Environment and Planning A 1999, volume 31, pages 1129-1135

Deconstructing communicative planning theory: a reply

to Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger

PHealey
Centre for Research in European Urban Environments, School of Architecture, Planning and
Landscape, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England;
e-mail: Patsy.Healey@ncl.ac.uk
Received 16 January 1999

Abstract. This paper comments on a recent paper by Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger which presents a
critique of the new paradigm of communicative planning theory. The comments focus on the signif-
icance of a social relational perspective in the communicative/institutionalist approach, the treatment
of power, the method of 'critical theory', and the condition of contemporary British land-use planning
practice. I conclude the paper by emphasising the need for new forms of policy analysis to reflect both
new perspectives on the social relations of governance processes and the reconfiguration of governance
unfolding in practice.

During the past twenty years, there has been a rich development of debates in planning
theory, drawing in particular on the work of John Forester, Charlie Hoch, Judith Innes,
and others in the USA. This work marks a decisive shift from the 'rationalist' policy
analysis paradigm. In this well-established model, the role of planners was to 'max-
imise welfare and solve problems'. They did this through designing strategies and policy
instruments to achieve desired outcomes. The planner, in this mode, was presented as
"a rational man operating at arm's length from the messy world of politics" (Innes,
1995, page 184). In contrast, in the new paradigm of planning, planning is presented as
"an interactive, communicative activity and [planners] as deeply embedded in the fabric
of community, politics and public decision-making" (Innes, 1995, page 183). What is
taken as 'knowledge' and 'interests', as well as what are considered to be appropriate
processes, are socially constructed in the interactive social relations of policy contexts.
These reconfigurations of policy agendas and policy practices have the potential to
change policy outcomes, to 'make a difference'. They therefore carry power, understood
as the ability to make a difference (Dyrberg, 1997).
In a recent paper in Environment and Planning A Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger
(1998) present a critique of the new paradigm in planning theory. This both criticises
its lack of appreciation of the 'messy world of politics' and seeks to rescue the utility-
maximising autonomous subject (man?) of rationalist policy analysis from the inter-
subjective and relational ontology of the communicative theorists. In this comment
on their paper, I make some remarks on their critique, with the aim of widening and
deepening the development of communicative and 'institutionalist' approaches now
being developed in the policy analysis and planning fields, part of a wave of intellectual
reformulation which is sweeping across the social sciences in general.
As with any evolving paradigm, there are several inspirations to the new commu-
nicative planning theory. In terms of intellectual thoughtstreams, these range from US
neopragmatics (Harper and Stein, 1995), to the Frankfurt critical theory school and
in particular the contributions of Jiirgen Habermas (Forester, 1989; 1993), and Michel
Foucault's power analytics (Fischler, 1995; Flyvberg, 1998a; 1998b; Richardson, 1996).
Not only do these strands of thought intertwine in the work of communicative
theorists (for example, Forester, 1989; Innes, 1995; Throgmorton, 1996). Much of the
work of these theorists is deeply informed by their researches on planning practices
1130 P Healey

(for example, Forester, 1989; Hillier, 1993; Hoch, 1992; 1995; Innes, 1992; 1996). Much
of the US work has been informed by how, in highly fragmented and conflictual local
governance and environmental decisionmaking contexts, people nevertheless come
together to build common strategic practices (for example, Innes, 1996) and why these
efforts often fail (Throgmorton, 1996). But their inquiries lead these policy analysts to
focus not on formal strategies, government structures, and policy instruments, but on
the interactive practices through which policy ideas are developed and disseminated,
on policy discourses and the social relations of policy practices. These ideas have been
attracting increasing attention in Europe, in the context of the break-up of traditional
welfare state structures and processes (Balducci, 1996; Balducci and Fareri, 1998;
Healey, 1997a; Sager, 1994).
As with any paradigm, as this set of ideas has come to intellectual prominence, it is
being subject to critical challenge. A prominent challenge has recently been mounted
in the U S A by urban political economists. The argument is that insufficient attention
has been paid to the dynamics driving changes in governance contexts (Lauria and
Whelan, 1995). The trajectory of this argument moves towards similar conclusions to
those engaged in researching regulation theory and regional economic development
practices. Communicative practices (the way ideas are developed, disseminated, and
translated around governance actors in specific contexts) are increasingly recognised
as critical elements in the development and maintenance of governance forms. Such
practices are actively constituted by 'knowing subjects' in social interaction in specific
contexts (Amin and Thrift, 1995; Moulaert, 1996; Storper, 1997). Local governance
forms cannot therefore readily be 'read off from broad structural dynamics. Analysis
instead needs to explore the dynamic relation between broad driving forces and
specific social relations in particular contexts (Goodwin et al, 1993; Painter, 1997).
Much of the 'new institutionalism' inspired by Giddens (1984) follows this direction
(Hall and Taylor, 1996; Muller and Surel, 1998).
The second challenge comes essentially from within the work of the 'new' planning
theorists. It challenges Habermas's 'discourse ethics' from the perspective of Foucault's
'power analytics' (for example, Flyvberg, 1998a; 1998b; Richardson, 1996). Both aim
to explore the power dynamics of interactive practices at the finegrain. Habermas,
however, offers a normative approach based on conceptions of the inter subjective
reasoning practices of daily life translated into the public sphere. These draw on the
concept of policy analysis as critique. Foucault, in contrast, presents a sociological
approach to 'excavating' the layers of power which flow through and maintain the
microsocial relations of particular practices. Habermas is criticised for naivety about
embedded power relations and the possibility of any 'universal' principles of social
reasoning. Foucault is criticised for failing to specify strategies for challenging and
changing power dynamics. Yet for both, critical and reflexive analysis of power 'distor-
tions' (Habermas) and 'strategic practices' (Foucault) is advocated as a strategy which
could 'make a difference', that is, carry the power to change the way things are.
It is only very recently that these ideas have attracted significant attention in
Britain among the planning academic community. My work seems to have become
identified as their primary 'carrier' (Richardson, 1996; Rydin, 1998; Tewdwr-Jones and
Allmendinger, 1998). However, in the broad sweep of communicative planning theory,
my own work is only one strand, labelled as concerned with "institutionalist analysis
and discourse" (Innes, 1995, page 184). It draws as much on urban political economy
as it does on U S policy analysis (Healey, 1997b). It also draws on a considerable body
of empirical research on planning and property-development processes (Healey, 1999;
Healey and Barrett, 1990; Healey et al, 1988). I have recently attempted to consolidate
my approach in a book, with the metaphorically ambiguous title Collaborative Planning
Deconstructing communicative planning theory: a reply 1131

(Healey, 1997a). As a policy analyst, my concern has been to develop a social relational
perspective on governance practices, transforming work in the 1970s on 'policy imple-
mentation' (Barrett and Fudge, 1981) into critical analysis of the way active agents
interpret and develop policy practices at the microlevel of routine actions and specific
practices and in doing so are shaped by broader forces while also remoulding them.
The conceptual inspiration here is Giddens, but it could well have been Foucault.
As a normative commentator, my commitment has been to governance practices which
promote a richer and more differentiated view of social justice and democratic involve-
ment in governance than is available in the general articulations of 'community versus
capital' or 'governance by the majority will'. As collaborations and partnerships of
all kinds are being promoted across the UK governance landscape, I am interested
in how to distinguish those interactive dynamics which are likely to lead to greater
social justice and more broadly based empowerment in governance from those which
reestablish narrow corporatist or bureaucratic control of policy agendas, practices, and
outcomes.
The critical comment on my work from within the United Kingdom has been
interesting. Some note that planning academics have finally caught up with 'practice',
identifying the approach as paralleling the experiments in consensus building around
difficult environmental conflicts and local development projects as the 'practice' in
question (Bishop, 1998). Others make the opposite claim, that, because there is no
sign of the policy practices which live up to the normative criteria developed for
critiquing practices, then the ideas presented have no value in the British context
(Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998). The practices referred to here tend to be land-
use planning and economic development. A third and more theoretical critique draws
on the 'Habermas versus Foucault' debate to critique the possibility of the commu-
nicative planning paradigm (Richardson, 1996; Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998).
The grounds for this critique are the claims that the paradigm neglects issues of power
[that it is 'power-blind' (Richardson, 1996)] and privileges consensus over conflict.
Behind this last argument in recent comments lies a political fear that the paradigm
chimes in just too well with the fashionable rhetoric of empowerment, participation, and
collaboration of the British New Labour government. Finally, there are some critics
who are deeply concerned that the focus on the process of governance will distract
attention from important substantive values which public policy should achieve, notably
the agenda of environmental sustainability.
Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger's paper is a contribution to the second and third
lines of comment. Running through their paper is the claim that 'the ideas don't work in
practice'. This raises issues about the ways in which theories, concepts, and normative
criteria might be related to the world of 'practices'. What sort of leverage on practices
do we expect ideas to have? My reading of their paper is that there are differences as
well as misunderstandings in their reading of the communicative paradigm. In this brief
comment, I cannot cover all the issues raised in their paper. I focus on four issues: the
nature of a social relational perspective (the 'institutionalise position, in my use of this
term); the treatment of power; the relation of normative principles to practices; and the
particular condition of contemporary British land-use planning practice.

Institutionalist versus utilitarian concepts of social action

Underpinning my own work, and specifically articulated in Collaborative Planning,
is a relational perspective on social life. This locates individuals, as knowledgeable
subjects with capacities for autonomous action, within social relations which shape
the identities they evolve, the ways of thinking they develop, and the ways of acting they
devise. Following Giddens (1984), and paralleling Foucault to a large extent, individual
1132 P Healey

action is seen as developed in a continuous 'recursive' or 'circular' relation between

structure (the shaping forces) and agency (Dyrberg, 1997). Ways of thinking and ways
of acting exist as 'taken-for-granted' assumptions and as a 'store' of mental and behav-
ioural resources to be drawn upon in the flow of action (Carruthers, 1990). They are
also the product of human invention through interaction, some of which may endure
and get added to the store or inscribed in routine. Structuring power is carried through
the medium of these ideas and routines, shaping how agency invents ways to use,
develop, and distribute the material resources available in any situation. For many
people, this social relational perspective has itself become 'routine', underpinning
much of the poststructuralist (and postpositivist) turn in social science generally. But
as an intellectual frame of reference, it exists in ontological contrast with the utilitarian
frame, which assumes people are autonomous individuals, with sets of independently
articulated preferences, which they pursue in social action as they seek to maximise
their interests. In this latter frame, collaboration would only be 'natural' if it was in the
interests of the parties concerned. That individuals might learn new identities and
construct their interests differently through social learning encounters is not considered.
But if a social relational position is taken, then it becomes critical to examine what
perspectives are called into action in any instance, how these frame what 'interests' are
taken to be, and to examine the power transformations that may occur through social
learning processes (and dissemination). Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger do not articu-
late the utilitarian frame with any clarity, but it can be found in their references in the
paper to what people 'naturally' do (pages 5, 7) and their assumptions about individual
action (page 6). In contrast, an institutionalist policy analyst would analyse why
certain ways of thinking and ways of acting were taken for granted as 'natural'. These
issues are of great significance in the contemporary European governance context
where new and old players are being brought into different kinds of conjunctions
with each other, each with their own assumptions about what is 'normal', both in
ways of thinking and modes of behaviour. As Foucault so much appreciated, power
lies in the finegrain of social practices.

The power to 'make a difference'

Running through the paper is a rather different viewpoint on policy practices. Tewdwr-
Jones and Allmendinger emphasise the power of individuals in command of key
resources and societal positions to control public policy and manipulate agendas.
They are not only uncomfortable with notions of the intersubjective and social con-
stitution of identity and reasoning. They also seem to represent the public sphere of
governance as characterised by conflict between powerful individuals and those seek-
ing to challenge them. They thus present consensus as opposed to conflict, community
as opposed to individual autonomy. In contrast, many of those who are developing
ideas of communicative governance practices or consensus-building techniques are
deeply aware of the multiple bases of fracture and difference in contemporary societies,
both as explicitly manifested in overt conflict and as embedded in social routines.
In the dispersed power contexts of contemporary societies, where power is exercised
not merely in the visible battles which attract our immediate attention but in the
finegrain of institutionalised practices, a simple opposition of conflict versus consensus
is unlikely to capture the dimensions of the power struggles being played out in
governance contexts. Conflicts in some situations are liberating, in others oppressive.
The same can be said of consensus-building efforts. It must be quite obvious from these
remarks that the ideas of communicative rationality, far from being 'nonpolitical'
(page 5), or 'power blind', are deeply political. The mobilisation of processes of policy
argumentation in 'public' offers the potential to challenge and change not merely the
Deconstructing communicative planning theory: a reply 1133

overt and formal holders of powerful roles, but the assumptions and values embedded
in everyday practices.
What is at issue here is the conceptualisation of power. Power, for many interested
in communicative practices;, is understood not merely as power-over-or-power eto', but
power as 'ability', the power to 'make a difference' (Dyrberg, 1997). Recognition,
challenge, and mobilisation through the development of public argumentation have
significant potentials to make a difference, by changing the way actors in governance
contexts think about their interests, their values, and the constraints which impinge
upon them. Power cannot be 'removed5 because it inheres in social relations. It comes
into being in the active work of constituting identity and social relations in social
contexts, just as it constrains these processes, in a recursive process described neatly
by Dyrberg as the 'circular structure of power'. In this understanding, the communi-
cative and institutionalist approaches which concern Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger
do not "tackle only the institutional aspect of power structures, and [deny] the exis-
tence of power inherent within the individual" (page 1980). They assume a dynamic
and constitutive interaction between individuals and institutions, as captured in Gid-
dens's structuration theory

The method of critical theory

Much of the critique of communicative reasoning and collaborative governance
practices focuses on 'whether it works in practice'. Habermas'snormative criteria for
critiquing governance practices are in this context used as an evaluative ideal practice
against which to evaluate actual governance practices. Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger
proceed analytically in this way:
"... so long as there is a possibility that individuals will not wish to build trust,
understanding, and new relations of power among participants ... then a truly
successful communicative action process is infeasible [sic], as power and political
action will remain dominant determinants" (page 1981).
Most analysts of consensus-building processes would agree with this claim. They are
interested in analysing the contextual conditions which foster the emergence and main-
tenance of such processes and in evaluating their impacts. Habermas, however, is not
primarily a social scientist engaged in analysis. He uses the method of philosophy
interested in normative principles for the conduct of discourse in the public sphere.
He proposes his criteria, following the approach of the Frankfurt School of Critical
Theory, as tools for critique, as part of a continual critique of the flow of governance
policy processes. Are the arguments put forward to justify governance action convinc-
ing, when evaluated against the criteria, or do they mask hidden manipulations? The
criteria are thus presented as argumentative tools to open up governance processes
for critical scrutiny, as an active process of 'excavating' embedded power relations for
wide scrutiny

The condition of contemporary British land-use planning practice

As Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger note (page 13), despite the opportunities for public
consultation over policies and a long tradition of debate about 'public participation',
the practices of the British planning system have not been fertile ground for the
development of communicative practices and consensus-building approaches in the
1990s. Judged by Habermasian discourse ethics, or evaluated in terms of Foucauldian
power analytics, land-use planning practices in Britain have become deeply embedded
in routines of state procedure, and allowed to privilege certain interests over others.
That land-use planning practices are causing considerable concern to many stake-
holders is evident in the ongoing flow of critique about how the system works.
1134 P Healey

In contrast, the invention of communicative practices and consensus-building strategies

is rapidly expanding in the fields of environmental conflict resolution, local environ-
mental policy, and even in the business field. For the analyst of governance processes,
this raises the question as to why the practices of the system, which engages with
multiple local environmental conflicts and involves a wide range of stakeholders, have
not developed along more communicative pathways in Britain. This suggests that there
are some peculiar characteristics of the way the British land-use planning system has
evolved in the past two decades which have constrained its trajectory (Healey, 1998;
Vigar et al, 2000). Faced with increasing local environmental conflict, the system has
become configured as an introverted regulatory function of the state, with discourses
and procedures honed for conflict resolution in semijudicial contexts. It is exactly this
configuration of regulatory practices which has generated consensus-building efforts in
US environmental governance, to escape the high costs and delays of this cend-of-pipe'
governance process. The questions this leads to are not: does planning practice meet an
idealised communicative model, but what holds the current practices in place, how far
are these factors likely to change, how could the critique of communicative practices
help to open up the possibilities for change, and how far could the design of different
communicative practices help to develop alternative pathways for planning practices,
both in individual instances and in the design of the system as a whole?

Moving on
The new interest in communicative and collaborative practices in governance contexts
is being pushed along both by 'poststructuralisf intellectual developments and by the
reconfiguration of governance. What is being invented is a form of policy analysis
appropriate for these evolutions (see Muller and Sural, 1998) and a repertoire of policy
actions which can be deployed in these emerging contexts. As this invention proceeds
apace in the unfolding governance world, as analysts we need tools not merely to
provide vocabularies to describe what is happening but to make effective critiques of
specific practices in specific situations. This means moving beyond simple dualisms
and explicit power play into the finegrain and situatedness of the exercise of power-in-
context. Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger are right to critique new ideas and to resist
'hegemonic' intellectual tendencies. They are correct to focus attention on the specifici-
ties of particular policy practices. But as policy analysts, we need to think carefully
about how we are looking at the world, what we mean by power and how we use the
concept, the relation between analysis and normative assertion and how we should
analyse and evaluate specific policy practices.
References
Amin A, Thrift N, 1995, "Globalisation, 'institutional thickness' and the local economy",
in Managing Cities Eds P Healey, S Cameron, S Davoudi, S Graham, A Madani-Pour
(John Wiley, Chichester, Sussex) pp 91 -108
Balducci A, 1996, "La 'scoperta degli attori' nella pianificazione" [The 'discovery of the actors'
in planning] Territorio nuova serie numero 3
Balducci A, Fareri P, 1998, "Consensus building, urban planning and the problem of scale: examples
from the Italian experience", in Participation and Environment Eds F Coenen, D Huitema
(Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht)
Barrett S, Fudge C (Eds), 1981 Policy and Action (Methuen, London)
Bishop J, 1998, "Re-inventing planning 3: collaboration and consensus" Town Planning Review
67(3) 111-113
Carruthers M, 1990 The Book of Memory; The Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge)
Dyrberg T B, 1997 The Circular Structure of Power (Verso, London)
Fischler R, 1995, "Planning theory as culture and experience" Journal of Planning Education and
Research 14(3) 173 -177
Deconstructing communicative planning theory: a reply 1135

Flyvberg B, 1998a Rationality and Power (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL)
Flyvberg B, 1998b, "Empowering civil society: Habermas, Foucault and the question of conflict",
in Cities for Citizens Eds M Douglass, J Friedmann (John Wiley, Chichester, Sussex)
...., pp. 185-212 _____:: ::/:::::.• .r : :. . •-.
Forester J, 1989 Planning in the Face of Power (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
Forester J, 1993 Critical Theory, Public Policy and Planning Practice (State University of New York
Press, Albany, NY)
Giddens A, 1984 The Constitution of Society (Polity Press, Cambridge)
Goodwin M, Duncan S, Halford S, 1993, "Regulation theory, the local state, and the transition
of urban politics" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 11 67 - 88
Hall P, Taylor R, 1996, "Political science and the three institutionalisms" Political Studies 44
936-957
Harper T L, Stein T, 1995, "Out of the post-modern abyss" Journal of Planning Education and
Research 14(4) 233-244
Healey P, 1997a Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies (Macmillan,
London)
Healey P, 1997b, "Situating planning practices: moving beyond political economy" Planning Theory
1765-82
Healey P, 1998, "Collaborative planning in a stakeholder society" Town Planning Review 69(1)
1-21 - •
Healey P, 1999, "Sites, jobs and portfolios: economic development discourses and the planning
system" Urban Studies 36 27 - 42
Healey P, Barrett S, 1990, "Structure and agency in land and property development processes"
Urban Studies 27 89-104
Healey P, McNamara P, Elson M J, Doak J, 1988 Land Use Planning and the Mediation of Urban
Change (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
Hillier J, 1993, "To boldly go where no planners have ever..." Environment and Planning D: Society
and Space 11 89 -113
Hoch C, 1992, "The paradox of power in planning practice" Journal of Planning Education and
Research 11(2) 206-215
Hoch C, 1995 What Planners Do (Planners Press, Chicago, IL)
Innes J, 1992, "Group processes and the social construction of growth management" Journal of
the American Planning Association 58(4) 440 - 454
Innes J, 1995, "Planning theory's emerging paradigm: communicative action and interactive
practice" Journal of Planning Education and Research 14(4) 183 -189
Innes J, 1996, "Planning through consensus building: a new view of the comprehensive planning
ideal" Journal of the American Planning Association 64 460-472
Lauria M, Whelan B, 1995, "Planning theory and political economy: the need for reintegration"
Planning Theory 14 8 - 33
Moulaert F, 1996, "Rediscovering spatial inequality in Europe: building blocks for an appropriate
'regulationist' analytical framework" Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14
155-179- :--
Muller P, Surel Y, 1998 LAnalyse des Politiques Publiques [Public policy analysis] (Montchrestien,
Paris)
Painter J, 1997, "Regulation, regime and practice in urban politics", in Reconstructing Urban Regime
Theory Ed. M Lauria (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA) pp 122-143
Richardson T, 1996, "Foucauldian discourse: power and truth in urban and regional policy making"
European Planning Studies'4(3) 279 -292
Rydin Y, 1998 Urban and Environmental Planning (Macmillan, London)
Sager T, 1994 Communicative Planning Theory (Avebury, Aldershot, Hants)
Storper M, 1997, "Regional economies as relational assets", in Geographies of Economies
Eds R Lee, J Wills (Edward Arnold, London) pp 248-258
Tewdwr-Jones M, Allmendinger P, 1998, "Deconstructing communicative rationality: a critique
of Habermasian collaborative planning" Environment and Planning A 30 1979 -1989
Throgmorton J, 1996 Planning as Persuasive Story-telling (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL)
Vigar G, Healey P, Hull A, Davoudi S, 2000 Planning Governance and Spatial Strategy in Britain:
An Institutionalist Approach (Macmillan, London)