Planning as agonistic communication in a trading zone: Re-examining Lindblom’s partisan mutual adjustment

The article re-examines Charles E Lindblom’s theory of partisan mutual adjustment (PMA), by reflecting on the recent ideas on cross-cultural cooperation and communication, developed in sociological studies of science and technology. While the critical arguments of the so-called communicative (or collaborative) planning theorists on PMA are well known and well placed, they may have overlooked the complexities of planning communication. Especially Peter Galison’s concept of ‘trading zone’ offers a fresh outlook on these complexities. In the article, Lindblomian bargaining and compromise-seeking are re-interpreted in terms of creating a local trading zone between the stakeholders representing different cultures of meaning and value. This approach challenges two assumptions that have become commonplace in the planning theoretical debate around PMA: firstly, that trading between interests would not necessitate mutual dialogue and generation of a realm of shared understandings, and secondly, that approaching planning communication as trading between interests would mean adopting the political ideology of (neo)liberalism.

[1]  Susan Leigh Star,et al.  Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39 , 1989 .

[2]  T. Sager Incremental Planning for a Pluralistic Democracy , 1997 .

[3]  P. Healey Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies , 1997 .

[4]  F. L. Gardner,et al.  Politics and Markets: The World's Political-Economic Systems , 1979 .

[5]  H. Rittel,et al.  Dilemmas in a general theory of planning , 1973 .

[6]  R. Jones,et al.  Intelligence in a Democracy , 1976 .

[7]  Peter Galison,et al.  The science studies reader , 1999 .

[8]  C. Lindblom,et al.  Politics And Markets: The World's Political-economic Systems , 1977 .

[9]  John Forester,et al.  Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes , 2009 .

[10]  T. Sager Planners' Role: Torn between Dialogical Ideals and Neo-liberal Realities , 2009 .

[11]  H. Schramm,et al.  Material Culture, Theoretical Culture, and Delocalization , 2005 .

[12]  T. Sager Communicative Planning Theory , 1994 .

[13]  M. Gorman Trading Zones, Moral Imagination and Socially Sensitive Computing , 2008 .

[14]  P. Senge THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE , 1997 .

[15]  C. Lindblom THE SCIENCE OF MUDDLING THROUGH , 1959 .

[16]  C. Cates Beyond Muddling: Creativity. , 1979 .

[17]  C. Mouffe The Democratic Paradox , 2000 .

[18]  Jay Wright Forrester,et al.  Urban Dynamics , 1969 .

[19]  J. Gaillard,et al.  From knowledge to action , 2013 .

[20]  Michael E. Gorman,et al.  Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise: Creating New Kinds of Collaboration (review) , 2010 .

[21]  C. Lindblom Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Understand and Shape Society , 1992 .

[22]  Michael E. Gorman,et al.  Trading zones and interactional expertise , 2007 .

[23]  R. Mäntysalo Dilemmas in Critical Planning Theory , 2002 .

[24]  P. Healey Planning through debate: the communicative turn in planning theory , 1992 .

[25]  Amitai Etzioni Mixed-Scanning: A 'Third' Approach to Decision-Making , 1967 .

[26]  M. Telò,et al.  Politics and markets , 2012 .

[27]  A. Hull Critical theory, public policy and planning practice , 1996 .

[28]  Jennifer Bacia Shadows Of Power , 1989 .

[29]  P. Senge The fifth discipline : the art and practice of the learning organization/ Peter M. Senge , 1991 .

[30]  Na Phelps,et al.  Planning with complexity: an introduction for collaborative rationality for public policy , 2011 .

[31]  M. Gibbons,et al.  Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty , 2003 .

[32]  C. Lindblom Still Muddling, Not Yet Through. , 1979 .

[33]  J. Friedmann Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action , 2020 .

[34]  Peter Galison Trading with the Enemy , 2010 .

[35]  John Pløger,et al.  Strife: Urban Planning and Agonism , 2004 .

[36]  John Krige,et al.  Science in the twentieth century , 2000 .

[37]  John Forester,et al.  Making Participation Work When Interests Conflict: Moving from Facilitating Dialogue and Moderating Debate to Mediating Negotiations , 2006 .