Chapter 2: Setting the theoretical framework for institutional analysis
2.4 Institutional analytical frameworks
2.4.1 Systemic institutional design for collaborative planning
Another useful model for an institutional analysis of public participation in spatial planning has been developed by Healey (2006a, pp.284–288) in relation to systemic institutional design for collaborative urban planning (see figure 2-1, below). Institutional design is a “synthesis between analysis of the context and the problem, and invention, assembly, and adaptation of design solutions from repertoires of known exemplars” (Alexander, 2000, p.53). Under the rubric of systemic institutional design, Healey (2006a, pp.284–288) and Amin and Thrift (1995, pp.16–17) stressed that processes of collaborative strategy-making are comprised of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ infrastructure. These have been referred to as the informal and the formal regulatory frameworks, respectively, in Hasan and McWilliams (2015). Healey discussed the systemic institutional design model in her book Collaborative Planning (Healey, 2006a, pp.284–310). Bryson and colleagues (2006), Healey (2006a, pp.284–288) and Innes (1996) discussed in their publications issues of how different stakeholders, in a knowledge-rich world with increasing diversity, can manage their collective concerns about a place. In this model, systemic institutional design encourages governance mechanisms to incorporate collaborative, inclusionary consensus building to address the dilemmas of coexistence in a shared place (Harris, 2002, p.37).
Figure 2-1: The terrain of systemic institutional design for managing coexistence in a shared place, source: Healey, 2006a, pp.284–310, drawn by the author
Systemic
institutional
design
Hard
infrastructure
Political system Legal system Administrative systemSoft
infrastructure
Social capital Intellectual capital Political capitalThe model reflects the shift in spatial planning fields from an ultimate focus on physical development to the institutional infrastructure design of multi-partnership governance. Accordingly, this model is meaningful in exploring and understanding the role of barriers to youth participation in the Jordanian context.
By the 1990s, the attention paid to public policy analysis had shifted away from rational technical analysis, towards policy development as a communicative process. Under the institutionalist approach, urban governance analysts moved beyond the world of formal dimensions of policy systems, to include informal ways in which interdependent relations among the economy, civil society and the state are mediated (planning practice). Institutionalist analysts emphasised that “policy was made as much in its practices as in its design” (Vigar et al., 2000, p.37). For Healey (2006a, p.285, 2006b, pp.9–11, 1998a) and Amin and Thrift (1995, pp.16–17), both soft and hard infrastructure must complement each other for collaborative strategy-making. Soft infrastructure systems are meaning, values, social networks, routines and cultures developed to be as relevant as possible to the lifeworld of participants (Polk, 2011; Healey, 2006a, p.285; Harris, 2002, p.37). In this respect, stakeholders, via dialogue and constructive debate, explain their different points of view and get to know each other, thus building up the institutional momentum needed to maintain or develop social, intellectual and political capital (Smith and Jenkins, 2015; Googins and Rochlin, 2000; Healey, 1998a).
Although these forms of soft infrastructure and consensus building are critical, they cannot lead directly to effective participatory forms of urban governance (i.e., in the context of this research, engagement of youth). However, a formal institutional infrastructure is also needed to foster collaborative planning. Formal institutional infrastructure is termed ‘hard’ infrastructure and is crystallised in the design of the political, legal and administrative systems (Alexander, 2007, p.53; Healey, 2006a, p.286). Formal rules are also significant to establish effective urban governance that considers partnerships with youth communities. Healey’s argument was also underscored by Professor John Dryzek (2009), Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom, John Friedmann (1987) and Judith Innes (Healey, 2006a, p.286).
Soft infrastructure
Soft infrastructure concerns planning practices that encompass the social, intellectual and political capital in a locality (Polk, 2011; Amin and Thrift, 1995, pp.16–18; Innes et al., 1994). Planning practices differ from place to place as a result of distinguished “institutional histories, local knowledge resources and the legacies of past policies” (Vigar et al., 2000, p.55). Following the institutionalist approach, collaborative strategy-making generates sufficient consensus building and mutual learning to facilitate coordination, competence and knowledge exchange (Polk, 2011). It develops an institutional infrastructure and cultural resources that enable future issues to be discussed in a reciprocal consensus-building manner (Healey, 2003, 1999, 1998a; Innes, 1996).
In this research, the concept of ‘institutional capacity’ does not refer only to the ability of the agencies involved in urban management activity to manage planning processes (Suh, 1998). It also includes “the ability of coalitions consisting of public and private actors in governance arrangements to get involved in policy processes and decision- making processes by using specific discourses and mobilising knowledge resources and relational resources” (Van Tatenhove, 2015, p.43).
The concept of institutional capacity was primarily originated by Amin and Thrift (1995). Amin and Thrift were looking for answers on how local governance policies could reinvigorate domestic economies, health and quality of life (Healey et al., 2002). They devised the term ‘institutional richness’ or ‘institutional thickness’, referring to the quality of social relations among business firms within a particular industrial agglomeration (Healey et al., 2002; Henry and Pinch, 2001).
Innes and Booher (2004), Khakee (2002) and Amin and Thrift (1995, pp.5–19) distinguished between three forms of capital deployed in an interactive governance context: intellectual, social and political. They emphasised that building relational nexuses boosts knowledge resources (i.e., intellectual capital), sufficient trust to share and exchange knowledge and experiences (i.e., social capital) and the ability to mobilise an act (political capital) (Raitio, 2012). To put it simply, they consider that in urban governance, institutional capacity exists in three categories of capital (Farzaneh, 2011, p.42):
social capital (relational resources), promoting youth relationships with other key actors in the planning process
intellectual capital (knowledge resources), encompassing diverse knowledge resources, thus engaging youth input and opinions
political capital (mobilisation capacity), ensuring that youth participation lasts beyond a particular collaborative effort (initiative).
The three tiers of soft infrastructure are discussed in more detail as follows: Relational resources: the building of community
The concept of relational resources refers to expanding stakeholders’ involvement and enabling all underprivileged groups to make a difference in transforming their localities (Emerson et al., 2012; Polk, 2011; Healey, 2003, 1998a). By relationship thickness, this research was referring to the density of network linkages that can engender cooperation and solidarity among society for the participatory process (Khakee, 2002, p.57). Building institutional capacity implies strengthening relational resources among various institutional ‘sites’ or ‘arenas’ coexisting within a place, depicted as institutional thickness by Amin and Thrift (1995, p.16). Thus, different stakeholders have the opportunity to shape the driving forces affecting life chances, economic opportunities and environmental quality (Healey, 2006b; Phelps and Tewdwr-Jones, 2000).
Fafchamps (2006, p.1196) stated that “investing in social capital should be seen as complementary to investing in government capacity. The two cannot and should not be separated” (cited in El-Said and Harrigan, 2009, p.1236). In his work on social capital, Putnam (2001) defined social capital as the production of “social organisation such as social trust, networks, and norms that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (p.67). As Innes and Booher (2003) and Sommerfeldt and Taylor (2011) pointed out, collaborative decision-making and consensus-building programmes can build up capacity for trust, reciprocity and cooperation in the long run, creating a store of capital that can be drawn on in any future decision-making.
This dimension assesses the quality and examines the nature of relational nexuses between actors of the state, the market and civil society on one hand, and youth communities on the other. Institutionalists, therefore, argue that the quality of such
webs depends on levels of trust and norms embedded in the networks that link actors together (Kim, 2012; Khakee, 2002; Suh, 1998).
A key struggle for governance practices is the active involvement of a diverse range of relational webs in a locality, such as socio-spatial relations (Healey et al., 2002, p.19). As it addresses place-focused governance, this research assesses relational resources according to the deliberative partnerships developed/created in the planning arena of Amman 2025. The semi-structured interviews in this research examined intergovernmental relationships on one hand, and other market actors and civil society on the other. Questions were structured so as to reveal the thickness of relationships between those actors and young communities and to identify which areas are still in need of development.
Knowledge resources: coordination through shared knowledge
Innovative governance was introduced as a concept in which public policy recognises different forms of local knowledge, employs diverse knowledge and is less engaged with the bureaucratic hierarchy of the state (Healey, 2004; Amin and Thrift, 1995) “to incorporate the networks of social relations within which systems of meaning and ways of acting are constituted” (Healey, 1999, p.115). Knowledge resources involve the employment of multifaceted knowledge resources in framing issues and finding solutions (Faehnle and Tyrväinen, 2013; Schilderman and Ruskulis, 2005; Alexander, 2000, p.46). The more diverse knowledge is, the wider the intellectual base for the plans can be (Innes and Booher, 2004). Integrating a plurality of interests within a political community results in the strengthening of new relational nexuses with a new layer of cultural formation and shared systems of meaning (Polk, 2011; Innes and Booher, 2003, p.41; Habermas, 1984).
According to Polk (2011, p.188), “Knowledge resources refer to both formal and informal types of expertise and know-how” and include:
formalised knowledge: information made explicit and associated with a semantic meaning
tacit knowledge: the kind of knowledge that is hard to transfer by writing it down, such as skills, ideas and experience.
In his book The Deliberative Practitioners, Forester (1999) emphasised the diversity of experience in urban space and underscored how planners are in charge of voicing local communities’ needs via communicative action. In addition, Henri Lefebvre (1991) commented on how important it is to integrate various layers of knowledge into the planning process. In agreement with this, Edward Relph (1976) pointed out in his book Place and Placelessness that the identity of a place is the assimilation of the various lived experiences of its residents: “The confusion about the meaning of the notion of place appears to result because it is not just a formal concept awaiting precise definition, but is also a naïve and variable expression of geographical experiences” (Relph, 1976, p.4).
Citizens have varied lifestyles with different types of relational webs of economic activity, social life or governance (Faehnle and Tyrväinen, 2013; Raitio, 2012; Healey, 1999). Youth as a social group perceive urban development and its accompanying urban issues differently from any other segment of society. Scholars have termed these experiences ‘indigenous knowledge’ or ‘local knowledge’ (Soh and Omar, 2012; Kolawole, 2010; Schilderman and Ruskulis, 2005). Such knowledge is defined as knowledge that has developed systematically in a specific context through different experiences, empirical trials, innovation, scientific information and ongoing interaction with the surrounding environment (Soh and Omar, 2012; Kolawole, 2010).
Mobilisation capacity: amassing the power to act
According to collaborative planning theory, the task of spatial planning goes beyond ‘building places’ to building the institutional capacity of governance to deliver effective and durable transformations in social change (Brulle, 2010; Healey, 1998a). In addition to connecting youth to sources of power (relational resources) and knowledge (intellectual capital), youth also need sufficient mobilisation capacity to sustain their engagement beyond a single collaborative effort. For Williams (2003, p.13), mobilisation capacity is built by creating a suitable institutional base and structural shifts for collaborative decision-making. It could be understood that groups under- represented in the political system can harness any ‘cracks’ or ‘windows of opportunity’ in the ‘old’ planning practices to challenge routine ways of conducting the business of planning (Healey et al., 2002; Innes and Booher, 1999). In this research, it has been understood that the process of building mobilisation capacity is manifold. It requires
the nurturing and sponsoring of charismatic leaders among youth who can collectively bring significant changes in the public policy arena33 (Day, 2017; Bryson et al., 2006;
Healey, 2007, p.68, 1998a; Healey et al., 2002, p.21; Innes et al., 1994). Youth empowerment means equipping youth with the opportunities and skills necessary to support their participation in community activities and promote positive outcomes (Roth and Brooks-Gunn, 2003).
In this context, Healey and colleagues (2002) suggested that the literature of movement mobilisation and the work of Tarrow (1998) support understanding of mobilisation capacity. For Tarrow (1998), mobilising youth is about finding “ways of coordinating contention and organizing [youth communities] to sustain mobilization … [it depends] on their capacity to build on existing social networks and to construct more formal organizations to maintain solidarity and aggregate resources” (p.118). In this vein, Tarrow predicts that the continuous development of online communication would significantly facilitate online recruitment and mobilisation, as well as new forms of social organisation to challenge and change established methods of spatial planning. Hard infrastructure
Without a supportive formal structure, building up knowledge resources, relational resources and mobilisation capacity is not enough to sustain youth participation (Healey, 2006a, p.285). The state has to establish an incentive structure for collaborative strategy-making to become an integral part of urban development in Jordan (Innes et al., 1994). The particular organisational and legal form by which “rights are redeemed, duties defined and resources allocated and redistributed” (Healey, 2006, p.304) has been referred to by Healey (2006a, p.73) as ‘hard infrastructure’. Hard infrastructure concerns the rules and resources of a policy system (Alexander, 2007, pp.53–55). It also includes the organisational and legal systems that comprise planning practices (see figure 2-1, above).
This study perceives hard infrastructure as the institutional support by which youth can redeem their citizenship rights; planning authorities’ duties towards young communities are defined and secured; and resources are distributed equally among social actors (Healey, 2006a, p.304, 1999).
Political system
This theoretical concept aims to investigate the nature of political constitutions through which the values of equality, rights and social justice are emphasised in governance. The basis for consensus building and communicative action is a democratic context (Hasan and McWilliams, 2015; Healey, 2006b; Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998). Also, Pierre (1999) stressed that the state system is significant in shaping urban governance. In this context, governance processes are value-laden and affected by the political values of the state (Innes et al., 1994). Democratic political systems are significant in forging a path to include new players and new perceptions in policymaking (Head, 2016).
Administrative system
Topics related to “governance without government” have gained greater importance in the European literature (Peters and Pierre, 1998). Administrative capacity alludes to issues related to the shifting of power, which mainly resides with the state apparatus and its planning institutions, towards other actors in the market and civil society, enabling more participatory action planning (Peters and Pierre, 1998; Grindle, 1996, p.6, cited in Jenkins and Smith, 2001a, p.490). Administratively, Rondinelli and Nellis (1986, p.5), ascribed decentralisation in urban governance to
the transfer of responsibility for planning, management […] to field units of government agencies, subordinate units or levels of government, […], or non-governmental private or voluntary organizations. (cited in Al Rabady et al., 2014, p.253)
The rational-bureaucratic approach to planning and implementation is considered to be among the main obstacles to the realisation of participatory planning (Chaskin, 2005; Zakus and Lysack, 1998; Innes et al., 1994). To be both effective and long-lasting, community planning has to be supported by an inclusionary administrative system of urban governance (Smith and Jenkins, 2015; Zakus and Lysack, 1998; Innes et al., 1994). Many scholars assert that bureaucratic top-down administration is anathema to public participation in the public realm (Fox-Rogers and Murphy, 2016; Zakus and Lysack, 1998; Innes et al., 1994). The rational model of governance relies heavily on the professionalisation of decision-making (i.e., involving expert knowledge systems) to manage the public sphere (Alexander, 2000).
Legal systems
The main concern of the focus of planning regulations is to set up a formalised structure of citizenship rights (Hasan and McWilliams, 2015), according to which young communities have the power to demand to be involved in planning decisions. Following Giddens’s (1984) theory of structuration, planning regulations on land-use planning, for instance, are considered as a ‘formal’ structure. Structure is a powerful force, presenting both opportunities and constraints (Healey, 2006a, p.303; Alexander, 2001). Formal structures “seem to have the quality of engineering and managerial techniques, abstracted from the flow of social relations through which we make our lives” (Healey, 2006a, p.45). Planning regulations manifest power in society through the set of values and modes of thought embedded in legal frameworks (ibid.). Therefore, planning regulations could be considered a ‘structured oppression’ tool used by the powerful against the underprivileged.
Regardless, Marxist political economists argue that such powerful forces are never obsolete. Through our relational webs, we continually reaffirm them, modify them and transform them in the flow of daily life (Healey, 2006a, p.60). In addition, Habermas (1984), through his communication theory, argued that the tools and mechanisms of regulation are formed and transformed through good arguments. Through our relational webs, we can develop shared systems of meaning through which policy priorities change and power bases shift (Healey, 2006, p.66; Healey et al., 2002).