Postmodernism, Poststructionalism And Comunicative Planning Theory

This reflection discusses postmodernism, poststructuralism and critical social theory and its relationship to planning. The discussion is a continuum of the debate of rationality and capitalism. These readings, in some extent, deliberates on how capitalist societies have evolved (and survived) through modern times. The neo-Marxist perspective heavily influenced this analysis. However, there is a contradiction that was not solved before: despite of the revolutions and crisis, the capitalism has found ways to not only to survive but also to legitimize itself. Some may argue that original Marxist ideas are obsoleted with the evolution of capitalism. However, using the (neo) Marxist perspective as starting point, many scholars have developed other …show more content…
One of them is Communicative planning. Through the reading is evident the influence of Habermas and Foucault influenced on the development of communicative planning theory. Based on participation and how Habarmas envisioned democracy and ethics as normative principle with which to evaluate and challenge the qualities of interactive practice. This planning theory moved the role of the planner from a technocratic to a more reflective role. This is a major shift: planners are moving from owner of the truth to communicators, focusing on the public interest or public sphere. In that line the planning process is not only done by the government but also through a network of public and private parties (Healey). However, as pointed by Foucault, the use of language and communication can bear the risk of becoming a tool for domination or coercion. What is the limit where planners are using communicative planning as a tool to advocate for the people and not using it as tool to perpetuate their social existence and justification? On top of that, how important is to focus on the process of communication rather than the outcome. With the focus on individual voices to frame the community knowledge, this beg the question whether this communicative planning and its democratic participation process is not just contribution to the …show more content…
In particular, microenterprise support program (MESP) adopt a neoliberal capitalist definition of microenterprise: the smallest economic unit in the market intended for profit making. Also these programs assume that everyone want to become an entrepreneur. However, as noted by Marx, in order to maximize the profit, firms have to exploit the labor. The traditional economic development planners tend to use a centralized planning. The majority of state level initiative does not perform as expected because they disregard key aspects raised by Massey: gender, place, time. Following the communicative action ideas, as a planner we have to be part of the process being facilitators, not part of the solution itself, decentralizing the policy design and implementation. However, there is still a problem, when communication is used to normalize the langue, how will be possible to includes all the voices that are among the micro entrepreneur? What if someone does not want to embrace the decision given by the majority. How communicative planning deals with the conflict? If Doreen Massey is correct, how policy making will be possible if time and space is uncertain? . Finally, there is a contradiction that has no proper answer: While the neoliberal supports promote the entrepreneurial governance and therefore