Why public participation isn’t a tool for democratizing planning. A comment

Abstract

The trigger for this comment is Zakhour’s (2020) paper published in Planning Theory earlier this year. Zakhour searches for ways to grant democratic legitimacy through practicing public participation in planning. His subject, linking public participation in planning with democracy and particularly with the democratization of planning, is a central theme in planning discourse, one that is burdened with theorization and demonstration. My aim here is to challenge the common understanding, reflected in this paper and many others, that public participation in planning is a tool for democratization. Let me start by stating the suppressed truth: Planning is not a democratic action. In most countries, planning institutions and processes are modeled in a way that negates the basic principles of liberal democracy, forming a non-democratic system within the democratic state. Democratic governance ought to be based on publicly-articulated rules legislated by elected parliaments that lay substantive legal foundations, thus providing stability and impartiality. In the field of planning, however, the rules are mostly procedural; they delegate the authority to specify substantial principles and guidelines to nonelected professionals, often governmental officials. In this regard, Moroni (2007, 2010) and Slaev et al. (2019: 454) distinguish between a teleocratic governmental approach that is “organized, detailed and strict, focusing on specific ends (e.g. drawing up a detailed plan or project)” and nomocratic governance, which is based on universal rules and adherence to the rule of law. Defining planning as a form of teleocratic professionalism relates to land-use ordinances as the main planning tool, and to the detailed, resultoriented, local nature of this type of ruling. Even in places where stated principles are the basis for planning decision-making (i.e. NPPF in the UK; Upton, 2019), these principles are articulated—and importantly, authorized—by governmental officials. Planning thus violates at least two of the main pillars of democratic regimes: first, those who authorize