An evolutionary theory of institutions and a dynamic approach to reform (original) (raw)

Rethinking planning culture: a new institutionalist approach

Town Planning Review, 2013

Scholars of planning have long grappled with the dilemma of how to explain variation among places’ traditions, modes or styles of planning practice and the legal and institutional frameworks that govern spatial development and implement planning policies. In a related effort, historians have explored the international diffusion of planning ideas and practices, the study of which has gained contemporary relevance in the context of European integration and globalisation. At the core of these enterprises is an attempt to understand change – to specify how and why planning practices are changing and why distinct patterns of planning practice have evolved in different places and at different times. Recent work has embraced the concept of ‘planning culture’ as the basis for explanation, yet this work has lacked focus. This article argues that historical institutionalism as developed in the social sciences provides a more precise explanatory framework for comparative planning research.

Institutional Analysis and Urban Planning: Means or Ends?

www-personal.umich.edu

Abstract: An institutional analysis of urban planning is a useful and valuable tool in two ways: first, in terms of institutional analysis as means (eg analyzing the outcomes of planning actions by multiple actors); and second, in terms of institutional analysis as ends (eg analyzing the actions of public sector organizations). In the first approach--institutional analysis as means--we would utilize institutional frameworks of analysis to examine the nature (eg source of institutional authority) and purpose (eg role within institutional ...

The social construction of planning systems. A strategic-relational institutionalist approach

Planning Practice & Research, 2010

This article reflects on a theoretical framework for the analysis of planning systems based on an institutionalist planning theory broadened with Jessop's strategic-relational approach. The aim is to explore the concept of the planning system with an actor—structure perspective so as to underline possible research consequences for analyses and comparisons of planning systems. The article highlights the interactions of actors and social institutional elements, clarifying the strategic-relational nature of a planning system and the dialectical process at the basis of its changes and evolutions.

What changes over time? Planning history and institutional change from a policy design perspective

European Planning Studies, 2024

Since the call to take the analytical and theoretical values of historical institutionalism seriously, planning history research has emphasized the enduring legacies of critical moments that structure the developmental pathways of urban institutions, whose changes tend to appear incremental in the long run. Yet, most of this work is less conscious about deliberate – although not always successful – considerations by policy actors in formulating policies and conflates changes in institutional arrangements with changes in policy effects. This article fills these gaps from a policy design perspective, explaining the changing policy effects of the same institutional arrangements over time through design processes such as layering. To this end, it introduces Vienna’s participatory urban renewal model, Soft Urban Renewal, highlighting its context-bound design space in which policy actors choose and rearrange existing instruments according to shifting policy objectives and circumstances. Two cases of Soft Urban Renewal from two different points in time are chosen to cross-compare their varying capacities to influence its real-world effect under different contextual constraints. It concludes with some final remarks on the ways in which a policy design perspective can contribute to the current debate on planning history research and comparative-historical analysis of cities and their institutions and policies.

Evolutionary Approaches and Planning: Dynamics of Activities and Dynamics of Institutions

Scienze Regionali, 2021

One of the most interesting branches to have emerged in the economic sciences in recent decades is the one which usually goes by the name of evolutionary economics. An evolutionary approach of this type has also been applied and developed in regional sciences and in economic geography. The aim of this article is to discuss what impacts this type of thinking had or may have on regional and urban policies and planning.

Responsibility, polity, value: The (un)changing norms of planning practices

To address the social, spatial and environmental problems of cities, planners often promote and engage with spatial practices that are intended to be experimental, innovative or transformative of existent processes. Yet, the actual nature of the novelty of these practices is often not explicit nor problematised by their proponents. This article develops an institutionalist framework to better appreciate the variegated nature of change in planning practices. It understands planning as embedded in, and simultaneously impacting on, three types of institutionalised norms: operational norms that define and allocate responsibilities among actors, collective norms that (re)produce planning polities and constitute the spatial-temporal context of their actions and constitutional norms that substantiate the idea of value defining the eligible stakeholders of a particular process. The article mobilises this framework and argues that contemporary planning practices convey a (a) shifting of responsibility towards individuals and households, (b) disaggregation of city regions through polycentric localism and (c) the reproduction of the process of accumulative valorisation of land. The article concludes reflecting on the complexity institutional change.

Institutional Design for Planning

DESCRIPTION There is a curious paradox for the theory of planning that has come to light with the collapse of communism in the USSR and Central and Eastern Europe. The institutional setting that one would imagine most amenable to planning -- a totalitarian state controlling the entire economy and wholly dedicated to "central planning" as the primary tool of governance-- actually ended up as a serious impediment to effective planning. In essence, rigid, closed institutions, even though dogmatically dedicated to planning in theory, actually helped to defeat planning in practice. Equally challenging for planning theory is to examine the process of building new institutions in Central and Eastern Europe since their peaceful revolutions of 1989 and what these transformations imply for planning. In this presentation, I will try to address both questions, since they are interrelated, and will explore the issue from recent theory in sociology.

Planning and law in evolving governance

This chapter presents a theoretical perspective on the roles of law in the evolution of planning systems. Three main roles of law in planning are distinguished: law can enable, delimit and codify planning. How these roles play out and relate to each other in the evolution of a planning system, will differ by community. In four scenario’s we discern key points regarding the relation between the roles of law in evolving spatial governance. Understanding the different roles of law in planning, and their interplay in the evolution of the planning system, adds to the scientific and societal debates on planning and law, where hitherto polarizing discourses (planning vs law) dominated the discussion. More broadly, our perspective on the enabling, codifying and delimiting functions of law in planning sheds a new light on the potential and limitation of both law and planning to shape the future of communities.