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Reconstructing Decision-Making: Planning Versus Politics

Louis Albrechts Planning Theory 2003 2: 249 DOI: 10.1177/147309520323007 The online version of this article can be found at: http://plt.sagepub.com/content/2/3/249

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Copyright 2003 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) Vol 2(3): 249268 [1473-0952(200311)2:3;249268;041986] www.sagepublications.com

RECONSTRUCTING DECISION-MAKING: PLANNING VERSUS POLITICS

Louis Albrechts
University of Leuven, Belgium

Abstract The purpose of this article is to explore the role of politics in planning and the highly political role of planners. The structure planning process for Flanders illustrates that planners are an active force in enabling change and that political decision-making is a process of its own with its own actors. Interviews with key political actors allow unravelling the planning process from the perspective of the political class. The case brings powerful informal arenas to the open and documents power plays involving planners and politicians. The case also illustrates that much of the actual planning discourse is at odds with the rationale of some politicians. Keywords decision-making, Flanders, planning process, politics, power, role of planners

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1. Introduction
In planning literature there are ample examples of well-documented cases of plan-making and formal decision-making (Altshuler, 1965; Benveniste, 1989; Flyvbjerg, 1998; Meyerson and Baneld, 1955) and substantive literature on implementation is also available (Gualini, 2001; Majone and Wildavsky, 1979; Mastop and Faludi, 1997; Pressman and Wildavsky, 1974; Wildavsky, 1979). Hardly any examples of cases analysed from the perspective of the political class are available. Therefore political decision-making often seems like a black box to planners. Planning needs a ne-grained analysis of what actually takes place in formal decision-making and implementation, in the transition from plan to formal adoption of the plan and in its actual implementation, as opposed to what they normatively would like to see happen (see Friedmann, 1998). Research by Flyvbjerg (1998) makes it clear that critical analysis of cases is needed to discover the whys and wherefores of how elected representatives or preferential actors change the plan and why and how executive ofcers depart from the formally approved plan. In this article I focus on the dynamic interactions between planners and the operation of the political process (see Kitchen, 1997; Krumholz and Forester, 1990). The key issue I want to deal with is how regional government ministers and planners interact, and to some extent which players were dominant in the case at hand (Structure Plan Flanders). Through the analysis of the case I want to illustrate that planning and decision processes have to focus on the design of institutional mechanisms (Gualini, 2001; Healey, 1997a) through which to address common problems, values and images of what a society wants to tackle and to achieve (De Jouvenel, 1964; Ozbekhan, 1969; Weeks, 1993). The case also demonstrates that these processes need expertise skilled in communicative people-centred practices (Forester, 1989; Sager, 1994; Innes, 1996; Healey, 1997a) and shrewd strategic actors understanding the power dynamics of the wider political context (Huxley, 2000; Flyvbjerg, 1998; Forester, 1989; Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998; Yiftachel, 1998). Besides a selective review of planning literature and interviews with key political actors the article relies on the analysis of a case study. The scale (central versus city level in most cases), the subject matter (an integrated strategic spatial plan not a project), a different political tradition (more Latin in comparison to Danish, UK and US traditions) all add to the specicity and uniqueness of this case as compared to others (see Meyerson and Baneld, 1955; Flyvbjerg, 1998; Friend and Jessop, 1969; Kitchen, 1997; Tewdwr-Jones, 2002). The article is biased and somehow unbalanced to the extent that it is partly written from an insiders perspective as I was, with a colleague, in charge of the case. My immediate involvement makes it however a real-life account of planning-in-action (see Schn, 1984). It affords me a more

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intimate view of the decision-making process than I could obtain from any other perspective (for a comparable approach see Meyerson and Baneld, 1955; Krumholz and Forester, 1990; Kitchen, 1997). This involvement made it possible to interview the main political actors: four ministers, including the prime minister, and six key political advisers to these ministers. The article is structured to reect the key issue. Following a short view on how I see planning, the planning context and the political context of the case are considered. Then the case discusses the relationship between planners and the ministers and the role of political decision-makers in the process. Concluding remarks reect on the added value of the case for planning and decision-making.

2. Planning as political choice

Planning is not an abstract analytical concept but a concrete socio-historical practice, which is indivisibly part of social reality. As such, planning is in politics, and cannot escape politics, but is not politics. Since planning actions are clear proof that they are not only instrumental, the implicit responsibility of planners can no longer simply be to be efcient, to function smoothly as neutral means of obtaining given and presumably well-dened ends. Planners must be more than navigators keeping their ship on course. They are necessarily involved with formulating that course (see also Forester, 1989). In order to avoid planning being more concerned with how to plan rather than with the content of planning, substantive rationality (Mannheim) or value rationality (Weber) must become an intrinsic part of planning processes (De Jouvenel, 1964; Ozbekhan, 1969). Speaking of values is a way of describing the sort of environment in which we want to live, or think we should live. The values and images of what a society wants to achieve are dened in the planning process. Values and images are not generated in isolation but are created, given meaning and validated by traditions of belief and practice, they are reviewed, reconstructed and invented through collective experience (see Ozbekhan, 1969; see also Elchardus et al., 2000: 24; Foucault, 1980: 11). Just as there are many traditions and collective practices, there are also many images of what communities want to achieve (see Weeks, 1993). The opportunities for implementing these images are not equal. Some individuals and groups have more resources and more power, which allow them to pursue their images. To give power to the range of images in a planning process requires the capacity to listen, not just for an expression of material interest, but for what people care about, including the rage felt by many who have grown up in a world of prejudice and exclusion, of being outside, being the other (Forester, 1989; Healey, 1997a). The core is a democratic struggle for inclusiveness in democratic procedures, for transparency in government transactions, for accountability of the state and planners to the citizens for

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whom they work, for the right of citizens to be heard and to have a creative input in matters affecting their interests and concerns at different scale levels and for reducing or eliminating unequal power structures between social groups and classes (see also Friedmann and Douglas, 1998). Forester (1989) stresses that planners must use the power available to them to anticipate and to counter the efforts of interests that threaten to make a mockery of a democratic planning process by misusing their power. Developments towards more direct forms of democracy, the focus on debate, public involvement and accountability even with the best intentions imply the danger of making democratic public involvement more and more dependent on knowledge and on the skills of the more highly educated (see Benveniste, 1989: 67). These developments may contribute towards turning socio-economic inequality into political inequality. Research (Elchardus et al., 2000) into public involvement in a local referendum illustrates that the more highly educated were 12 times over-represented. To overcome the structural elements of unequal access to and distribution of resources, inequalities in social position, class, skills, status, gender and nancial means, empowerment is needed for ordinary citizens and deprived groups. Rather than being a neutral eunuch, the planner him- or herself is a strong partisan for certain outcomes as opposed to others, for the interests of some groups over others, for some styles of governance, for some concepts of justice, some patterns of future development and so on (Beauregard, 1989; Forester, 1989; Webber, 1978). Power relations must be built into the conceptual framework of planning (Forester, 1989; Friedmann, 1998; Healey, 1997a; Sager, 1994) and must be looked at in a given context, place, time and scale, regarding specic issues and particular combinations of actors.

3. Planning context and political context

3.1. Planning context
In 30 years, Belgium has experienced a shift away from a tight central state towards a new form of government in which the three regions, Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, all have considerable autonomy. Spatial planning, housing, transport, the environment and regional aspects of economic policy are now the exclusive responsibility of the three regions. Each region has its own legislative body (parliament), a government and its own administration. In Flanders, the second largest region, with a surface area of 13,522 km2 and a population in 2001 of nearly 6m, a three-tier planning system was adopted with structure plans and spatial implementation plans at each level: Flanders, Province, Municipality. The new planning system replaces a statutory multi-layered system of planning; embracing binding land use plans at the sub-regional and local levels. The development of an

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overall spatial framework for Flanders as a whole was on the political agenda for 20 years and, in 1992, the process was nally launched. In 1997, the Spatial Structure Plan Flanders, with a timeline of 15 years, was approved by the Flemish Government for the indicative part (variations only possible for very important reasons) and by the Flemish parliament for the binding part (variations require a formal revision of the plan). The structure planning approach in Flanders merges innovative local practices with new scientic planning thinking drawn from academic arenas. The activities surrounding the Structure Plan Flanders have their origins in planning problems which have been accumulating for years: the ad hoc adjustments of traditional land use plans to changing circumstances, the use and abuse of rural land, urban decay, the daily reporting of trafc jams, dissatisfaction with the astronomical investments in the High-Speed Train at the expense of the local railway network. Rarely had a link been drawn between all these issues. Again and again, it seems that other sectors, other interest groups and other administrations are at stake. Nonetheless, the government gradually realized that all these problems urban decay, trafc congestion, the use of open spaces, irreconcilable demands for space for housing, nature and the economy reveal structural shortcomings in the overall planning framework (Albrechts, 1995; Loeckx, 1995). What caused the tide to turn was a realization of the enormous planning challenges facing Flanders. Located at the nerve centre of Western Europe, Flanders feels the full force of the spectacular restructuring of economic, political, ideological and social relations. Moreover, various sectoral spatial demands (housing, industry, transport, etc.) take on a pronounced qualitative signicance. The Structure Plan Flanders shifted from passive planning towards a more action-oriented form of planning, introduced sustainability as a new basic attitude, new planning concepts (such as deconcentrated clustering) and planning strategies to respond to the challenges Flanders was facing (see Albrechts, 1999) and integrated the key actors in the planning process.

3.2. Political context

In the Belgian political tradition ministers rely much more on their political cabinet than on their traditional administration. Politically sensitive problems are discussed in arenas with representatives of all ministers of the Flemish government. These arenas involve negotiation in working through all kinds of problems. The inner circle of advisers consists mostly of mature specialists in the eld. Some advisers received a political training (i.e. from the study centre of a political party); others did not (coming from administrations or semi-governmental organizations). From 19915 the Minister of Planning was a Christian democrat and the Minister of the Environment a socialist, from 19959 it was the other way round. The Christian democrat minister initiated the process in 1992 and a

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socialist minister became responsible for the formal political approval (government, parliament). It illustrates very well that, as a political rule, opponents (within their own party as well as with the coalition partner) do not give ministers the credit to nish an important project that they initiated. As the same coalition of socialists and Christian democrats and a very small Flemish nationalist party ruled Flanders between 1992 and 1999 time was available to develop a store of mutual understanding, the kind of social and intellectual capital Innes (1996) talks about and to build trust between main stakeholders.

4. Case Structure Plan for Flanders

The project Structure Plan Flanders stood some 25 years on the political agenda. The new planning approach (strategic planning to replace traditional land use planning) of the Structure Plan Flanders became the most sensitive and enduring planning issue ever in Flanders. The Structure Plan Flanders marked the start of reections and debate on spatial planning such as Flanders had never seen before. Planners try to enlarge politicians (as well as other peoples) vision of what is desirable/possible, and what challenges have to be faced, how a specic project could be designed, pushed through or fail. In doing so planners regularly face a different rationale from politicians. The case explores how key political actors interacted among themselves and with planners in this case.

4.1. Methodology
Preliminary talks with a few political actors made it clear who the main actors were in the political decision-making process: the ministers of planning and transport, the ministers for the environment, the president of the Flemish parliament, the prime minister and their six main political advisers. All these political key actors were approached for an interview. None of them refused to participate. One key actor the actual (2002) president of the Flemish parliament preferred to react in writing. A specic guideline for the interview was mailed beforehand. The interview itself took between two and three hours. Most interviewees clearly had reected on the questions beforehand. This was important to revive the memory of a process that took place from 19927. Questions were asked about the timing of the start of the process, the interviewees image and their expectation of the plan, their view on the consequences of the main concepts, the easy/difcult issues in the plan, the role of pressure groups; the way they convinced other ministers, members of parliament, their political party. Did they get (political) prot/harm from the process; what was the role of the parliament, the press; how was the decision-making process organized in their own

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cabinet and between the different cabinets, in what way were the party members and others persuaded of some lines of thought? To get a true picture sayings were crosschecked with other ministers, political advisers and the diary the author kept during the process. The fact that the interviews were conducted ve years after the approval of the plan, that all ministers had left ofce and the author was not actively involved any more in major governmental projects allowed a more detached attitude from both sides. Trust and mutual respect built during the authors immediate involvement in the project (19926) created a willingness to respond in a very open way in the interview. There are some similarities and differences in approach with other authors dealing with case studies. Flyvbjerg (1998) looks at the Aalborg case from the outside as a critical observer while Krumholz (1982) and Kitchen (1997) provide a rst-hand experience as planning practitioners and take an action point of view. I myself try to combine both in this article: an action point of view as a planning practitioner in charge with the project (19926) and a more reective view as an academic while interviewing the main political actors in 2002. To my knowledge it is the only case where government ministers have been interviewed about their role in a planning process.

4.2. Planners and politics

The interviews with the ministers and their political advisers in ofce during the Structure Plan Flanders project revealed that politically sensitive problems were discussed in closed arenas with the political advisers of all ministers of the Flemish government. The political advisers constructed the consensus for the decisions to be taken by the Council of Ministers. We learned that here was the added complication of taking on board the political preferences and sector logic of other ministers and planning stances of other tiers of government (see also Tewdwr-Jones, 2002). The consensus reached was hardly ever changed by the Council of Ministers. Political decision-making has its own logic; it relies on arenas with specic actors. A few selective stories expand and explain how political decision-making took place during the process and the role planners played in this process. 4.2.1. Planning and institutional change The two university professors approached for the project formulated three preconditions for accepting the challenge of the Structure Plan Flanders project (see Albrechts, 1999; see also Krumholz and Forester, 1990). First they prepared a document to construct the problems and to illustrate their view on the process and the content. This document included a clear normative dimension indicating that they did not aim only to be instrumental but that they were partisans towards certain outcomes as opposed to others, for the interest of weak groups over others, for some pattern of future

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development (see also Albrechts, 1999; Beauregard, 1989; Forester, 1989; Webber, 1978). The minister accepted their document and turned it into his ofcial policy document. Second they asked for the repeal of two very contested legal regulations.1 A third major precondition was a clear commitment from the Minister of Planning to substantially enlarge the existing planning department. Since the project planning team decided to locate itself in the same building as the Flemish planning department, the new planning approach, the key concepts and the new planning culture were rst circulated among members of the planning department and, slowly, the attitude of this department as a whole started to change. The aim was a sustainable embedding of the new approach and the key concepts via institutionalization (see Gualini, 2001; Healey, 1997a). Institutions are viewed in this context as instruments to be used by the planning team to secure the implementation of the basic principles of the Structure Plan Flanders (see Albrechts, 1999; Salet and Faludi, 2000). By gradually merging the planning team with the planning department a substantial permanent cell, who shared a stock of knowledge, information, sensitivity, mutual understanding and who were fully persuaded of the new ideas of the Structure Plan was installed in the planning department. In doing so the basis for structural change in the department was provided both in numbers as well as in dedication to the new approach. The planning department could draw upon this intellectual capital (Innes et al., 1994) when using its control function to re-frame ways of thinking, ways of doing things, attitudes and practices of provincial and local governments, sector departments and consultants. The actual government a coalition of conservative liberals, socialists, greens and Flemish nationalists understands very well the transformative power (Healey, 1997a) of the new planning department and therefore ercely challenges this institution. 4.2.2. Agenda setting A process must become a political issue and gain a place on the political agenda. An issue is on the political agenda when it has become a subject of discussion among a fairly broad cross-section of a community of place or of interest (see Bryson and Crosby, 1992). The project Structure Plan Flanders was on the programme of the Flemish Government since 1980. In 1992 different bits and pieces converged into a political momentum that allowed the issue to win a place on the political agenda. Several ministers revealed as a rst reason: that planners developed a new and more convincing appreciation of the nature and importance of the problems and challenges Flanders was facing and that potential directions for solutions were indicated. Moreover several sectors (housing, industry, transport, nature, agriculture) made an appeal for support of spatial planning to solve their problems. Second, the government gradually realized that most of the

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problems and challenges Flanders was facing reveal structural shortcomings in the overall planning framework. Third, the international discourse on sustainable development helped to legitimize a substantially different attitude to deal with the problems. Fourth, important groups in society (trade union, environmental movements, etc.) called for a shift in spatial policy, for the introduction of a long-term perspective and for tackling some persistent problems (housing, transport, economy) in a more coherent and integrated way. Moreover several ministers stressed: a growing number of politicians moved away from solutions la tte du client. For some political actors the structure plan held the prospect to solve long-lasting and persistent problems, others were not convinced that the process would ever succeed. That means that they considered agreeing with the process as politically benecial or at least as harmless. For the Minister of Planning the process became a political opportunity to create a distinct prole for him and to build on his previous experience with the environmental plan. In order to increase the credibility of his new policy the minister repealed two very contested legal regulations. In this way he put planning on the political agenda and gave a clear sign to the public at large that he was completely serious about a new spatial policy. The minister organized his cabinet in such a way that his political advisers inspired condence for the economic and agricultural lobby. As none of the political actors was aware of the full impact of the process political consequences could hardly be taken into account. So, initially the process was not perceived as a political threat to anyone. According to a major political actor the coincidence that a project that in its bare essence could be labelled as a socialist project (it is about planning, strengthening the cities, sustainability, justice etc.) was initiated and supported by a Christian Democrat Minister of Planning created an important condition for its success. According to the same actor, it became indeed politically very sensitive for the socialist coalition partner not to agree with such a project and it also put the right wing of the Christian Democrats partly out of action.2 In order to block the way back to the old system and to keep the Structure Plan on the political agenda intermediate documents were put on the agenda of the Council of Ministers for approval. 4.2.3. Political decision-making Arenas To increase the likelihood that the Structure Plan will be adopted and realized it needs a close dialogue with those whose cooperation is necessary (see Flyvbjerg, 1998) for its content and its approval. This dialogue became a dynamic endeavour, which involved interaction within the cabinet of the Minister of Planning, with other cabinets, with inuential politicians, with opinion actors, with the planning team, etc. Different arenas were designed

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and used. A rst informal arena included the planning team and a few political advisers. According to members of the political cabinet of several ministers, this arena was built on a certain level of reciprocal trust between the participants. They shared the same values and they met and talked over the phone to discuss and to reach a consensus about the content as well as about possible strategies. These people had no hidden agendas and jointly embarked on an intellectually challenging odyssey. A second more formal and very closed arena included the political advisers of all ministers of the Flemish government. They constructed the consensus for the decisions to be taken by the Council of Ministers. A few advisers became the engine to start the dialogue in this arena and to keep it going in a certain direction. Such a dialogue requires a certain degree of understanding about the underlying values, goals, spatial concepts of the project and how to turn them into workable instruments. It explored political feasibility and it resulted in an engagement, based on winwin solutions, where the different cabinets approved the plan. Building reciprocal trust and understanding was important (see Healey, 1997a; Innes and Booher, 1998). In this way the actors gained a deeper understanding of each others perspective, of the different political, sectoral and regional interests and of the political sensitivity of certain issues. These arenas became loci of power that acknowledged and accounted for the working of power (see Forester, 1989; Hillier, 2002; Sager, 1994), for the passionate engagement of some actors who cared deeply for the issues at hand and a detached attitude of other actors mainly driven by political calculation without a commitment to the issues. Minister of Planning versus the planning team For the Christian Democrat Minister of Planning (19925) the planning team was fully in charge of the plan, fully responsible for its content, it had to explain and to defend the plan for the Council of Ministers, for the parliament, for the media and obviously it had to face all possible criticism and it was to blame if something went wrong. This strategy proved to be very benecial for both parties. The minister hides behind a scientic authority. He takes up the position of an observer viewing the process from the outside. This position allows the Minister to cover himself against some form of criticism and thus reduces the political risk for him, in the sense that he can wait for reactions from key groups in society before he formulates his own policy. This strategy provided access for the planners to somewhat closed arenas: the Council of Ministers, the parliament and party meetings. This gave the planners a considerable amount of enabling power (Foucault, 1984) since they had a direct link to important actors in the process. This made it possible to inform these key actors correctly, to answer all possible questions immediately, to reply to remarks, to refute rumours to explain the logic of the plan, its sense of reality, the (spatial) challenges national as well as international facing Flanders and the kinds of answers given in

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the plan; it enabled an explanation to be given of the background philosophy of the plan, its impact on certain parts of the country and on certain sectors. It was a clear strategy of the Minister to use the authority and expertise of the two university professors to provide a sense of objectivity and scientic character to the plan. This way of working may run the risk of reducing the process to a pure scientic, technical or elitist process. Indeed, decisions may thus be cast as mere technical decisions and thereby, to a large extent, depoliticized and conned to the deliberation of experts (see also Beauregard, 1989). Role and impact of political advisers One must be aware that political advisers are not just autonomous players, but that they are linked to the institutions for which they used to work before they joined the cabinet and to cultural, social and (for most but not all of them) political networks to which they belong (see also Bryson and Crosby, 1992). Some of these political advisors were career advisers; others came in by accident. Some of the advisers got a political training through political study centres or study groups of political parties. In this way they build a common ideology and a common view on certain issues. Other advisers had no political experience. They were selected for their technical or managerial expertise. That was the case with the advisers of the Minister of Planning (19925): one came from the planning department, one from an economic agency and one from the Flemish Land Corporation. Each had their own agenda and was able to act, with a certain authority, as a buffer to some main actors in the process (open space, agriculture and economy). Although their backgrounds did not provide a common ideology and view on the issues at hand, their intellectual openness and fairness and their commitment to the project welded them into a strong and coherent team. Also the cabinet of the Minister of the Environment was strong and coherent with a chef de cabinet from the environmental movement and a professional planner as adviser. Several political advisers stressed the emerging axis of political understanding between the cabinet of planning and the cabinet of the environment became the solid motor of the whole process. They shared common values and interpersonally they bonded after a while. This network power (see Innes and Booher, 1998) enabled a joint and coordinated action creating a political momentum that challenged the power of dominant discourses. The political advisers developed a substantial talent for working the system. Finding this political capital was a matter of tapping into the passionate commitment of some key players. By treating the four main issues (urban, economy, ecology and transport) on an equal and simultaneous basis they managed to keep a politically and socially acceptable balance. This explains how the basic concepts of the plan were never questioned. The political advisers of the Minister of Planning were responsible for

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the discussions with other cabinets, lobbying with politically inuential people. These discussions took place in arenas where sector and regional/local rationales played a major role. It proved to be difcult for the advisers of some other cabinets to overcome pure sector (agriculture, economy etc.) and regional/local (their ministers constituency, or their own political backyard) logics. The traditional vertical division along sector lines in these arenas was at odds with the distinctive contribution of spatial planning to interlink social, economic, ecological and environmental dimensions of its object. To put pressure on their opponents the political advisers of the Minister of Planning built alliances with inuential actors in political parties, with pressure groups, with trade unions, with the press. In this way they strengthened their viewpoints and their negotiation position and they weakened the position of their opponents. A constant in all the interviews was that the political advisers had a lot of power and enjoyed an enormous freedom. They constructed the consensus within their cabinets and between the different cabinets. They provoked the Council of Ministers to approve important intermediate reports so that they reached step-by-step points of no return. They briefed their minister about the position he/she should take in the Council of Ministers. The consensus they reached was hardly ever changed by the Council of Ministers. So these advisers, although they are not elected, seem more powerful than elected members of parliament. The Minister of Planning Many members of parliament have a local/regional reex. A critical moment was the revolt of the Christian Democrat mayors, some of them being at the same time members of parliament and mayors of small municipalities. These mayors/members of parliament are somehow trapped between the global, what is best for Flanders, and the local, what is best for their municipality. Many of them were tempted to use constantly a local lens for tackling issues rather than a regional (level of Flanders) one. They are very well placed to introduce the daily problems of ordinary citizens, but as they are closely tied up with the local political scene they become vulnerable to all kind of local inuences and clientelism. This developed into a political line of fracture within the Christian Democrat party and brought them on one line with the political opposition. It is obvious that this provoked some tension within the coalition. The mayors feared that, with the new planning and connected legislation, they would lose (local) power. The Minister of Planning (19925) himself invited opponents and political allies bilaterally or as a group to win and to keep their support. By convincing them that they would be able to solve some of their lasting problems as soon as the Structure Plan would be approved the Christian Democrat Minister of Planning could dispel their fear of losing power.

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The second (19959) Minister of Planning came under serious attack by all elected members of parliament from his home province because he, rightly, refused to accept a major city of that province as a gateway city.3 He had to use his full political weight to refute the threat. The interviews with several ministers made it clear that as soon as the Council of Ministers reached a consensus on an issue it became difcult for the parliament to structurally change this consensus. It also became clear during the interviews that neither the advisers nor the ministers were aware of the full impact of the plan, the consequences of its main goals and its spatial concepts. Some politicians and advisers now confronted with the impacts of the plan as mayor, as consultant or being employed in the private sector, feel the full force of the plan included unexpected and, for some, unwanted consequences. A former Minister of Planning explained during the interview that now, as mayor of a small municipality, I am confronted with the fact that the central government withdraws the recognition of the cultural centre because my municipality was not specied as a small town in my Structure Plan Flanders. The media Power shifts to sectors such as the media that, in theory, belong to the world of non-politics (see also Huyse, 1994). The media became an important political actor during the whole process. An issue raised in the media became almost automatically an item on the agenda of the party executive, the ministerial staff meeting and the Council of Ministers. The socialist Minister of Planning (19959) focused, not only on planning and the issuing of rules, but also on their enforcement. This led to the forced demolition of illegal houses. A commercial Flemish TV station brought images of a huge crane destroying a house mixed with images from the Palestinian territory accompanied by music of Bob Marley. This image was so strong that it became disconnected from the, till then, positive discourse in the written press. As a result the socialist party refused to take the portfolio of planning in the next coalition. The outcome was that the actual Minister of Planning and the Prime Minister (both liberal conservatives) challenged some of the achievements in the eld of planning of the previous government. It proves, according to one minister, that the media do not just make analyses but also propose projects that inuence in a fundamental way the course of events in our societies. 4.2.4. Power plays Using inaction as a power instrument In 1966 the minister in charge of planning decided to draw up in one major concentrated effort 48 sub-regional land use plans (scale 1/25,000) for the entire country. These plans became very detailed because of a lack of municipal plans. Sub-regional plans determine the exact land use of the

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whole country and are used in many places for delivering building permits. These plans are rigid and can in principle only be adapted/revised by another plan at the same level. In this way the plans are somehow timeless. It is obvious that after almost 20 years most original sub-regional plans are not any more adapted to the changing socio-economic context. Clear and some justied demands that could not be met by the existing plans were piling up. The grievances were aired to local political representatives, to the central government, to political parties, to the press. Hence, there was a clear and urgent request to revise these plans. The Minister of Planning is legally in charge of these revisions. As the Structure Plan Flanders process lost part of its lan the minister used his right of initiative and refused to initiate any revision. In this way, mainly economic development was blocked in certain parts of Flanders. It also blocked the implementation of an agreement, reached after difcult negotiations with the European Commission that allowed taking some regional initiatives in support of municipalities bordering an Objective 1 region. This provoked major discontent with the economic sector and with specic dynamic areas.4 Obviously by his tactics of inaction the Minister of Planning made the opponents of the structure plan the demanding party without taking any action himself. This power game increased the political tension between the coalition partners, in and outside the government. In the Flemish Government the dissatisfaction of mainly the Christian Democrats was aired through a party member of the Minister of Planning, the socialist vice prime minister. The pressure on the Minister of Planning, as well as from party members, coalition partners and the opposition increased, but the minister remained very calm and as a man of principle he refused to give in. He understood very well that giving in for one simple case meant that there would be no stopping the political opponents. Pressure was exerted on him to dismiss his chef de cabinet and his main adviser for spatial planning. He refused to do so. If his opponents pushed too hard they ran the risk of a cabinet crisis. Apparently that was a bridge too far. The minister carried on with his inaction policy for almost 18 months. After bilateral talks, among others with the Prime Minister and a threat from the coalition partner not to vote the budget for his mobility covenants, an agreement was reached about the approval of the Structure Plan Flanders. The planners versus politics During the entire process (19926) the planning team acquired an autonomous position it used to diffuse its ideas as widely as possible. This caused some unarticulated resentment by the government. This came up in negotiating the terms of the planning teams last contract with the Council of Ministers in December 1995. This council did not accept the nancial proposal formulated by the planning team and decided to cut its means. The two professors legally in charge of the planning team refused to sign the

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contract and, as for budgetary reasons the contract had to be signed before 24 December 1995, this created considerable tensions. Faxes and telephone calls went back and forth. All possible pressure was put on the planning team. Without the planning team the process would have come to an end and this would provoke major discontent with some important actors in society. The matter was discussed very openly within the planning team and although it ran the risk of being out of work by 1 January 1996 it was decided unanimously not to give in. On 23 December at 6pm the two professors in charge were convoked on the very last meeting of the Council of Ministers. As part of the power game the Council kept them waiting for more than one hour and then confronted them with a small committee of three ministers: the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Planning and the minister responsible for civil service. The planners explained their case, their concern about the quality of the process and also made it clear that they would not give in. A compromise was reached there and then. This compromise gave the planners fewer nancial resources but allowed it to hire additional, more permanent, staff members, under the budget for the civil service. The contract was signed the next day and the terms of the agreement were conrmed in writing to the three ministers. As a result a substantial permanent cell fully persuaded of the ideas of the Structure Plan was installed in the planning department (institution-building; see also Gualini, 2001; Healey, 1997b) and in doing so it provided the basis for structural change in the planning department.

5. Concluding remarks
The article aims to contribute a small part to lling a gap in theory by combining instrumental rationality (Etzioni, 1967), substantive (Mannheim) or value (Weber) rationality and communicative (Habermas, 1984) rationality within a broader contextual understanding of power (strategic rationality) in plan-making and formal decision-making. Contrary to Flyvbjerg (2001) who states that Habermas and Foucault are so profoundly different that it would be futile to envisage any kind of theoretical or meta-theoretical perspective within which these differences could be integrated into a common framework, we see, as Reuter (2000) does, these concepts as necessarily separate in inevitably complementary interrelations (see also Alexander, 2001; Healey, 2001). Indeed in contrast to the Danish case (Flyvbjerg, 1998) which reveals that raw exercise of power tends to be more effective than appeals to objectivity, facts, knowledge and the better argument, the Flanders case shows a much more diverse picture. In the latter case agreements on values are very much a precondition for the start of the project this corresponds very well to equity planning (Krumholz, 1982). Moreover the minister of planning actively searches for objectivity and the scientic character of the plan. The planners use their expertise

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and knowledge in the confrontations with the council of ministers and the parliament. The Flanders case further exemplies that spatial planning practice is not just a contingent response to wider forces, but it is also an active force in enabling changes (Foucault, 1984; see also Forester and Stitzel, 1989; Healey, 1997b). It forms knowledge, produces discourse, constitutes a productive network and builds institutions that act as a catalyst for change. The enabling power (Foucault, 1984) is combined with interactive processes that contribute to plan-identity construction, mobilization and produces real change. In this interactive process, multiplier effects (Benveniste, 1989: 27) take place, as advisers of other ministers perceive that, through the agreement between two main actors, the project gets a high probability of adoption. Planners in the Flemish case acted as institution builders (see also Gualini, 2001; Healey, 1997b), as counterweights, as catalysts and as initiators of change (Albrechts, 1999), a way of mobilizing, building alliances and presenting real political opportunities, learning from action not only what works but also what matters. They substantiated change and refused to function smoothly as neutral means to given and presumably well-dened ends. In this way the planner is deeply and inextricably implicated in the real relations of power (see Castells, 1978). In this way the Flemish case illustrates that planning is not an abstract analytical concept, but a concrete process, that is inextricably part of social, cultural, economic and political reality. The interviews reveal (see also Flyvbjerg, 1998) that plan-making and political decision-making are dealt with in different arenas and that different actors are involved (see also Hillier, 2002). Political decisionmaking is a process of its own, with different actors and with a different rationale interspersed with sector and local/regional logics. New actors, new agendas, new goals and new strategies turn up with political decisionmaking. Political decision-making uses its own networking as a way to mobilize, to build alliances for its political objectives and to reach an acceptable political consensus. As few actors take part in both plan-making and formal decision-making it becomes clear that most actors in the formal decision-making process are unable to grasp the sensitivities, the gaining of a deeper understanding of the different perspectives and of the different interests; the understanding, the ambiance, the social, intellectual and political capital built during the plan-making process. Political actors are confronted with the spatial complexity of a wide variety of activities in the context of sectoral fragmentation and the resultant diversity of power coalitions (mayors, cities, economy, agriculture, etc.). The interviews made it crystal clear that none of the political actors intensively involved in the formal decision process was fully aware of the consequences of the plan, neither for Flanders as a whole nor for specic sectors or areas. As sectors and local governments have the feeling that something they did not fully grasp was imposed on them and that now they

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have to suffer the plan, planning, planners but also formal decision-makers face a challenge. In the ongoing process of political modernization on the one hand there is a clear demand for a decision style where stakeholders become more actively involved in solving policy problems on the basis of a joint denition of the action situation and of the sharing of interests, aims and relevant knowledge (see Scharpf, 1989). Active involvement, open dialogue, accountability, collaboration, consensus building become key terms in most of the actual planning discourse. This results in involving additional actors, a growing input of the private sector, an increasing self-awareness of citizens claiming a larger say in issues affecting their environment. This is needed to overcome individual and sector logics and not to fall back on the traditional more hidden way of inuencing decisions. It implies a minimal willingness to tackle the problems through interactive policy processes allowing others to have a say in their own policy domain. It also implies a willingness to accept decisions made through a network organization but also decisions that may depart from a generic policy. As it was the rst major project of the kind, there was no store of mutual understanding, the kind of social and intellectual capital Innes (1996) talks about. On the other hand all political actors were extremely clear in their view that the project would never have been brought to a favourable (in this context, approved by the government and the parliament) conclusion with more actors (parliament, lower tiers of government) actively involved from the beginning. This illustrates that some politicians and some planners have a different view on the openness of a process and that much of the actual planning discourse is at odds with the rationale of these politicians. As planners are sensitive for the performance of their plan there is a need for planners to unravel the political decision-making process and to grasp its rationale. Critical analysis of a wide variety of case studies (related to scale, issues dealt with, contexts and traditions, complexity) is needed to discover the whys and wherefores (Flyvbjerg, 1998) of how political actors handle plans, projects and planning processes. Moreover, abstract conceptualization and generalization of the accumulated knowledge of these cases may help academics see some of what can be learned from practice and help them to gear their teaching to the realities of practice (Forester, 1999; Hoch, 1994; Schn, 1984).

Acknowledgement
My thanks in particular to Jean Hillier for her constructive comments on a previous version of this article.

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Notes
1. One of these allowed, as an exception and under very strict conditions, to ll up the space between existing constructions outside the building area. This became the rule rather than the exception even without paying much attention to the conditions. 2. The Christian Democrat party traditionally consisted of several socio-economic groupings (pillars): trade unions, farming class, the middle class. 3. Gateways are places where, at the Flemish level, development is stimulated because of their actual or potential position in the international communication network (water, road, air, rail, telecommunication). 4. The European Union uses structural funds to reduce disparities between levels of development of its regions. The reform of 1988 structured these funds around a set of objectives. Objective 1 focuses on economic adjustment of regions whose development is lagging behind.

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Louis Albrechts is Professor of Planning in the Institute for Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Leuven. He is currently working on the practice and nature of strategic spatial planning and on diversity in planning. Address: IISRO Kasteelpark Arenberg 51, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium. [email: Louis.Albrechts@isro.Kuleuven.ac.be]

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