In the past two decades, there has been a growing concern in the research field of spatial planning and development about the issues of policy transfer and lesson-drawing from good practices. According to this thinking, spatial planning is considered to be a social construction and the characteristics of planning systems and practices are recognised to vary widely among nations. Even within a country, differences between regions and cities can be found, because the characteristics are rooted in and restricted to the wider socio-economic, political and cultural context (Sanyal 2005; Nadin and Stead 2008a; Knieling and Othengrafen 2009a; Booth 2011; Nadin 2012; Ernste 2012; Getimis 2012).
On the basis of this understanding, I employ two complementarily methodological approaches: comparative research and institutionalism. Comparative research can reveal implicit assumptions and other institutional factors, which shape the systems and practices of spatial planning in particular places but are often taken for granted or overlooked (Booth 2011; Nadin 2012; Nadin and Stead 2008a, 2012). On the other hand, institutionalism provides a sophisticated way of viewing the interrelationships between structure and decision-making. This helps to explore the institutional factors that have shaped the practice of planning. I discuss the values and challenges of comparative research and introduce key concepts of institutionalism in the following sections.
§ 1.4.1 Values and Challenges of Comparative Research
There is a growing interest in comparative research of spatial planning systems and cultures. The value of comparative research is manifold. It not only encourages systematic examination of the transferability of good practices and deepens understanding of the nature and operation of spatial planning, but also contributes to planning theory-building and to mutual understanding and learning between nations, regions and cities. High-tech spatial development is a ‘global’ phenomenon. The underlying logic and mechanisms of technology policy differ from country to country and high-tech spaces themselves show place-specific differentiation (Ramachandraiah, Westen, and Prasad 2008). It is reasonable to employ comparative analysis in this research to explore the factors that shape the means and practices of spatial planning when carrying out high-tech spatial development. However, there are three interrelated methodological challenges, namely the risk of misinterpretation, the validity of comparative research findings and the issue of cultural sensitivities.
First, the risk of misinterpretation may occur when conducting international comparative research. This refers to the fact that ‘not all concepts are commonly understood across different cultures’ (Nadin and Stead 2012, 4) The EU Compendium of Spatial Planning
Systems and Policies (Commission of the European Communities 1997, 23–25) notes
that many terms are used in the EU member states to describe particular activities that are closely related to the idea of spatial planning, such as ruimtelijke ordening in the Netherlands or aménagement du territoire in France, but each term represents a specific meaning in its own national context. It is inappropriate to suggest that the meanings are the same. ‘Translations are often fraught with unacknowledged cultural associations and words that are ostensibly direct translations may carry quite different overlays of meaning.’ (Booth 2011, 25) The EU Compendium proposes two useful ways to reduce the risk of misinterpretation. The first is to italicise ‘home language terms’ when they have specific meaning, and to explain the terms when they are first mentioned. The secondis to develop common categories for comparison. The terms used in the categories are supposed to be neutral.
Second, the validity of comparative research findings is another important issue.
Nadin and Stead (2012, 3) remind that ‘comparison requires some common scale of measurement but various characteristics of planning systems are difficult to compare directly.’ In other words, it is necessary to study the particular phenomenon in its own context and setting. There are two useful approaches to learn from previous comparative studies towards overcoming this methodological issue, including the systematic classifications of planning systems applied in Davies et al. (1989), Newman and Thornley (1996) and Janin Rivolin (2008), and the use of ‘ideal types’ in the EU Compendium (Commission of the European Communities, 1997).
Both approaches are helpful to position and characterise particular planning systems, but the latter approach may provide more fruitful analytical findings, because it can not only be used to appraise each planning system individually but also to measure their trends and directions of change (Nadin and Stead 2012). However, although the four planning traditions proposed by the EU Compendium claim to be ‘ideal types’, it is not set out explicitly how the four traditions relate to the seven criteria they select, including the scope of the system, the extent and type of planning, the locus of power, the relative roles of public and private sectors, the legal framework, the maturity or completeness of the system, and the distance between expressed objectives and outcomes. Further, the typology was developed according to the knowledge of the ‘old’ EU Member States.
Hence, it is not easily employed by other cross-national comparative studies, especially when the country being studied is not one of the ‘old’ EU member States.
The systems and objectives of spatial planning are not an independent phenomenon.
Spatial Planning is culturally embedded and considers numerous variables, seemingly too many to explain easily (Booth 2011). It is common that researchers selectively choose variables to classify systems or create ideal types. Therefore, the main question is how to construct a methodological approach that can result in meaningful comparisons and avoid a bias, as Gullestrup (2009, 3 emphasis in original) argues ‘“reality” will always be perceived and understood through one’s own culture…[and] constructed on the basis of one’s own cultural background and experience’. The criteria and the principles of measurement, which are developed to classify planning systems or to create ideal types, have to not only correspond with the purpose of the research but also be underpinned by a theoretical stance. Both the research purpose and theoretical stance have to be explicitly explained in order to allow others to review.
Finally, on the basis of previous comparative studies, many reflections have been developed, mainly addressing aspects of historical evolution and planning cultures.
They are grounded in the understanding that spatial planning systems and practices are
criticism follows that the previous comparative studies focus too much on the description of formal institutions at one point in time and cannot characterise how spatial planning systems and tools actually operate in practice and how the systems and practices constantly evolve to respond to internal and external challenges (Knieling and Othengrafen 2009a;
Booth 2011; Nadin 2012; Ernste 2012; Getimis 2012). The issue of planning cultures and their dynamics are thus being addressed in recent methodological discussions.
However, there is no widely accepted definition of planning culture. For example, while Sanyal (2005, 3) considers planning culture as ‘the collective ethos and dominant attitude of professional planners in different nations toward the appropriate roles of the state, market forces, and civil society in urban, regional, and national development’, Knieling and Othengrafen (2009b, xxiv) refer to planning cultures as ‘the different planning systems and traditions, institutional arrangements of spatial development and the broader cultural context of spatial planning and development. It consists of more than planning instruments and procedures; it is the aggregate of the social, environmental, and historical grounding of urban and regional planning’. The former definition implies the influence of assumptions and values of planners on the systems and practices of planning in a particular place, but does not explicitly indicate the influence of the broader cultural context on the assumptions and values of planners.
The latter definition, on the other hand, includes not just the formal systems, real practices and traditions of spatial planning but also the broader cultural context where spatial planning is embedded and operates. Following this definition, Knieling and Othengrafen (2009c, 55–58) further propose a culturised-planning model to expose culture and its impact on spatial planning and development practices. The model consists of three analytical dimensions, including ‘planning artifacts’, ‘planning environment’
and ‘societal environment’. Planning artifacts consist of the elements that can be easily observed and understood, such as visible planning products, structures and processes.
Planning environment refers to the shared assumptions, values and cognitive frames that are taken for granted by planners. Societal environment describes the underlying unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, thoughts and feelings that affect planning.
However, the model proposed by Knieling and Othengrafen does not present a dynamic perspective on planning cultures nor does it offer analytical strategies to uncover the shared assumptions, values, beliefs, thoughts and feelings hidden in the planning environment and societal environment, although they do claim that the hidden assumptions and values ‘have strong impact on the specific occurrence of cultural manifestations in planning models and practices.’ (Knieling and Othengrafen 2009a, 58) In other words, they do provide rich theoretical reflections on the issue of planning cultures, but the model they propose is too abstract to operate directly. The value of comparative analysis—in revealing taken-for-granted factors and their impact on spatial planning practices in a particular territory—is not explicitly addressed in their research.
In light of cultural sensitivity, the most essential methodological questions for this
research are: What are the major structural and cultural factors that shape specific spatial planning practices? How can the use of comparative analysis expose these factors systematically and result in learning from the comparisons? How can a generic analytical framework be established that is not tied to specific places? Moreover, many comparative studies do not make a clear distinction between the institutional variables influencing the spatial planning system and the spatial planning system itself, and between the spatial planning system (structure) and planning practices (decisions/actions). Such studies mix these elements when they conduct empirical research. This may be a reason why sometimes the analytical frameworks or classification/categorisation of the systems established in previous comparative studies are difficult to apply in other comparative research.
The major purpose of comparison in this research is to reveal implicit assumptions and institutional factors that shape the practices of high-tech spatial planning and development, and that are often taken for granted in their own context. This will increase mutual understanding and learning between different cases but also will contribute to theory-building with regard to high-tech spatial planning and development in different cultural contexts. Since the focus of this research is the practices of high-tech spatial planning and development, planning systems become one of the institutional factors that shape the practices. It is necessary to distinguish a planning system and its institutional variables from its practices. In order to overcome this issue in the process of analysis, an institutional approach may help to establish a more comprehensive and operational framework for comparative research.
§ 1.4.2 Concepts of Institutionalism
Institutionalism concerns the interrelationships between structure and decision-making/action-taking. It offers a sophisticated way for this research to explore the interrelationships among spatial planning systems, other institutional factors and high-tech spatial planning practices, while comparisons help to reveal the major institutional factors that shape planning practices.
The definition of ‘institution’ varies in different studies. Two meanings have been distinguished: