Research project Agreement-based Approaches in Nordic Spatial Planning
In spatial planning, new strategic planning practices have appeared in the form of contractual policies and accompanying agreement-based arrangements between state and local governments (public-public partnerships) at the city-regional level.
What is notable is that these partnerships do not constitute administrative or democratic territories. This causes new kinds of challenges for representative democracy at the local level This causes new kinds of challenges for representative democracy at the local level.
Project description
The main aim of the project JustDe: Justification for agreement-based approaches in Nordic spatial planning: towards situational direct democracy? is to make visible how these new practices give a new direction to the justification of societal decision making, and what are the implications to how a “well-functioning democracy” is defined.
We do comparative studies between Finland, Sweden and Norway. Our focus is to
- locate the fundamental challenges of agreement-based processes in relation to their justification
- and to provide new means for overcoming these shortcomings in a manner that improves the credibility of the democratic anchorage of these processes.
The research is funded by the Academy of Finland (2018-2020) and led at the Department of Geoscience and Geography, University of Helsinki, within close collaboration with the Department of Geography, University of Stockholm and Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
New modes of spatial planning
JustDe studies how new strategic spatial planning practices affect interpretations of transparency, legitimacy and justice in public decision making. Our starting point is that even though these new governance-oriented practices are fulfilling a perceived need, they also mark a substantial change that brings up serious questions concerning the justification of societal decision making. We ask what kind of operational modes become acceptable in the public sector – and why?
A Comparative study between Nordic countries
Agreement-based planning practices are examples of new types of strategic planning principles and public-public partnerships. The Finnish government has initiated two frameworks of agreements, on land use, housing and transport (MAL Agreements) and on economic development (Growth Agreements), with the major urban regions. In Norway, two contractual frameworks aim at combatting similar city-regional issues in the largest urban regions. Similarly, the Swedish government applies two agreement formulas. What is common to all is their parallel and only partly complementary nature in relation to formal planning systems.
What and how do we study?
We focus on three, interlaced analytical dimensions of justification of agreement-based practices:
1. the definitions of relevant actors,
2. the definitions of legitimate knowledge base, and
3. the definitions of the political nature of planning.
We use both quantitative and qualitative analyses to study how elected representatives, civil servants and citizens interpret agreement-based practices in spatial planning. We also conduct policy document analysis concerning the content and the knowledge base of the agreements.
Our hypothesis: towards new interpretations of democracy?
Agreement-based approaches in spatial planning, while defining actors based on relations, issues and situations, and swiftly crossing administrative territories, utilize seemingly technocratic inclusion and exclusion that, in reality, is deeply political. Nevertheless, in the absence of clear legitimacy of such approaches, the actors are forced to justify themselves through indirect attachment to territorially defined representative democracy and institutional administrative structures. This incoherence of action defines the justification of societal decision making in a manner that does not fulfill the preconditions of either representative or direct democracy.
Project members
Project managers
Lukas Smas
Universitetslektor, docent
Members
Pia Bäcklund
Giacomo Bottà
Postdoctoral researcher
Daniel Galland
Associate Professor
More about this project
JustDe project activities combine scientific and popular publications, seminars and workshops for scientific audiences and key stakeholders, public talks, and close collaboration with other research projects related to the topic.
Events
JustDe Reference Group meeting 9.6 2020. The meeting was conducted as a virtual meeting.
Yhtä jalkaa -työpaja in Helsinki 29.10 2019 (collaboration)
JustDe stakeholder seminar in Helsinki 1.10 2019