Planning With Complexity: An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy

Judith Innes and David Booher have been at the forefront of the development of communicative planning theory and the practice of collaborative policy making in the USA for the past quarter of a century. During this period, the ideas and the practice have expanded from the margins of governance activity to much greater prominence, not just in the USA, but internationally. In this book, Innes and Booher draw together their ideas and experiences into a comprehensive and accessible account of what it means to use “collaborative rationality” in public policy making. Their practice focus centres on urban and environmental policy issues, and they draw extensively on their own research and practice experiences, expanded by other US examples. Many of their practice stories come from their “home state” of California, well known internationally for its apparently dysfunctional government and politics. Sponsored both by government and private foundations, “collaboratives” have been used quite frequently to address difficult policy issues where multiple stakeholders are locked in conflict. Innes and Booher argue that in these new forms of governance, a new “rationality” for policy making has emerged. They call this “collaborative rationality”. This involves affected interests engaging interactively in face-to-face dialogue, deliberating together, and in doing so, expanding the knowledge they collectively draw upon and revealing the tacit assumptions and silent frames of reference in their different and often conflicting perspectives. The aim is to achieve some kind of “consensus”, by which is meant sufficient agreement for stakeholders to be able to “move on”. Innes and Booher contrast this with the traditional, linear model of policy making, where politicians and experts devise a policy and then expect others to accept and apply it. They see collaborative policy making as particularly relevant where the authority and legitimacy of formal government and of technical experts is questioned and where governance activity is fragmented among many different agencies. In such a context, it is very difficult to make progress on institutionally complex but pressing urban and environmental issues, such as the management of water and transport systems. At the start of the book they underline that “collaborative rationality” is not a universal panacea, and it is only sometimes appropriate to embark on the often time-consuming and challenging effort of designing, managing and following through a collaborative policy-making process. But at the same time, they argue that such an approach is particularly appropriate for addressing “wicked problems” in fragmented governance contexts. They also claim that greater use of collaborative rationality will help to build more “resilience” into governance systems and practices. Innes and Booher ground their arguments in the theory of complex adaptive systems. They are particularly interested in self-regulating systems, which operate by a few simple rules. In their research and practice, they have looked at the way collaboratives arrive at agreement on such “simple rules” which allow stakeholders Planning Theory & Practice, Vol. 11, No. 4, 623–630, December 2010