainstream
In recent article, Donald Schon presents
a discretion he possessed in defining what
an excellent example of planning analysis
that is nonetheless limited by a
Mainstream interpretation of pragmatic
action (1982) Schon presents and then
analyzes the conversation of a planner
with a developer about the possibility of
granting a zoning variance for the
developer’s housing project He points out
how the planner’s defensive posturing to
maintain the role as expert interpreter of
the develupment regulations unnecessarily
discourages the developer from
considering feasible alternatives
Schon argues that the professional
planner chooses or fashions the role frame
in which problems are defined, strategies
employed, relevance determined, and
interpersonal relationships assessed The
major difficulty facing the planner in this
mediating role, according to Schon,
consists ofbalancing the requirements for
winning a regulatory or other kind of
instrumental planning game (mastery)
against efforts to maintain the image of
disinterested expertise (mystery) To avoid
having to juggle this mastery- mystery
dilemma, Schon proposes that planners
learn to play their mediating role sincerely,
openly, and truthfully in a spirit of
collaboration He calls this Model 11
Schon’s Model II relies on a pragmatic
conception of human action instrumental
inquiry carried out within the framework
88
© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
of a mutual dialogue based on personal
experience Model II promises to make
planners more effective if they will only
learn how to learn in this pragmatic spirit
But Schon, like other Mainstream
planning theorists attached to a pragmatic
conception of action, overlooks the fact
that social roles are circumscribed and
defined by relationships of power as well
as understanding The tension between
maintaining a sense of professional
expertise and negotiating an effective
agreement seems secondary to the
tension between maintaining a bureau-
cratic role and exercising greater discretion
in negotiations
The planner in Schon’s example did not so
much seek to maintain a role of expertise
as to act in such a way as to protect
freedom of action that his official role
enabled him to enjoy The power of the
planner derived from the individual
constituted a legitimate exception to the
existing development regulations Since
determining exceptions occurs on a case
by case basis, it was through negotiations
with developers that the planner ultimately
defined the meaning of what counted as a
regulation If the developer had known
what he could get away with before
negotiating, this knowledge would have
reduced the regulatory uncertainties
confronting his project and have enabled
him to avoid the planner altogether
Hence, if the planner is to enjoy
discretion, it is reasonable to expect the
planner to maintain these uncertainties for
the developer, which the persona of
expertise helps promote In Schon’s
example, this meant sacrificing a viable
development alternative in order to protect
the autonomy of the planner.
The circle encountered in the
vicious
development review game is based on
power relations and not a faulty theory of
action Breaking out of the circle requires
a serious disruption that undermines the
efficacy or legitimacy of these existing
power relations The planner alone, acting
as a mediator, cannot hope to be the
source of this disruption Therefore, like
the others, the planner participates in
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reproducing the vicious cycle Schon
deplores This occurs because the planner
remains trapped in a web of power
relations which his participation helps
reproduce
Schon relies on too limited a conception
of power when he appeals to our ability to
learn as the foundation for effective
social action He believes that it is the
recognition and realization of mutually
beneficial consequences that produces an
effective social bond between planner and
client. But this relation more closely
approximates the relation between two
skilled craft workers collaborating in the
production of an artifact than it does the
relation between a private developer and a
public planner competing to win a
development review game Schon’s
imaginative and skillful attention to human
experience remains severely bound by an
instrumental model of learning that
presumes an already existing social
consensus In actual fact, the poignant
indignities of bureaucratic authority that
structured the planner’s experience and
the perverse compromises of political
negotiation he helped create reflect
conflicts of interest that the power of
learning alone cannot overcome
The Marxist Conception of Planning
and Power
Marxist-inspired accounts of urban
planning place power relations among
classes at the center of attention They
criticize mainstream planning theories like
Schon’s for offering an overly optimistic
assessment of what planners might
achieve through learning to learn and
ignoring the antagonistic class relations
that structure the role of urban planning in
a capitalist society As one author states,
&dquo;The activities of planners and the
apparatuses of planning present the
appearance of a (potentially) rational
system of decision making and resource
allocation which helps obscure the real
workings of the space economy Thus
conceived it is planning itself which is an
ideological phenomenon and the belief
in the possibility of planned urban
development is the ideology of planning&dquo;
(Paris 1982, p 11)
When Marxists write about urban
planning, they tend to place planners
within a network of power relations
located upon the uneven political terrain
formed where class struggle and the state
intersect (Beauregard 1979, Harvey 1979)
Fainstein and Fainstein (1979) offer a strict
structural interpretation of these power
relations that conceives of planners as
trapped within a vicious circle of
cooptation They propose that planners
working for reforms within the state,
regardless of their progressive intentions,
unwittingly contribute to the reproduction
of capitalist hegemony For instance, from
this viewpoint, adopting a rent control
plan ultimately means contributing to the
reproduction of capitalist accumulation by
lowering the costs of reproducing labor A
less strict interpretation of these power
relations places the state planner in an
ambiguous position between labor and
capital in the class struggle This
ambiguity provides the planner committed
to socialism with enough autonomy to
conduct critical diagnoses of the strategic
contradictions and weaknesses of
capitalist state policy (Friedmann, Kossey,
and Regan 1980, McDougall 1982) At the
same time, alternatives are produced that
promise to strengthen working class
political organization (Kraushaar and
Gardels 1982)
Having emphasized the structural priority
of class struggle in their understanding of
power relations, Marxist planning theorists
must then explain how middle class
government employees like planners are to
recognize the significance and necessity of
working class struggle This seems an
especially acute problem in the United
States where planners confront a frag-
mented working class whose revolutionary
praxis remains more a promise than a
practical guide and stimulus to action3
Thus, ironically, the Marxist structural
analysis discounts the power of planners
to develop progressive reforms within the
state that are not derived from or
contributing to the power of the
working class
In the face of this dilemma, some theorists
argue that one need only point to the
increasingly degraded working conditions
of planners to show that the erosion of
their wages, benefits, and autonomy is
moving them ever closer to the ranks of
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© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
working class employees (Angotti 1978)
This proletarianization of middle class
workers might, if shown to be an
inevitable decline under capitalism,
motivate planners to identify with the
working class employees as fellow workers
interested in the overthrow of capitalist
exploitation Other Marxist planning
theorists take a different approach Instead
of arguing that the power of planners to
engage in class struggle derives from their
proletarianization, they contend that the
relative autonomy planners enjoy as state
employees leaves them room to support
policy reforms that strengthen working
class communities and institutions
(Beauregard 1983) This interpretation can
be labeled pragmatic because these
theorists judge the significance of
planners’ contributions to community
political movements in terms of their
consequences for obtaining socialist
objectives
However, by attempting to assimilate
community related planning efforts within
the politics of class struggle, Marxist
planning theorists risk rupturing the
theoretical coherence of a distinctly
Marxist interpretation of progress To
prevent this, they must stretch the
meaning of class struggle to include a
diverse assortment of popular community
struggles As a result, when they talk to
planners about planning, they retain an
instrumentalism similar to that of
Mainstream theorists Like the Main-
streamers, the Marxists attach theoretical
priority to a conception of progress based
on the social mastery of the environment
Mainstream theorists may focus on
individual development through learning to
master the problems of the environment
On the other side, Marxists focus on the
social struggle necessary to tap the
unrealized potential of capitalist production
as a prerequisite for individual develop-
ment But in both approaches the power
to achieve individual emancipation
(progress) depends on subordinating the
environment to human purposes
Radical Pragmatism: An Eclectic
Revision
A group of planning theorists, who might
be called Radical Pragmatists, attempt to
go beyond the limitations of instru-
mentalism shared by Mainstream and
Marxist theories of planning, while
integrating important aspects of each
approach These authors will be reviewed,
starting with the work of John Forester,
who applies the insights of Jurgen
Habermas in an attempt to construct a
critical theory of planning
John Forester A Critical Theory of
Planning
Habermas attempts to overcome the
dilemma posed by Marxist instrumentalism
by assimilating instrumental action within
a broader conception of social evolution
Instead of linking theory and human
emancipation with the revolutionary
destiny of the working class, Habermas
argues that this link is aleady present in
the logic of human communication
Habermas argues that a critical social
theory based on this theory of universal
pragmatics will illuminate the difference
between what we should agree to,
theoretically and practically, in an
unconstrained situation, and what we
now settle for (Hemmens and Stiftel
1980, p 343)
In the United States, John Forester has
provided perhaps the most complete
adaptation of Habermas’ ideas of
planning Forester argues that the politics
of communication -&dquo;organizing attention&dquo;
as he refers to it-should pre-empt
instrumental or technical action at the
center of planning (1980a, 1980b, 1981)
He argues that planners can and should
learn to reflect critically on their own
discourse This can be done by judging its
quality against the universal yet pragmatic
requirements implicit in the structure of
speech itself sincerity, comprehensibility,
legitimacy, and truthfulness Forester takes
these criteria of nondistorted communi-
cation, identified by Habermas as pre-
requisites for the possibility of rational
moral discourse, and urges planners to use
89
them to uncover distortions in communi-
cation generated by those exercising
instrumental power in state bureaucracies
Unfortunately, Forester presumes that
planners already possess both sufficient
practical social experience to know what it
means to communicate competently (i e ,
sincerity, truthfulness, etc ), as well as the
motivation to enhance this competence
Appealing to the natural pre-conditions for
nondistorted speech leads Forester away
from the particular historical and personal
contexts within which a particular act of
communication will make sense or be
desired.
Habermas avoids this sort of abstraction
by arguing that, &dquo;We cannot appraise
forms of life centered on communicative
action simply by applying the standards of
procedural rationality These forms of life
comprise not only institutions that come
under the aspect of justice but ’language
games,’ historical configurations of
habitual practices, group memberships,
cultural patterns of interpretation, forms of
socialization, competencies and so forth&dquo;
(1982, p 262) Yet Habermas, the social
theorist, also admits that his theory of
social evolution &dquo; permits no
conclusions about forms of life&dquo; (p 227)
Nevertheless, Forester tries to make
planners conscious of the universal criteria
for rational communication that Habermas
argues already orient our validity claims,
even in the distortions of everyday speech
Ironically, Forester urges planners to adopt
universal categories for the possibility of
ideal speech as practical moral guidelines
Furthermore, he addresses planners as
professionals already interested in
improving their communicative com-
petence But he neglects the specific
relationships between power and planning
that not only structure their actions, but
form their professional identity Like
Habermas, Forester &dquo;fails to specify the
conditions under which anyone would be
motivated to struggle to put the ideals of
pure speech into practice&dquo; (Balbus 1983,
p 231) This is an abstraction which a
social theorist such as Habermas can
afford to make, but a planning theorist
such as Forester cannot
90
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© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
Despite this limitation, Forester’s argument
goes beyond the instrumentalism of both
Mainstream and Marxist theories of
planning He does so by adopting the
critical method of immanent critique
characteristic of Marxist analysis while
using the criteria of a universal pragmatics
to replace the emancipatory potential of
the working class He therefore analyzes
power in communicative rather than
instrumental terms Planners exercise
power, according to Forester (1982), when
they learn to anticipate critically systematic
distortions of their clients’ communica-
tions so as to create the possibility for
genuinely democratic politics
Forester’s tacit reliance on the
fundamental norms of rational speech
remains embedded in a social, historical,
and personal context that constitutes a
framework of interpretation and meaning
for each individual A particular meaning
may lead someone to communicate in a
distorted and deceptive manner This
person, though, may not view his or her
own communication as distorted,
when informed about the tacit norms
violated Habermas acknowledges the
existence of such self-deception, but
focuses his attention on the acquisition of
interactive competence through cognitive
development A critical theory of planning,
however, that ignores the question of
rnonvanon win face serious difficulty in
providing practical and relevant insights
to its audience
Peter Marris Meaning and Action
Whereas Forester concentrates on
communication and understanding in his
assessment of the relationship between
planning and power, Peter Marris
emphasizes motivation and experience
Marris argues that action, whether
instrumental or communicative, is
&dquo;organized around relationships and
purposes whose importance is unique and
so generates unique experiences and a
unique pattern of life&dquo; (1982b, p 56) The
power of an intention to move one to
action thus depends not only on the
rational qualities of the purpose, but also
on the strength of the emotional
attachments surrounding it Marris calls
this motivating power meaning
Marris criticizes mainstream planning to
the extent that it has adopted an
instrumental method of learning that is
insensitive to the emotional bonds of
meaning Iromcally, the very efficacy of
instrumental understanding in the
individual pursuit of personal objectives
implies on the social scale of modern
industrial society an &dquo;undermining the
contexts within which individual purposes
are realizable&dquo; (Marris 1982b, p 58) Marris
contends that while the interplay of
understanding, purpose, and attachment
may remain balanced on the level of the
individual, they are torn apart at the
societal level At the latter level the logic
of large scale organizations has not been
offset by the influence of shared
attachments or a common social purpose
In capitalist societies this has meant that
the individual purposes of the powerful
tend to be realized by systems of instru-
mental control while the purposes of the
weak are frustrated Furthermore, he
argues, these systems of control are
justified by a scientific rationality that
even treats the purposes of the powerful
minority as if they represented the
purposes of society as a whole
In analyzing how people might act to
change these unjust social conditions,
Marris analyzes contradictions in the
present organization of social power
Unlike the Marxists who focus on the
economic contradictions of capitalist
economic power, Marris focuses on the
social and psychological disruptions that
are increasing the uncertainties of
everyday life He argues that the increasing
concentration of control by government as
well as corporations produces growing
insecurity for more and more members of
society, to the point where many no
longer know what to expect The
conventional structure of meaning they
trusted as a guide becomes a source of
frustration As this experience spreads,
according to Marris, the legitimacy of the
existing social order begins to weaken
Marris believes that the authority of social
power rests with the psychological
consent of the members of society, not
with the exercise of coercion In capitalist
societies such as the United States, social
expectations and norms are reproduced
through our individual acts of choosing
Most important according to Marris is,
&dquo;However constrained these are, we rarely
perceive them as the inevitable outcome
of our situation On the contrary, we
charactenstically feel the need to justify
them, to assert their moral and rational
superiority to all the other ways of being
which we have more or less consciously
rejected, to reassure ourselves and
convince others that whatever we have
become stands in good light against the
backdrop of our unrealized selves&dquo; (Marris
1982a, p 114) Choosing and the responsi-
bility of choosing create an arena of
uncertainty that requires that we each
self-consciously share certain common
principles
This capacity to choose, Marns argues,
also represents an important source of
social change in the face of a problematic
situation m which traditional social
conventions no longer make sense He
contends that the motivation for pursuing
a new form of social action does not
depend solely on rational moral appeal It
is also dependent on the character and
strength of the emotional bonds that give
meaning to each person’s purposes
These idiosyncratic attachments to people,
places, and events cannot be quickly
or easily replaced by a smgle all-
encompassing attachment to a new
moral purpose Thus, despite the anxiety
generated by the uncertainties of an
increasingly unjust concentration of social
control, many individuals knowingly
continue old habits of loyalty because they
do not want to sacrifice the attachments
they have formed (Marns 1975) Thus,
efforts to motivate people to adopt new
social purposes without generating
extraordinary uncertainty and gnef would
require that these choices be made in a
context m which the risks of uncertainty
and the pain of loss do not outweigh the
insecurity and indignity endured under the
existing system According to Marris, this
suggests that the ideal of a just society be
built on the basis of plans of action that
ensure that participants are able to assess
and control the risks in ways that take
emotional attachments into account
Maoris provides a social-psychological
foundation for the democratic hopes of a
politics of communication Like the
traditional Mainstreamers, Marns argues
that meaningful action emerges in
response to our experience of a problem
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© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
However, he includes the emotional or the life of virtue that democratic
dimension of experience left out by both theorists traditionally demanded&dquo; (p 187)
Marxists and Mainstreamers, who tend to Uncovering the political influence of class
define the meaning of action exclusively in struggle within the institutions of the state
relation to the consequences this action represents only a point of departure for
has m achieving certain social purposes Burton He does not believe that articu-
On the one hand, he asserts that our lating and supporting working class
potential for democratic participation demands for economic democracy will in
already exists in the exercise of self- itself usher in a new era of freedom He
conscious choices we make in adopting rejects the instrumental interpretation of
the values and conventions of a liberal class struggle as an inevitable foundation
society On the other hand, he is quick for the political formation of a socialist
to point out that the meaning of this democracy Class struggle may be
capacity to choose remains abstract and necessary, but it must be complemented
incomplete unless responsive to the by the political participation of a variety of
emotional bonds that form the social social groups whose political experience
fabric of everyday life The tension cuts across class boundaries.
between general social purposes and
specific attachments, accordmg to Marris, Instead of focusing on labor struggles or
creates a conflict for those who want to political conflicts, Burton examines the
plan change m our society without contradictory policies of the welfare state
addressing the particular attachments of that he believes are provoking greater
those affected by the plan He writes demands for accountability and partici-
pation from different groups of clients and
This conflict cannot be reconciled by citizens Burton identifies planning and
rules of representative democracy, planners occupying these important
as
which at best only articulates a highly interstices of vulnerability within the state
aggregated opposition of interest It Planners who play a mediating role
represents a more fundamental conflict between the demands of private interests
between contradictory adaptive and the application of rules, laws, and
responses, which can only be worked policies allegedly serving the public
out through a persuasive and insistent interest may (as state employees) play a
process of confrontation and negotia- different role than in the past He suggests
tion We cannot solve conflict by more that rather than serving a state authority
sensitme and responsive planning that continues to protect and support
procedures We have to take conflict as select interests, planners could provide
the central issue and evolve from it a critical yet practical alternatives that
new conception of democracy (1975, accommodate new demands for account-
p 173) ability and participation It is in this sort of
milieu that it becomes possible for
planners to help push the rhetoric of
Dudley Burton and the Power of legitimation into the arena of an authentic
Democratic Participation political debate Included would be those
groups seeking to create a polity within
which the practical formation of a true
Like Marris, Dudley Burton rejects reliance public interest would become possible
on the procedures of representative
democracy and the apparently pluralist On the one hand, Burton suggests that
social consensus that they produce planners could unveil how the language
Instead he focuses on the relationship of technique is used to insulate the
between planning and the political ideological hegemony of the state from
formation of citizens Burton criticizes criticism Burton provides a provocative
the Marxists for relying on a concept of but abstract agenda of the sorts of issues
politics &dquo;that speaks less of virtue (as that planners need to focus on the
Rousseau did) than of needs&dquo; (1978, p distribution of public authority, the
186) In other words, he argues that allocation of political responsibility, and
Marxist &dquo;political economy has not yet
developed a substantive account of either
the forms by which equality is expressed
91
the social segmentation of polity (1978)
He argues that planners must use the
cntena of democratic participation in their
criticism of existing state programs
and practices
On the other hand, Burton believes that
planners can use their knowledge to
conduct research that compares efforts
undertaken by different groups of citizens
to realize their democratically developed
goals. This research becomes useful to
others by showing those who remain
inactive that democratic action is possible
It also provides models and strategies
others can use to achieve democratic
outcomes elsewhere Drawing together a
vanety of experiences m a comparative
framework, Burton believes, would provide
a foundation upon which planners could
build alternative visions of a democratic
political community This critical interplay
between vision and comparative research
would enable planners to play their
mediating role as teachers and educators
rather than as experts and officials
In Burton’s view, planners must ultimately
become participants in the struggle for a
more democratic society He believes that
the shared experience of mutual decision
making will enable the participants to
recogmze not only their political equality,
but their social equality as well The
mutual interdependence necessary for
a practical democracy provides the
foundation for a community of equality
The audience planners address, according
to Burton, extends to a wide variety of
groups organized in a democratic fashion
cooperatives, community development
boards, public union locals, etc While he
analyzes the present organization of power
as a form of state mediated class domi-
nation, Burton avoids the structural
instrumentalism of the Marxist planning
theorists Instead of treating political
power as a derivation of social relations,
he argues that political power must remain
the creation of citizens The liberal state,
despite its structural bias favoring capitalist
accumulation, remains dependent on the
inactivity of a docile citizenry Arousing
and stimulating democratic participation
introduces a political power largely
dormant in the liberal state It can,
though, be used to transform the state
into a polity
92
© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
John Friedmann and the Territorial
A recent essay by John Friedmann adds a
spatial dimension to Burton’s treatment of
the links between planning and participa-
tory democracy After briefly tracing the
political history of the modern nation state
back to the urban communes and the
Greek polis, Friedmann argues that the
roots of democracy have flourished in
relatively small urban communities
Drawing mainly on the political philosophy
of Hannah Arendt (1958) and the empirical
work of Dahl and Tufte (1973), Friedmann
concludes that because &dquo;people tend to
approach their politics on intimate terms,
it is here, in the local community, that we
must begin the task of reconstruction&dquo;
(1982, p 43)
Armed with this distinction, Friedmann
attacks the global ambitions of the
multinational corporations and the
functional dominance of the nation state
He argues that they have undermined
the political authority (power) of local
communities, depoliticized the arenas of
economic and administrative activity, and
thus avoided the accountability necessary
for a healthy democracy Establishing the
foundations for a democratic society,
according to Friedmann, would not only
require the democratization of the
workplace, but the reconstruction of
political territory In his own words,
to do this will require linking
economic to residentiary space within
a single political community Whereas
economic space is unbounded, resi-
dentiary space is limited, it defines
particular places having their own
history and institutions By linking the
two, the finiteness of the second will be
opened up, as local communities
become oriented to global issues even
as the virtual infinity of the first will be
made responsive to the needs of
particular localities (1982, p 46)
Friedmann locates the prospects for this
reconstruction in the political collaboration
of labor and community organizations
around such issues as plant closings and
reindustnalization Like Burton, he rejects
the Marxist inspired belief that the
consolidation of working class power will
provide the primary social force inspiring
efforts at basic political reforms
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Polity Fnedmann argues that it is through the
expenence of democratic participation that
the presently separate spheres of
production and consumption can be
bridged The more that struggles for
popular sovereignty at home and work
take place in the same political space, the
more the authority and legitimacy of that
space increase Members are then enabled
to use their collective power to establish
greater social and spatial equality The
reconstruction of the territorial polity thus
promdes the democratic context within
which the consensus about collective
social needs can be formulated and
implemented according to a &dquo;comprehen-
sive policy and program of territorial
development&dquo; (1982, p 46)
Summary
The ideas of these Radical Pragmatists
reconstruct each aspect of the pragmatic
conception of action outlmed in Table 1
Marns provides a more complete theory of
experience by arguing that our experience
also includes unique emotional attach-
ments that we seek to protect. Hence it is
possible for him to account for why
people can share the same purposes,
but still interpret the meaning of these
purposes quite differently He further
argues that planners should pay attention
not only to purpose, but also to the
meaning of those purposes for those
involved in making and affected by the
plan Powerful plans for Marns are not
those which are imposed, but those
whose meaning has become common
knowledge
Forester provides an understanding of
communication that undermines any
pretense at neutrality in planning. He
believes that the pragmatic criterion of
speech provides guidance for planners
interested in uncovering the distortions in
planning communication This critical
theory encourages planners to anticipate
the sources of such distortion in the
formulation and assessment of alternatives
and to communicate clearly, sincerely,
legitimately, and truthfully with citizens
This should be done not only to uncover
the use of distortions, but to change the
sources of such distortion as well Forester
retains the immanent critique of Marxist
analysis,while expanding and strength-
ening pragmatic inquiry within a theory of
planning that emphasizes the power
of communication
Burton and Friedmann criticize the
expectations of the mainstream theorists
for anticipating consensus where conflict
is endemic However, they agree with the
Mainstream emphasis on voluntary partici-
pation. Burton tries to reconstruct this
concept of participation within the context
of existing political contradictions and
conflicts He uses the premise of authentic
democracy, only formally represented
existing institutions, to criticize and
expose the abuses of government as a
point of departure for experimenting with
authentic forms of democratic self-
governance Friedmann addresses the
question of geographic scale He argues
for an overcoming of the political
instabilities of institutional capitalism
through the regional reintegration of
production and consumption which
represent a necessary corollary to the
democratization Burton proposes
Conclusion
The ideas of Radical Pragmatists retain the
emancipatory spirit of both Mainstream
and Marxist theories of planning On the
one hand, like the Marxists, they
acknowledge that large scale corporate
and state institutions are used by the
powerful to achieve the purposes of a
minority at the expense of the majority
On the other hand, like the Mainstream
theorists, they argue that the exercise of
social and political power retains its
authority only so long as those subjected
to it consent to obey The centralization
and rationalization of authority m modern
industrial societies produces crises of
legitimacy as the exercise of power
violates the limits of consensus Therefore,
although they critically acknowledge that
the uncertainties of social life are
hierarchically arranged, with the problems
of the powerful displacing those of the
weak, the Radical Pragmatists do not
conceive of power relations solely in terms
of class struggle They concentrate instead
on the promise of individual emancipation
that they believe already informs our
experience of what it means to choose,
© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
our knowledge of what it means to
communicate mthout distortion, and our
expectation of what it means to govern
ourselves democratically
Imagine if the town planner, whose
conversation Schon analyzed, were
Radical Pragmatist In this case the
planner would harbor no illusions about
playng a mediating role m the developer/
planner regulation game The critically
oriented planner would recogmze that the
pnvilege of private property nghts and the
pnonty of pnvate economic exchange
in structures the encounter between himself
and the developer in a biased fashion
The organizational environment that the
planner inhabits bndges the private world
of investors, developers, contractors, etc
and the public world of officials and
representatives with an exchange model of
regulation If the planner plays the broker
role within this context of exchange, he
may win battles in the instrumental power
games that make up the politics of
economic development But he fights a
regulatory war defined by the private
terrain of property rights and the market
However, acting as a Radical Pragmatist,
the planner would have had to act as an
advocate for a critical public interest
Instead of identifying the problem in terms
of the efficiency of a private investment
decision, he would start by identifying the
distributive effects the private investment
decision(s) might have on local residents
Such advocacy, however, would not be
guided by formal and abstract pnnciples of
equal opportunity or a utilitanan calculus
of fair shares The planner would assess
how the burdens of uncertainty are
distributed among those affected by the
investment decision He would advise the
affected members and the local elected
representatives in their discussions about
the form, scope, feasibility, etc of
alternative redistribution schemes that
could be chosen As Forester puts it, the
planner should seek to spread responsi-
bility rather than foster accountability
(1982b)
&dquo;In practice, redistribution is a political
matter, and the coercion it involves is
foreshadowed by the conflicts that rage
over its character and extent Every
particular measure is pushed through by
some coalition of particular interests
But the ultimate appeal in these con-
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flicts not to the particular interest, not
is
even to a public interest conceived as
their sum, but to collective values,
shared understandings of membership,
health, food and shelter, work and
leisure&dquo; (Walzer 1983, p 82)
a
Such interpretative advocacy, however,
cannot be exercised on a grand scale
without generating perverse effects
Centralization and bureaucratization of
redistributive schemes all too frequently
produce greater uncertainty than they
resolve Advocacy should occur at a
local community scale where those
affected by the uncertainties of plant
closings, toxic waste disposal, block
busting, disinvestment, sex discrimina-
tion in hiring, etc , can perceive the
injustice in terms of their shared sense
of what is fair Additionally, they should
be able to assess in the conflict of
debate the burden imposed by the
existing uncertainties against the risk of
suffering greater losses by choosing a
different course of action The planner
does not advocate for a specific choice
or group, but interprets the meaning of
alternative redistribution schemes in
terms that respect the different kinds of
insecurity, doubt, betrayal, and outrage
Community members can then be moti-
vated to enter the political arena and
consider new ways to re-establish the
continuity of meaning in their Imes4
It is the very experience with conflict as
political argument, confrontation, and
negotiation that is necessary if the
diverse purposes of the different groups
and factions are to change without the
application of force (violence or
instrumental coercion) and yeld a new
public purpose The experience of
conflict in this sense enables the
participants to explore how the new
purposes formed in the heat of debate
might be assimilated in ways that
respect and recognize the needs and
identities of the participants The
experience of political conflict on a local
scale defines an area (territory or polity)
within which the formation of demo-
cratic consensus becomes possible The
creation of this local political culture
provides the boundaries of a polity
within which nondistorted communi-
cation as a basis for collective learning
can become a practical reality
93
Notes
1I am using the label Mainstream to
denote planning theories that are both
popular as well as possessing a
pragmatic orientation See Hoch (1984)
for the argument justifying this
classification
2
T he question of what constitutes the
boundaries of Marxist theory is a matter
of considerable dispute.I refer to
theories of planning as Marxist which
argue that "to further the cause of the
proletariat is to be on the ’progressive’
side of history, since the working class
represents the universal interest of
human beings in creating a classless
order" (Giddens 1981, p 240)
I
3 am not suggesting here that the
working class in the United States is
backward due to its own failure The
repression of working class institutions
and organizations, the exacerbation of
ethnic, racial, and sexual distinctions
within the labor market, the ideological
hegemony of capitalist culture, resi-
dential segregation, and so on have all
contributed to the somnambulent state
of the working class Furthermore,I am
not suggesting that there is no activity
among working class institutions or
members (e g , strikes, walk outs), just
that this activity is not undertaken by
these members acting as class If this
activity were political and radical, its
existence certainly would not be the
subject of so much debate Nor would it
prove to be a problem in convincing
planners that a working class socialist
movement exists as a serious option for
political support
94
© 1984 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
4
Feminist philosopher and political
theorist, Jean Bethke Elshtain, criticizes
the notion of public space for conveying
"an aura of pristine exclusion, apart
from floating above the concerns of
everyday life" (1981, p 346) She rejects
Hannah Arendt’s argument against
politicizing social issues, just as
Friedmann does in his concept of
territorially defined self management
Elshtain proposes a conception of the
ethical polity as one that integrates the
public and private worlds The private
world (and here she refers to the
household and the family) is not simply
a world of material reproduction,
necessary, but without public signifi-
cance For Elshtain the private world
serves "as a locus of human activity,
moral reflection, social and historical
relations, the creation of meaning and
the construction of identity having its
own integrity" (p 322) She goes on to
argue that "it is only through powerful,
eroticized relations with specific others,
parents or their permanent not tempo-
rary surrogates that children will be
nurtured and protected in a way that
allows their creation of self and other to
be structured and mediated by parental
care and concerns It is only through
the child’s internalization of specific
others that he or she can later identify
with nonfamilial human beings These
powerful early ties serve as the template
of conscience that makes possible adult
empathy, the absence of special,
specific ties, familial feelings cannot be
suffused into or displaced throughout a
wider social network One needs a
family history to have a social history"
(p 328-329)
Elshtain’s ideas complement those of
Marris and suggest a promising
connection between feminist theory and
planning theoryI have only recently
begun reading the feminist literature and
so as of yet am unable to summarize
and relate their ideas to a radical
pragmatic conception of planning
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