European Planning Studies, Vol. 9, No.

6, 2001

Citizen Participation in Planning: Climbing a Ladder?

KAREL MAIER

[Paper Žrst received, October 1999; in Žnal form, December 2000]

ABSTRACT Certain levels of public access in the process of the statutory land-use planning have been part
of Czech planning legislation since the 1970s, but actual citizen participation has become an issue in practice
only during the last decade. Currently citizens have a say but their involvement seldom exceeds mere opposition
towards active involvement. Their attempts to be heard in the decision-making process is perceived as a nuisance
by developers and some local governments as well. Except for the opponents of speciŽc project proposals, most
people feel that involvement in the planning process is futile, having little comprehension of how urban and
regional planning may actually inuence their lives, their property and their local environment. The paper
analyses the effects of the pre-1989 powerlessness on the recent changes in the planning process and it reviews
the research and opinions of several scholars in this Želd. The formal planning process, which deals mostly with
land use, is often felt to be too narrowly deŽned and too restrictive, with limited opportunities for citizen
involvement. Strategic planning has been introduced by some municipalities in recent years as a less rigid, more
exible and potentially more participatory approach, but also here the trend that copied the accustomed patterns
of statutory land-use planning prevailed in the end. Apart from the ‘mainstream’ planning, alternative,
‘informal’ planning has emerged, often supported from abroad and organized by non-governmental organizations
( NGOs ). Although still marginal, it has introduced active planning by citizens. The absence of legal deŽnition
and guidance in the case of non-statutory planning allowed greater diversity in the planning method itself. After
several years of this experience, however, it has primarily proven just how diverse the concept of citizen
participation might be. On the basis of the analysis of the current diversiŽcation of planning methods, an attempt
is made to draw some conclusions concerning the evolving process of citizen empowerment and participation in
Czech planning, as well as to indicate patterns of the changes of the involvement process in the current stage
of transformation.

1. Introduction
Western democracies have been experimenting for decades with various means for providing
citizens with an equal ( or dominant ) voice in the planning process. The involvement of citizens
in planning was viewed as a potential remedy when the post-World War II programmes of
social improvement through planning and urban renewal proved to be unproductive by the

Karel Maier, Czech Technical University, Thákurova 7, Prague 6, CZ 16634, Czech Republic. Tel: 1 4202
24354981 ; Fax 1 4202 24310185; E-mail maier@fanet.fa.cvut.cz

ISSN 0965-431 3 print/ISSN 1469-594 4 online/01/060707– 13 Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/0965431012007377 5
708 Karel Maier

1960s. Several ‘schools’ of planning theory emerged, each identifying different kinds of
citizens’ roles in planning and urban change. What is nowadays understood as ‘citizen
participation’ in the everyday practice of planning, e.g. in the Netherlands, Switzerland,
Germany or Sweden, is an outcome of decades of steady and sometimes contro-
versial development of attitudes, concepts and institutions. In the Ž eld of theory, the
particular planning ‘schools’ developed a multitude of meanings of the very concept of
participation.
The position of the ‘new democracies’ is apparently different, especially in the post-
communist countries. Scholars from the West “have lamented the absence or obliteration of
traditions of independent civic engagement and a widespread tendency toward passive
reliance on the state” (Putnam, 1995, p. 65 ). In fact, it is difŽ cult to use the same yardstick for
the current state of citizen participation in planning in the ‘established’ West and the
‘transforming’ East. Even if the starting point of the change in the East could be compared
to the West of the 1960s, the social and economic environment would differ, and also the gap
between expectations and results is probably wider in the East.
Each of the former Soviet-dominated societies has a different previous history in which it
enjoyed more or less democracy. Here we consider the case of the present Czech Republic.
Czechs, who had lived in the Austrian part of the Habsburg monarchy and then established
their own democratic republic, have probably the longest liaison with citizenry and self-
government in East-Central Europe. Even for Czechs, however, the period of Ž ve decades
meant a deep change in the cultural environment, especially with respect to the extreme
oppression to which the democratic élite of the society were repeatedly exposed in the Ž rst
halves of the 1940s, 1950s and 1970s. The experience of disempowerment got deep under the
skin of people, making them suspicious and unwilling to cooperate.
Apart from the general constraints for participation, which stem from the historic
experience of the Czech people, speciŽ c constraints exist in planning, also inherited
from the past. Especially during the 1950s and 1960s, citizens witnessed the making of
urban and regional plans as rather idealistic, symbolic visions, often beyond any expectable
reality. This kind of planning was just a part of the overall doublethink. Even though
approved plans had statutory, obligatory status, their actual power was low, as it was with
all laws in the society. As such, plans were not of signiŽ cant interest for citizens who could
neither make any changes in the plan, nor felt any real impact of the plan on their everyday
lives.
Planning was felt to have little importance among people who were accustomed to living
under the whims of a totalitarian regime. The real in uence of ordinary citizens’ wills upon
their own lives, rights, and status was so insecure, very low value was placed on anything
which was beyond the realm of the immediate future. Day-to-day gains became a dominant
objective for most people, considering the high risk of any long-term effort or investment.
Paradoxically, whereas the objectives of centrally planned societies should have been predom-
inantly strategic, the common sense and thinking of most people was primarily short term.
When the central directives of the State disappeared, the entrenched habits propagated over
Ž ve decades remained Ž rmly in people’s minds. One can easily observe this in the short-
sighted, ‘smash-and-grab’ behaviour of many of the newly emerged private property owners
during the Ž rst post-1989 years.
After 1989, with the principles of oppression lifted, and legal constraints for citizen
participation gradually removed, Czech society has been slowly recovering from the previ-
ously omnipresent control and manipulation. The experience of the omnipotent power system
is still in the minds of people, in which the representatives did not represent anything but a
cogwheel in the power machine and instead of serving they directed. Even now, however,
some politicians believe they were elected to rule over their electorates and also few citizens
 Citizen Participation in Planning 709

are prepared to use their democratic rights and take their share of responsibility at the same
time.
Against the background of the ‘silent majority’, the society may currently be viewed as a
fragmented collection of isolated, island-like interest groups, unable to communicate, not to
say cooperate with each other. Even within speciŽ c interest groups, their objectives are often
very poorly deŽ ned or articulated.

2. Participation in the Emerging Democracy

In all democratizing societies, the issue of participation has been increasingly becoming
important. It attains growing interest in all segments of public services and governmental
policies. The attitude of particular public and governmental organizations may, however, vary
from willingness to acknowledge citizens and citizen initiatives as partners to viewing them as
enemies of streamlined and orderly processes.
Citizens and interest groups call for right to effective objecting or appeal if a policy is
damaging their individual or group interests. They strive for greater in uence on the policies
and services in general. This paper addresses both these aspects in the Ž eld of urban planning
in the transitional period from directed towards open, civic society. In this transition, the
former, ‘negative’ aspect apparently prevails in initial stages of democratizing planning while
the latter, ‘pro-active’ or ‘positive ’ participation is the central concern of planning debate (cf.
BlazÏ ek, 1994, 1996; KasÏ parová et al., 1997; Lenda, 1998; Procházka, 1998). With ‘maturing’
behaviour of governments and citizens, the very concept of participation will be presented as
changing from initially prevailing ‘negative’ aspect toward a more balanced one.
Glass (1979 ) deŽ ned citizen participation as “providing citizens with opportunities to take
part in governmental decision or planning processes” ( p. 180 ). Viewed from this standpoint,
participation is quite contrary to the very principle of the totalitarian power pyramid found
in the Soviet-dominated part of Europe until the end of the 1980s. Any attempt to provide
for the empowerment of citizens in the processes of planning was oppressed because this
process could lead to challenging the central control. As such, any attempts to develop citizen
participation were condemned to failure (or at least marginalization and formality), as long as
the central power was effective.
The dynamism of changes in citizens’ involvement in planning was analysed by Arnstein
(1969 ) who distinguished different ‘levels ’ of participation as ‘rungs of a ladder’. The ‘lowest’
two rungs of non-participation are manipulation and therapy. Climbing up the ladder, one
reaches tokenism: the rungs of informing and consultation. Here citizens can be heard but
decisions are made, which disregard their voice. The next steps are placation where citizens
have an advisory position, and partnership where trade-offs are made between powerful and
‘ordinary’ citizens. Only on the top of the ladder does the citizens’ role reach the rungs of
delegated power and citizen control, where citizens have a major role in decision-making
processes. With reference to the current diversiŽ cation in post-communist societies, this
analogy may seem simpliŽ ed but it will help to describe the recent and current changes—for
at least the ‘mainstream’ society. While Glass (1979 ) understood participation as an oppor-
tunity provided to citizens, Arnstein (1969 ) considered it as a process of gradual empowerment
that required a certain effort and possibly a resistance to be overcome. In my view, an
opportunity to take part in planning and decision-making may not necessarily lead to real
participation: the citizenry may fail to take part or even they may refuse it, feeling their
incapability or lack of willingness to take responsibility. The Arnstein’s comparison seems
more appropriate to the dynamic substance of the process but it is based on the presumption
of two invariable parties—‘them’ and ‘us’. I will try to show that even the scope of players and
their roles are changing in the process of participation.
710 Karel Maier

3. The Disempowered and the Mainstreamers

Wang and Loo ( 1998 ) in their study on participation of poor and formerly disempowered
people in the US wrote that “… have-nots, referring to poor citizens, especially minorities, are
the real concern of what is commonly known as citizen participation” (p. 443 ). Following the
deŽ nition of poverty by Friedman ( 1992 ) as “a form of social, political and psychological
disempowerment”, the steady oppression by totalitarian regimes made a great majority of
central Europeans have-nots, at least in the sense of their lack of empowerment. In this
respect, those who were characterized as ‘poor and minorities’ in the US by Wang and Loo
(1998 ), correspond to a great majority in the totalitarian societies. Throughout all levels of the
rigid societal hierarchy, the rights of individuals to communicate views, to control their
personal lives, or to take responsibility for personal decisions were absent. However, the
factual exclusion of virtually everyone helped to keep groups which may otherwise have been
marginalized, reasonably inside the mainstream of society (at least as long as the original
egalitarian principles had been effective ).
It was only toward the end of the communist period (or even as late as the 1990s ), when
problems of the poor, the elderly, the under-skilled and the Gypsies—which represent an
ethnic underclass—emerged as issues in the media and politics. The current societal
stratiŽ cation, which necessarily followed free market and the lifting of the controls, eroded the
previous compact ‘silent mass’. New contrasts emerged between those who are capable to use
their civic rights and defend their interests, and the marginalized, excluded outsiders. The
marginal ( and, increasingly, marginalized ) groups of society have attracted little interest from
planners so far, except for mismatched discussions about housing for ‘unadaptable ’ people.
Apparently, problems of planning still had little to do with social and ethnic diversity. Thus,
the issue of participation in planning, which was raised by deep changes in all of Czech society
during the 1990s, has concerned as a rule the ‘majority’ society only, however fuzzy the
deŽ nition of the majority society could be in this period.

4. The Changing Arena and its Implications for Planning

Soon after the country made its Ž rst steps away from the Soviet-fashion ‘dirigism’ towards
Western pluralism, it turned out that “planning in a capitalist democracy is both necessary
and impossible” ( Foglesong, cited in Sandercock, 1998, p. 49 ).
Immediately after 1989, urban and regional planning was often confused with central
control itself, and as such it was rejected by new conservatives. Ironically, it was these same
conservatives who were elected to local self-governing bodies who soon recognized and
appreciated the usefulness of planning and prevented it from its overall collapse in the end.
Unfortunately planning practice proved to be unprepared for the new role and importance of
planning in a plural, democratic society. Planners failed to distinguish the new plans prepared
for the new, freely elected self-governments, from the old ones made under the guidance of
the central control. It was Ž rst and foremost the inertia of planning, its poor communication
with citizens and bureaucratic red-tape which have maintained the criticism of planning alive
long after the initial anti-planning wave had diminished.
During the past decade, the democratization of government institutions and the decentral-
ization of power was slower than originally expected and rather gradual, but it eventually
enabled the delegation of planning responsibility to local governments and with it, a greater
voice for citizens. This process included establishing local government processes for the
approval of statutory local plans ( 1990 ), holding public hearings and conducting Environmen-
tal Impact Assessments (EIAs) ( 1992 ), and Ž nally, granting local government full responsibility
for plan making ( 1998).
 Citizen Participation in Planning 711

The Arnstein’s analysis presumed that the legitimate interests of ‘us’ have to be protected
against ‘them’ who have power. At the time of its origin it was the misinterpretation of
citizens’ will by their representatives which made independent citizens’ initiatives emerge in
the planning arena. In the transforming countries the problem is complicated by the weak
social capital ( cf. Coleman, 1988) of an immature civic society, but also by the striking
weakness of local formal power in the face of the power of capital, especially originating from
outside the country. Thus the informal power of capital often dominates over not only
particular citizen/social groups but even over the formal power of legal bodies. This may lead
to sundry power coalitions, as will be discussed later. As such, the role of citizen initiatives as
a counterbalance (or as an ally?) to formal legal power is both very difŽ cult and crucial in
the process of building effective democracy. They should act both as opponents of and
participants in power.
As new private entrepreneurs became conscious of planning as an instrument for further-
ing or in uencing particular interests, they quickly pursued an active role. Private developers
and real estate interests soon became another power in the planning arena, challenging the
previous power balance between government authorities and expert consultants. In some
cases, an alliance emerged between strong business groups and local government, while
planning consultants took the role of advocates of citizens’ values. In other cases, business
interests challenged a ‘coalition for public wealth’ established by local authorities and planning
consultants. Usually, the con ict between thus represented ‘common mainstream values’ and
the interests of the capital disabled the approval or implementation of local plans in the end.
The legitimization of business involvement in the process of planning is fully compatible
with the trend of development-oriented planning which has prevailed since the mid-1990s.
The voice of public initiatives and newly emerging weak and hard-up non-governmental
organizations ( NGOs) have thus far had little chance of penetrating the ‘coalitions of money
and power’ established in some towns between business groups and local ofŽ cials. Also
planners have mostly hesitated to view citizen initiatives and NGOs as partners or even allies.
As municipalities and local planners are often reluctant to engage their resources in supporting
local initiatives, the role has commonly been pursued by NGOs. Those most adept at sparking
the process have typically been international organizations with an environmental interest or
orientation, thanks to their expertise, organizational and also material support. Ironically,
business lobbies also seem to be recognizing the potentials of citizens’ pressure. In some
extreme cases they are occasionally ‘buying up’ citizens’ voices or even ‘creating’ their own
supporting groups among local inhabitants. As such, the dividing line between ‘legitimate us’
and ‘evil them’ as well as the illusion of citizen participation as a right representative of
common values is questioned.

5. The Practice of the 1990s

5.1 Research and Analyses
While planning as a profession and activity has survived the post-1989 turbulence, planning
theory, restricted earlier to State-controlled research institutes, has almost disappeared (cf.
Maier, 1998 ). Therefore very few attempts to analyse the changes of planning practice have
been made. In the following part of this paper is a brief literature review of Czech research
on the topic of participation in the 1990s.
Lenda (1996 ) executed a research project among Czech planning practitioners to Ž nd out
which problems, methods and techniques are common in the plan-making process. She found
that the enhancement of ‘community consciousness’ was mentioned among preconditions for
revitalization of towns. The lack of a willingness to collaborate and communicate among
712 Karel Maier

actors in urban planning and development was even classiŽ ed as the foremost obstacle for
solving current problems. However, the respondents of the research did not support the idea
that citizens would increasingly like to be involved in the process of planning and solving the
problems. The planners surveyed proved to have a basic knowledge of most participation
techniques, but they preferred those which did not require broad-scale involvement of the
general public. Preferred techniques included informal interviews with local opinion- and
decision-makers, questionnaires, and small-group techniques. SigniŽ cant scepticism was
shown, namely towards techniques which require informal, game, and interactive approaches
between planners and lay persons.
Throughout the study the research conŽ rmed that the pattern of contacts between
planners and citizens typically consisted in collecting information and opinions among people
in the analytical stage of plan-making and presentation and explanation of planning proposals
for the public during the legally required public enquiry or hearing stage. This was still more
than the minimum required by the law, which states that objectives, drafts and proposals for
statutory plans have to be displayed, and comments of citizens have to be considered.
Apart from the common routine, some planners did try to introduce more participation
in planning. Procházka (1998 ) commented that this effort needed substantial time and money.
Therefore, he suggested to start with a smaller-scale project and then to follow immediately
with other projects, in order that the human potential of initiative that emerged in the
preceding project would be used. To maintain credibility, people need to see a “concrete,
however cheap and maybe less important, visible outcome” (p. 58). He believed that the
resources spent on participation would pay back in the end: “The plans made on the basis of
informal collaboration with the public will have a greater chance to be successfully imple-
mented, because more important information would have been collected, which would have
otherwise remained uncovered” (p. 57 ). In this way, participation may be proposed as a means
of compensating for the recently questioned authority of planning and the resources planners
have available owing to deregulation, by improving the chances of implementing plans.
The idea of ‘small being beautiful’ can also be found in BlazÏ ek ( 1996 ). This study proposes
that the dialogue between planners and citizens will differ in small communities from the
prospects for dialogue in big cities and regions. The smaller the unit, the easier the immediate
contact with all clients. The basic medium of a dialogue is face-to-face communication, which
is easier to achieve in small, stabilized communities. Examples of this difŽ culty include
attempts for ‘immediate’ participation of residents in large housing estates. In the end, they
were replaced by more effective ways to communicate with residents, such as the use of
exhibitions of planning proposals followed by discussions with residents, etc.
Richardson et al. (1998 ) described a certain inertia among public authorities against the
recent introduction of public participation into EIA and planning processes. “In the face of
this inertia, non-governmental organizations are beginning to play a critical double role in
both advocating reform, and in pro-actively establishing new practice.” NGOs seem to be an
important element in establishing new practices of public participation.
The neo-conservative governments between 1992 and 1996 did not support public
initiatives and NGOs, with some politicians denying all but individual interests, efforts and
rights. Later, public initiatives and NGOs began to Ž nd some degree of acceptance. In the
Ž eld of planning, the responsible ministry has recently begun trying to overcome the inertia
of district and local planning administrations. An example of the top-down reform effort is the
instruction manual on the ‘best practice’ of participation commissioned by the ministry
(KasÏ parová et al., 1997 ). Despite the proclaimed position that citizens’ participation in
planning should not be understood as a “special set of techniques to be added to the standard
procedures provided by planners”, the instruction in fact advised the municipalities to hire
‘participation experts’ who would provide the participation in the same way as other specialist
 Citizen Participation in Planning 713

experts provide plans for utility networks or transportation patterns. The draft manual was
widely criticized and, on the basis of comments made by its opponents, the entire effort was
abandoned in the end. This incident shows how helpless may be even those ( planners,
administrators, etc. ) who really strive for involvement and participation. Moreover, the idea
of the ‘professionalization’ is not only strictly top-down but it follows also the customary
‘us– them’ model.

5.2 The Mainstream Planning

In the early 1990s, the general anti-planning attitudes typically resulted in abandoning formal
planning and adopting an opportunistic ‘trend planning’ model (cf. Brindley et al., 1989 ). This
was essentially a reactive approach of dealing with particular projects and incremental change
as opportunities were presented by the private sector. Later on, this process sunk to the point
of preparing ‘supply plans’, which allowed development almost anyplace where it was
technically feasible, abdicating the regulatory role of planning.
Following the comparison of the Arnstein’s ladder, the formal statutory planning process
has moved from the factual non-participation of the 1970s and 1980s towards tokenism or,
increasingly, placation ( despite the voice given formally to citizens by the law ). Legally, citizens
are now entitled to have access to plans at particular stages of development, upon which
citizens may comment or, if their property is directly concerned, they may formally object.
Participation beyond these levels is purely a private consideration of individual planning
consultants/practitioners who may try to approach to ‘the public’ as a source of information.
Often, consultants are likely to view ‘concerned citizens ’ as a nuisance requiring persuasion or
as opponents. Since planners rarely have a background in the social sciences, even those who
do accept and promote participation regard it as a job for special experts who must be
commissioned.
Formal planning still retains its mostly paternalistic, if not elitist, approach. The public is
now accepted as a legitimate opponent, but it is primarily the decision of individual planners
and the contracting municipality whether or not to invest the time and effort necessary for the
involvement of the local citizenry.
Still, public opinion is increasingly accepted as an important source of information in the
initial, analytical stage of the plan-making process. Opinion polls are often carried out to learn
how local citizens evaluate their environment and what their preferences are for future
improvements. This is an important move from the authoritarian planning model towards a
less rigid and uniform mode of planning practice, but there still remains a signiŽ cant gap
between planning experts and ‘lay’ people, who are not expected to join actively the process
of planning.

5.3 Would Strategic Planning Fit Better?

The disillusion with the practice of formal ( physical) planning often led to seeking alternative
planning approaches. Strategic planning, which has no legal or statutory basis in the Czech
Republic, seemed to meet the demand for a more  exible planning model, as well as allowing
for more discussion and a direct involvement of variety of actors in the development process.
By the second half of the 1990s, the content shifted to highlight economic issues. As economic
prosperity became the priority, most strategic plans focused on economic development and
effectiveness, although their scope was often much more comprehensive. This shift also
impacted public involvement and openness in the planning process. Most strategic plans
developed for towns and regions were fully prepared by expert teams, sometimes in co-
operation with local experts. In some cases plans included some research of public opinion,
714 Karel Maier

but rarely were the plans prepared in collaboration with representatives of local interest
groups and initiatives. Out of 16 major cases of strategic planning analysed by ÚÚR ( 1998),
Ž ve were fully prepared by external experts, based entirely on hard-data analysis and oriented
to a formal plan as a product rather than on more basic institutional changes. Eight other
cases were prepared by external experts in cooperation with local advisory teams established
by respective municipalities, but still leaving the general public outside the process.
After statutory physical planning, a similar pattern has also evolved as a part of the
‘implanted’, strategic planning process. When viewed using Arnstein’s aforementioned anal-
ogy of the ladder, most strategic plans have obviously not climbed above the rung of
‘placation’. All parties felt it would be inefŽ cient to involve large segments of the citizenry and,
at most, they adopted a selective, structured and stratiŽ ed pattern of involvement of ‘out-
siders’. Coincidental links can be identiŽ ed among (a ) the number and type of external
experts, (b ) selective approach and limits to citizens’ involvement, and (c ) emphasis upon the
production of a formal document and quick effects of planning. In the expert-based cases of
strategic plan-making, usually only limited selections of ‘local groups’ were involved and plans
as ‘ready-to-use’ products were emphasized. However, the (less frequent) cases of a participa-
tive, ‘mutual-learning’ approach were more open to informal participants and they were also
inclined to process-oriented planning ( Maier, 2000 ).
Scale also affects the degree and type of public involvement; generally the larger the
municipality in question, the more complex the structure and hierarchy of involvement. In the
case of the strategic plan for Prague, several task forces or ‘external circles’ were established
outside the ‘inner group’ of expert consultants and decision-makers, each with their own
hierarchies. ‘Externists’ were also asked to make comments on the outcomes before the plan
proposal was publicized. Incidentally, the city of Prague will become a regional unit in 2001
and, as such, the ‘city’ strategic plan was designated to be converted into a regional
development strategy. The governmental guidelines that were prepared for regional develop-
ment strategies do not assume any involvement of the public in this process: the development
of this strategy is coordinated by a ‘regional coordination group’ which consists of a limited
number of representatives from district ofŽ ces, local self-governments, business groups,
universities and development agencies ( ÚRM, 1999 ).
Thus the established practice of both the formal, statutory planning and current strategic
planning cannot be expected to erase the dividing line between those who are directly
involved—and who have ( power, expertise, access to full information )—and the others whose
role is restricted to comments, objections and sometimes ex-post (from the point of view of the
statutory planning process) appeals. The future change may rather consist in shifting than
removing the dividing line. The advocates of status quo in mainstream statutory as well as
strategic planning argue that this is the only way how to prevent the running engine of spatial
control and change from derailment. The formal and legally regulated public access to the
planning and following decision-making processes is considered as the better alternative to a
stalemate resulting from con icts among diverse interests.

5.4 The Community Planning Alternative/Parallel

Attempts to facilitate active public participation exist primarily outside ‘ofŽ cial’ planning, as
a divide is emerging between the mainstream ‘planning by the State’ and “community
planning which needs to be incorporated as a counterpoint to the modernist narrative”
(Sandercock, 1998, p. 54 ). Besides the ‘ofŽ cial’ strategic planning surveyed by ÚÚR (1998)
grassroots based participatory planning often led by NGOs has begun to emerge recently.
This type of planning is generally aimed at small-scale local projects and small, rural
communities. Here, the experts act as initiators and mediators, while a major role is played
 Citizen Participation in Planning 715

by local individuals and groups. They attempt to build a shared community vision, and then
seek the means to make the vision real. Authorities perceive this approach as ‘non-planning’,
in spite of the fact that this is the only case in which citizens may play an active, positive role
in preparing for future development.
The effects of ‘informal’ community planning are difŽ cult to evaluate. Typically, after the
stage in which informal planning has been introduced, another stage of ‘ofŽ cial’ plan-making
follows, which is necessary to secure grants and subsidies from the State, enabling the
implementation of the desired projects.
In controversial cases of ‘ofŽ cial’ planning (e.g. when ofŽ cials, planners and developers
attempted to exclude opponents from the planning process), a strategy of ‘parallel planning’
has been adopted by NGOs. Parallel to formal planning procedures, public meetings are
organized. These meetings aim to arouse interest among citizens by providing appropriate
information and, consequently, at building effective pressure on the ‘ofŽ cial’ planning process
(Richardson et al., 1998 ).
The move from protesting and opposing plans and projects as counteraction to what
Arnstein calls manipulation and therapy towards informal community planning and ‘parallel
planning’ can prove very important. Although this is still rather exceptional, here the citizens
exercise not only their rights to comment, protest, make objections and ultimately forestall an
action, but they also take their active part in planning, which necessarily involves also a certain
responsibility for the planning action.
The informal planning having no regular, legal-based position, it is usually fully dependent
on support from non-governmental resources. As such it can maintain its independence from
governments but it can be also used by strong interest groups standing behind the scene for
achieving their particular objectives. In this way the openness, civic control and responsibility
to the public is a problem not only for governments but also for NGOs.
In the context of the increasingly fragmented interests, the role of any—governmental or
non-governmental—organization cannot claim the position of a generally legitimate represen-
tation of civic values. Moreover, outside any kind of representation, new disempowered
groups have emerged and will probably increase in number. These groups are easy to be
‘bought’, manipulated and misused.

6. Conclusions
6.1 The Multidimensioned Process
The current process of involvement and empowerment has several dimensions:
(1 ) It is a process of trial and error in which all legal parties, interest groups and individuals
learn how to effectively promote their agendas in a political arena without a strong
‘supreme power’. In a fragmented society with island-like interest groups, rigid statements
and con ict overwhelmingly prevail over communication aimed at compromise and
agreement. This is typical not only on the part of government ofŽ cials and business
interests who usually establish power centre(s ) but also on the part of the general public
and citizen initiatives.
( 2) It is a combination of top-down and bottom-up processes. The central government is now
seeking to gradually delegate powers to regional and local subsidiaries. From the other
side, local interest groups and initiatives are increasingly trying to impress their views in
the plan-making process. The greatest inertia in this process, however, seems to be the
practice of municipal and district administrations, and also of some their planning
consultants. Moreover, an established legal mechanism which separates plan-makers from
the implementation of plans—external, hired consultants being separated from the
716 Karel Maier

planning administration—supports the trend to avoid anything which would complicate

the ‘assembly line ’ of the plan-making, irrespective of the likely problems with future
implementation.
(3 ) The position of mainstream planning remains strong, while attempts for informal,
community-led planning are rather marginal and dependent on external support. The
signiŽ cance of the informal planning may be rather in raising the consciousness of citizen
groups which might gradually facilitate their acceptance of their participation in main-
stream planning.
(4 ) Involvement and participation need a basic foundation in enabling legislation and greater
acceptance by governmental institutions: not only new laws and policies, but Ž rst and
foremost, a deep reform of government to adopt a greater openness and responsibility to
the public. Still, it would be naive to believe that it is only law and government
administration which matters. As illustrated by the example of strategic planning, deep-
rooted habits can adjust any new structure to their customs. The move towards more
openness and inclusion in law may lead to a ‘higher rung of participation’, but this process
should not be separated from the need for a general change of behaviour patterns in
society and political culture. It would be futile, and perhaps even dangerous, to introduce
legal patterns and procedures which do not re ect the existing societal and political
environment.
(5 ) The process of involvement is a continuous struggle. The successful inclusion of an interest
group in planning and decision-making orchestrated by what can be called the ‘power
centre’ creates a snow-ball effect. In the initial stage of the process, only those opponents
are listened to, who have enough power to directly in uence the outcome of decisions. In
the Ž rst years after 1989, these actors included State agencies and providers of energy,
water, services, etc. By the mid-1990s, local entrepreneurs and business interests began to
be invited to comment on plans, while public initiatives, often represented by NGOs,
remained outside the mainstream process, considered as intruders and ‘troublemakers’.
(6 ) In the face of increasing number of and competition among particular, often irreconcilable
interest groups, the legal representatives and administration can re-Ž nd their role as
coordinating and ordering element that establishes effective and controllable power
centres. The role of governments will consist rather in promoting and maintaining the
balance among power groups rather than a laissez-faire attitude. Unlike any other power
in the society, only the legal representation and, secondarily, administration can be
controlled by citizenry through the democratic process.

6.2 From Climbing a Ladder to a Concentric Pattern of Selective Involvement

This leads to the hypothesis that the process of increasing participation should not be
simpliŽ ed to the one-dimensional parallel of ‘climbing a ladder’. More precisely, it might best
be compared to the effect on the surface of a lake after a stone has been thrown in. Larger
and wider circles of interest groups or ‘stakeholders’, each who claim a right to be heard and
involved, emerge around the spot where the stone penetrated the water’s surface—which
symbolizes an initial ‘power centre’ where decisions are made. This is mostly the interaction
of a concentric wave with the adjacent surrounding environment, each exciting a new ‘wave’
of struggle for legitimization: an individual voice and an individual share in the decision-mak-
ing as well as responsibility. The degree of empowerment increases towards the power centre
(Figure 1 ).
The interaction between the power centre and an ‘outside’ stakeholder would gradually
pass through several stages which are similar to the Arnstein’s rungs of ladder. In the Ž rst stage
of their struggle for legitimization, the groups manifest their existence by protesting in an effort
 Citizen Participation in Planning 717

Figure 1. Changes of the pattern of involvement from totalitarian society to emerging

democracy.

to block the process of planning or execution of plans. If they succeed, they follow to the
second stage, in which they are accepted as ‘regular’ opponents and, in following plans, their
consent is sought by the power centre. In still further stages, the interest group may develop
alternative concepts of planning which, Ž nally, may be incorporated in the mainstream
planning and the group may become a part of the power centre.
As with all processes, the process of involvement and integration seeks a dynamic balance,
and as such it may not be steady, continuous and linear. This can be witnessed in established
democracies where the concept of ‘unlimited’ participation has come into question recently as
ineffective and counterproductive. The total inclusion of all parties in the planning—and,
consequently, decision-making—process, while each party can veto any decision and return
the debate to the beginning is probably the best way to prevent any action and, consequently,
conserve all nuisances and foster existing wrong. Again, as in many other instances, one may
contemplate whether the emerging democracies can use ‘the advantage of backwardness’, and
skip the trend of ‘unlimited’ participation in favour of a more balanced and, consequently,
more effective mode of involvement which would respect the ‘Real-rationalität’ power arena
(Flyvbjerg, 1996). The current effort toward operational involvement may lead to a ‘selective
involvement’: one including representatives from groups outside the ‘power centre’, while the
rest of ‘outer circle’ groups are referred to as being ‘represented’ (Figure 2).
The practice of Czech mainstream planning is still far from needing to worry about the
problem of ‘unlimited’ participation. Probably the most important shift in the common
practice of planning as viewed by the public has been in revealing and identifying con icting
interests. Increasingly, people are able to identify the interests of various private lobbies,
although they are often disguised as ‘public interests’ and may be promoted by some statutory
participants during the negotiation of plans. The con icts are now generally accepted as
natural to the planning process, unlike the previous search for an ideal solution which must
satisfy everyone. This is an important step towards a more open game in the planning arena.
What is mostly sorely missed are legitimate rules of the game which would be accepted by at
least a majority of actors and, in this way, could help to earmark the ‘trespassers ’.
Planners can play an important role in clarifying the nature of con icts and, consequently,
718 Karel Maier

Figure 2. The pattern of ‘selective involvement’.

in helping to ‘rationalize’ and resolve such con icts. Despite the fact that the theoretical
concepts for radical or advocacy planning are almost unknown among Czech planners, some
planners spontaneously tend to follow these lines, but they can only marginally compete with
more ‘effective’ colleagues in the mainstream ofŽ cial planning. Therefore, the ‘alternative’
planning initiated thus far by NGOs and some others may receive increasing importance; not
to prevail over the ofŽ cial planning or to replace it, but to in uence it, and to promote the
process of involvement and managing the con icts which inevitably follow the process of
planning.

References
ARNSTEIN, S.R. ( 1969 ) A ladder of citizen participation, Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35,
pp. 216 – 224.
BLAZÏ EK, B. (1994 ) Vesnice: Od problémuÊ ke spolecÏenstv´õ [Village: from problems towards community]. Prague:
Ecoterra.
BLAZÏ EK, B. (1996 ) Participace obyvatel na zpracovávánõ´ územneÏ plánovac´õ dokumentace [Citizen participation in the
making of land-use plans]. Prague: Ecoterra.
BRINDLEY, T., RYDIN, Y. and STOKER, G. ( 1989 ) Remaking Planning ( 2nd edition, 1996) pp. 7– 26. London:
Routledge.
COLEMAN, J.S. (1988 ) Social capital in the creation of human capital, American Journal of Sociology, 94,
pp. 95 – 120.
FLYVBJERG, B. (1996 ) The dark side of planning: rationality and realrationalität, in MANDELBAUM , MAZZA
and BURCHELL (Eds) Explorations in Planning Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers, Centre for Urban
Policy Research.
FRIEDMAN, J. (1992 ) Empowerment: The Politics of Alternative Development. Oxford: Blackwell.
GLASS , J.J. ( 1979 ) Citizen participation in planning: the relationship between objectives and techniques,
Journal of the American Planning Association, 45, pp. 180 – 189.
KASÏ PAROVÁ, L. et al. ( 1997 ) Spolupráce veéejnosti prÏi plánovánõ´ rozvoje meÏst a venkova [Citizen participation in
urban and rural planning]. Brno: Ústav územnõ´ho rozvoje [Institute for Territorial Development].
LENDA, H. ( 1996 ) Postupy plánován´õ meÏst a obcõ´ [Plan-making procedures in towns and villages]. Research
outcomes, unpublished.
LENDA, H. ( 1998 ) SpoluúcÏast obcÏanuÊ na územn´õ m plánovánõ´ [Citizen participation in physical planning]. Brno:
Urbanismus a územn´õ rozvoj 5/1998, ÚÚR.
MAIER, K. (1998 ) Czech planning in transition: assets and deŽ ciencies, International Planning Studies, 3( 3),
pp. 351 – 365.
MAIER, K. ( 2000 ) The role of strategic planning in the development of Czech towns and regions, Planning
Practice and Research, 15(3 ), pp. 247– 255.
PROCHÁZKA, A. ( 1998) P´õ p´õ sáci v C Ï echách: Participativnõ´ prÏ õ´stup k obnoveÏ a ozÏ iven´õ —nejen veéejných
 Citizen Participation in Planning 719
prostranstv´õ [The PP ’s in Czechia: participational approach to restoration and revitalization of—but
not only—public spaces], Urbanismus a územnõ´ rozvoj, 1, pp. 57– 58.
PUTNAM , R.D. (1995 ) Bowling alone: America ’s declining social capital, Journal of Democracy, 6(1 ), January,
pp. 65 – 78.
RICHARDSON, T., DUS´õ K, J. and JINDROVÁ, P. (1998 ) Parallel public participation: an answer to inertia
in decision-making, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, pp. 201 – 206.
SANDERCOCK , L. (1998 ) Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
ÚRM (1999 ) Strategie rozvoje Regionu Praha [The development strategy for the region of Prague]. Prague:
ÚRM.
ÚÚR ( 1998 ) Zpráva o soucÏasném stavu strategického plánován´õ ekonomického rozvoje meÏst [The report on present
state of strategic planning of towns and their economy ). Survey made by the Institute of Territorial
Development for the Ministry of Regional Development.
WANG, F. and LOO, VAN J.A. (1998 ) Citizen participation in the North Delta Mississippi block grants,
empowerment zones and enterprise communities, Planning Practice and Research, 13( 4), pp. 443– 451.