Book Review: Planners in Politics: Do they Make a Difference?

Planners in Politics, edited by Louis Albrechts, presents the personal stories of 10 academic planners turned ‘executive politicians’; politicians with responsibility for leading a portfolio, operating in a diversity of national contexts, at different scales and having arrived in their political positions either by appointment or election (or both). Albrechts states that the book’s aim is to allow the 10 authors to reflect on how their planning experience and background may have influenced decision-making in the political sphere, as well as considering how this influenced their teaching practice when returning to academia. The book makes important contributions in a number of ways, from a deeper understanding of the ‘black box’ of explicitly political decision-making in multiple sociopolitical contexts, following from Albrecht’s assertion ‘that political decision-making has its own logic’ (p.4), to heartening stories of the ways in which planning skills and expertise can be useful in navigating the intricacies of the political sphere. This review aims to draw out these strengths, but also areas where the book opens up questions for further exploration. Before getting into the book’s substance it is important to acknowledge my perspective as a UK-based academic and sometime planning practitioner, which had a discernible impact on how I read the book, not least given the (unsurprising) absence of a chapter written from the UK context. This is a perspective that I return to when considering the key themes, debates and lessons that I want to highlight. The first of these themes is the link between politics and forms of democracy, arguably crucial to positioning the book’s intellectual contribution.