Franco Archibugi Planning Heory from the Political Debate to the Methodological Reconstruction Franco Archibugi

Franco Archibugi Planning heory From the Political Debate to the Methodological Reconstruction Franco Archibugi Planning Theory From the Political Debate to the Methodological Reconstruction 123 Franco Archibugi c/o Planning Studies Centre Via Federico Cassitto 110 00134 Roma Italy [email protected] Library of Congress Control Number: 2007929930 ISBN 978-88-470-0695-9 Springer Milan Berlin Heidelberg New York hisworkissubjecttocopyright.Allrightsarereserved,whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialis concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broad- casting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is only permitted under the provisions of the Italian Copyright Law in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag. Violations are liable for prosecution under the Italian Copyright Law. Springer is a part of Springer Science+Business Media springer.com © Springer-Verlag Italia 2008 Printed in Italy Cover design: Simona Colombo, Milano Typesetting: LE-TEX Jelonek, Schmidt & Vöckler GbR, Leipzig, Germany Printing and binding: Grafiche Porpora, Segrate (MI) Springer-Verlag Italia – Via Decembrio 28 – I-20137 Milano Printed on acid-free paper Preface his book has re-elaborated, in a unified and organic way, some of my contributions to the academic debates among European and American planning “theorists”. Such contributions were born in relation to my participation at a conference on planning theory promoted by Oxford Brookes University, in April . his conference gave me a very interesting opportunity to be among other scholars on the subject. On this occasion I had the opportunity to pour out, into the bosom of an abundant group of colleagues (to whom I am bound together by some years of scientific contact on the issues of the effectiveness and methods of planning), my concerns about the turns taken by the literature of planning theory over the last decade or more. he substance of my concerns has been revisited in Chap. of this book. However, in the current criticism of planning theory’s trends, I soon realized that my demands for a more advanced integration of the different approaches to planning, and particularly of improved integration between the procedural approach and the “substantive” approach, was not yet sufficiently clear and perceptible. So I looked again at reformulating, in a positive way, my ideas about the turn which, in my opin- ion, the theoretical and methodological planning studies should have to take in order to obtain an operational relaunch of planning itself, on a more advanced scientific basis (avoiding, however, slipping into technicalities that become useless and misleading when not used for the benefit of a clear and consistent method). Planning heory Conference, Oxford Brookes University, – April . A further paper with the same arguments has been also published in European Planning Studies,Vol.,No.,April. his reconsideration and awareness has been helped by very accurate and pertinent comments and criticism received from my colleagues E.R. Alexander, John Bryson, Giuseppe De Luca, Seymour Mandelbaum, and Niraj Verma. he critical comments of Verma, with which I largely agree and for which I am very grateful, have been made only on the papers that have formed the basis of Chap. He concluded that my first contribution needed a section that showed why the integration between socio-economic forecasting and other connections that I anticipated should be implemented. I think such connections, their description, and their motivations, deserve and need much more than a section! hey constitute the proper subject, the proper matter, of planning theory. his does not exclude, but confirms, the idea VI Preface hus, I wanted to integrate that first contribution with a further description of the possible linking of procedural planning and various “substantive” aspects of planning by means of a unitary methodological scheme, which has become the object of this book. I tried therefore: – to delimit the traditional fields which until now have progressed separately and in open order, at most with some interdisciplinary cooperation of a technical nature, that if they are not well described in some ways, even provisionally (as Verma requested), my claims are not even properly understood, because they lack clear references and exam- ples. his has induced me to take a new step towards the description of those connections (even if I think it not yet sufficient). Alexander’s criticisms helped me to perceive the seriousness of the absence of a systemic vision of planning theory to which we refer ourselves, and to incite me to risk the defect of excessive schematism, but not to take for granted and acknowledge some arguments too easily! I hope that the corrections I have made, which are more formal than substantial, will satisfy Alexander, whose severe critiques I have always found stimulating, even when I have not agreed with them. he Mandelbaum’s comments were nearly all pertinent and I appreciated his kind sugges- tions, even on texts, like mine, which were very far from his own approach and writing style. I am aware, however, of the difficulty of adequately taking into account his viewpoint and to use his ideas in a way that conforms to their potential quality. I sense that his historical perception of planning pushes him towards a vision of planning theory very different from mine, and my efforts to reconstruct a field and a method appropriate for planning theory go in a direction very different from his own. To John Bryson and to his friendly comments on my effort, I owe a sincere gratitude; however, he also cheerfully pressed me to use less polemical arguments, arguing very rightly that sometimes this might be an obstacle, instead of facilitating the understanding and the forming of a common consensus. I have agreed and applied his general advice and from the still remaining polemical phrasing, the reader can appreciate how useful and necessary his recommendations were... Finally, I owe it to Giuseppe De Luca that this book has been equipped with a brief chapter of ‘conclusions’. To Stefano Moroni, I owe the hard effort to review and synthetize, in the journal Planning heory, the Italian edition of this book that allowed me to revisit some passages of it. To these colleagues, and to others with whom I have associated through many years of at- tempting to implement a contact network for the progress in the theoretical discourse on planning science and an improved determinateness in planning theory, I am very grateful for help given to me. hus, this book is a further step (still very approximate) toward the already announced ongo- ing work on the foundations of a general planning methodology. I must say that in the effort to achieve (as suggested by comments mentioned above) within the substantive field, the needed change of approach, the first routes and thematisms of a new integrated (or unified) discipline of planning (see Chaps. to of this book) I have amply used a paper presented to the st World Congress on Planning Science, promoted in Palermo (Italy) by Planning Stud- ies Centre, with the support of UNESCO, the United Nations University (Tokyo), the Eu- ropean University Institute (Florence), and the (Italian) National Research Council (CNR). (hat paper has been published in: Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, International Journal in , vol. , N. , pp. –.) Preface VII and that should engage themselves in the “integration” in a new unified methodology (Chap. ); – to discuss the merits and limits of a transdisciplinary methodological integration, basedona“programming”approachinsteadofthepositivistic approach, which has until now been dominant in planning researches and activities (Chap. ); – to outline the first routes of the new discipline (procedural scheme for the selec- tion of plans, interrelationship between different “levels” of planning, institutional procedures of plans bargaining, and consulting system on preference, informa- tion, monitoring and plan evaluation) (Chap. ); – to list some proper integrative topics of the new discipline (Chap. ). All this then flows together, in Chap. , to form the outline of an operational logical framework, through which are integrated and unified, with an exhaustive and com- plete methodology, all types, forms, and procedures of planning . I then focused on one of the most neglected (but, at the same time, one of the most important, if not the most important) “levels” of planning for a process of methodological integration like the one pursued here: the “national” level (Chap. of the book). Lastly, I closed this first effort by pointing out the basic elements of an integrative planning methodology, with some considerations on what I would call the “pitfalls” or “traps” (in experiments I have performed) of any type of plan evaluation (Chap. ). Plan evaluation being the “other side of the coin” to every work of planning, any integrative effort brought on the planning methods immediately has a specular effect in the evaluation process. Since planning has been applied until today without systemic control and coordi- nation, and without the said integrative and unified methodology, this is, in my opin- ion, the major cause of the very poor and disappointing (not to mention substantially erroneous and misleading) plan evaluations. herefore, that is the cause of planning failure itself, i.e., of the plans that collapsed at the first test of their compatibility and consistency with the context of planning itself. Acknowledgements and Dedication his book is dedicated to some outstanding colleagues with whom I have maintained personal contact and useful debating in the “planning theory” field. hey are: Ernest R. A first version of this framework has been presented to the colleagues at the great unitary “World Planning School Congress” promoted by the planning school academic associations: European (AESOP), American (ASCP), Asiatic (ASPA) and Australian and New-Zealander (ANZAPS), in Shanghai, China, July –, .

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