Planning culture – dynamics of power relations between actors

Existing literature on planning culture is often connected to communicative turn in planning and implies a multilateral interaction process. This article discusses the role of the underlying power constellations within processes of decision-making in planning and their significance for any planning culture. Power relations between actors involved in planning processes are asymmetric. The actors’ influence on planning outcomes depends highly on the strategic use these actors make of their power resources. The processes will be shaped by both the actors’ divergent cultures and the common culture they create in interacting with each other. Actors’ cultures do not only frame their expectations on goals and appropriate decision-making processes but also the strategies they apply. In this paper, I argue that these expectations and strategies impact decision-making processes because they intrude into institutionalized and legally defined planning procedures. How open a planning process is to input from various actors depends on power configurations, which in turn affect how actors perceive each other’s legitimacy.