Planners – A silenced profession? The politicisation of planning and the need for fearless speech

Abstract

With the launch of over 40 official investigations between 2010 and 2014 alone, planning is clearly an area of renewed political interest in Sweden. Drawing on Jodi Dean’s interpretation of politicisation, which entails raising the particular to the level of the universal, in this article I argue that we are currently witnessing ongoing politicisation of planning, but of a form which aims at making planners loyal to the current neoliberal politics. I situate this argument within a wider debate which contends that democracy today is characterised by trivialisation and conformity. In response to this situation and drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on the concept of parrhesia, which means fearless speech, I identify a need for planners to develop a critical ethos and shoulder the necessary role of resistance to politics.

Keywords

critical ethos democracy fearless speech Foucault local authority planners parrhesia Sweden

Introduction

In this article, I argue that we are currently witnessing ongoing politicisation of planning, which aims at making planners loyal to the current neoliberal politics and threatens to silence planners. In order to come to grips with this tendency, which I interpret as a democracy problem, I also argue that there is a need for fearless speech among planners.

These arguments draw on findings from this study and from two previous studies in which I have investigated how different state governments, in parallel with introducing planning reforms, have implemented culture change agendas with the aim of transforming planning culture. The results from my previous studies, which analysed political and ideological changes to planning in England and Denmark, respectively, show that these reforms have been implemented with the same aim, that is, to strengthen a growth agenda by making planning more ‘positive’, ‘proactive’ and ‘strategic’. Furthermore, the planning profession has been described as a ‘demoralised’ profession, with an outdated ideological attitude and lack of ability to understand contemporary society’s needs, blocking development and economic prosperity. Hence, one of the means to achieve culture change in planning has been to implement a self-perception of failure among planners, in order to generate a self-governed desire among them to adjust in order to better meet political objectives. I argue elsewhere that such attempts to situate the crisis in planning in an outdated, anachronistic planning culture are playing a key role in strengthening the ideological commitment of planning to an advanced liberal social order (Grange, 2014). I also argue that if society is to reconsider the value of local authority planners having influence, then planners need to develop a deeper awareness of the political, and acknowledge that planning is inherently political (Grange, 2013).

Many others have recently emphasised the need for a better understanding of the political in planning. For example, Metzger et al. (2015) conclude that planning ‘has increasingly become an instrument to displace the political rather than creating a space where political disagreement can play out’ (p. 8). Consequently, they emphasise the need for planners to get to grips with the current practices of depoliticisation. There are many different ways of understanding the political/politicisation, depending primarily on different ontological perceptions regarding the instituting moments of society, that is, whether they are defined on, for example, conflictuality, as advocated by Laclau and Mouffe; on equality, as advocated by Rancière; or on universalisation, as advocated by Žižek (for comparative, or other analyses of the political, see, for example, Dean, 2014; Dikeç, 2015; Metzger et al., 2015; Swyngedouw and Wilson, 2015). In this article, I draw primarily on Dean’s (2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2014) interpretation of politicisation. This, in turn, draws on Žižek, by arguing that politicisation ought to be understood as entailing ‘raising the particular to the level of the universal’ (Dean, 2014: 266; see also Dean, 2005: 169–170). What Dean adds to Žižek’s understanding is a critique of how concepts such as politicisation and post-politics are used today. Dean claims that it is contradictory to talk about much of contemporary politics as if it were defined by less politicisation, since ‘post-politics, depoliticisation and de-democratisation are conceptually inadequate’ to deal with the fact that capitalism is producing a non-egalitarian world (Dean, 2014: 263). Consequently, she emphasises the need to refer to the ongoing universalisation of neoliberal demands with adequate concepts: ‘Of course, politicisation does occur today. The Right does it particularly well…’ (Dean, 2014: 266). ‘Depoliticised’, she adds, ‘thus well describes the contemporary Left’s inability to raise particular claims to the level of the universal, to present issues or problems as standing for something beyond themselves’ (Dean, 2014: 266–267).

I concur with Dean’s view of politicisation and agree that there is a need to analyse processes by which particular interests have been raised to the level of the universal as the outcome of politicisation, irrespective of their political content. In a recent article (Grange, 2014), I show how such universalisation of particular demands took place through the introduction of a new culture change agenda for Danish planning. The analysis drew on three Laclauian concepts – ‘the universal reference’, ‘the illusion of closure’ and ‘the incarnating body’ – and showed how neoliberal demands were projected on the planners, who, in turn, took on the hegemonic role of the particular, that is, to represent the universal.

According to Miller and Rose (2008), political interventions aimed at instituting a new relationship between expertise and politics can be viewed as ‘technologies for subjectivity’ that are deeply ideological and proliferate in what those authors call ‘advanced liberal democracies’. Hence, what we are witnessing today is a shift in how the relationship between politics and expertise is institutionalised; a change by which planners increasingly seem to be directed towards loyalty with politics, sometimes with the consequence that they refer to their role as neutral (Campbell and Marshall, 2002, 2005; McClymont, 2006), or simply distance themselves from the outcome of the planning processes in which they participate (Abram, 2004; Inch, 2009).Gunder (2016) has shown how planning is torn between two different roles currently given to it. On one hand, it is undertaking ‘statutory empowered responsibility of looking after the public interest’, while on the other hand it is ‘providing governance with a justification, or scapegoat, as to why its policy promises are failing’ (Gunder, 2016: 22). According to Gunder (2016), there is reason to believe that planning is ‘the chief remaining scapegoat of neoliberal governance’ (p. 23). He also points to ‘an extensive symbolic repression’ (Gunder, 2016: 33), due to the current hegemonic ideology, which favours ‘normative values of individual independence, self-determination and entrepreneurial success, while downplaying the contradicting values of in[ter]dependence, social justice and care of the other’ (Gunder, 2016: 34). Indeed, it has been stressed elsewhere that contemporary politics, by which planners are required to pursue goals that only suit part of the public, is making the planning profession become ‘schizophrenic’ (Baeten, 2012: 209). In much the same vein, it has been argued that planners risk ending up in a ‘pathological planning culture’, due to being forced to handle increasing demands for informality and efficiency, on one hand, and national rhetoric arguing for transparency and democratic legitimacy, on the other (Mäntysalo et al., 2015: 360).

Drawing on failures of Swedish planning, especially concerning a clear link between vision and outcome, Westin (2010: 33, 34; see also Loit, 2014) asks whether planning is doing any good to society at all. Underlying that question is a critique of the seemingly neutral expert planner. Westin (2010) concludes that planning has a role to play in guarding the common good, although she remains critical of what she interprets as victimisation of the Swedish planner and the view that planners are but a cog in a wheel (p. 276). Loit (2014: 248) identifies a similar gap between planning ideals and rhetoric, on one hand, and a ‘neoliberal planning mindset’ which ‘values a growth-oriented planning approach’, on the other. The result is planning that leads to increasing inequality in Swedish society. I concur with Loit (2014) when he concludes that given that planning has contributed to a neoliberal society, planning can also contribute to ‘counteract these processes’ (p. 244). However, I argue that this would require planners to take on the important role of resistance to politics. This might be a role that is not possible to shoulder in all political systems, but as I go on to show in this article, it is a role that is not only possible in the Swedish political system but in fact to a certain extent expected. However, I also show that it is a role that is increasingly under threat. Having said that, and given the current representative political system in the Western societies, it is my view that politicians should have the last say in planning processes. Nevertheless, it is my firm belief that no political decisions will ever become better by remaining unchallenged (see also Olsson and Hysing, 2012).

Hence, in this article I claim that there is a deep-seated need within planning to nurture a critical ethos, in order for planners to contribute to creating spaces where the political can play out in new and other ways. Consequently, and drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on the ancient Greek and Roman concept of parrhesia, which basically means fearless speech (Foucault, 2001, 2005, 2011), in this article I offer an alternative to the current institutionalisation of the relationship between politics and expertise (for more anarchistic suggestions for change, see, for example, Ansaloni and Tedeschi, 2015; Newman, 2009). It was to such ethical and potentially enabling aspects of the subject’s relationship to itself, or simply ‘the care of the self’ that Foucault increasingly directed his focus throughout his life (Foucault, 1985, 1986, 2001, 2005). However, until lately little attention has been paid to these aspects of Foucault’s work (for exceptions, see Bang, 2014; Dyrberg, 2014; Lazzarato, 2013; McGushin, 2011; Mendieta, 2011; Philo, 2012; Taylor, 2011). Some authors (e.g. Dyrberg, 2014: 49; Mendieta, 2011: 112) have even argued that Foucault’s work has been profoundly misunderstood as primarily being about normalisation, while the more creative aspects of his work have been downplayed. The unfortunate outcome, according to Lemke (2013: 51), is a field of governmentality studies characterised by ‘theoretical trivialization’. In line with this criticism, one could argue that until recently, little focus has been directed towards the ‘desubjugating’ and ‘empowering’ aspects of governmentality, that is, towards what Foucault himself refers to as the art of ‘not being quite so governed’ (Foucault, 2007: 57).

In order to contextualise the argument that we are witnessing an ongoing politicisation of planning that threatens to silence planners, in the next section of this article, I provide a short review of the contemporary critique of the modern notion of democracy, which argues that democracy today is characterised by trivialisation and passivity. In the third section, I introduce Michel Foucault’s work on parrhesia, which argues that discourses of truth materialise in certain forms of subjectivity and that empowerment and desubjugation, therefore, need to go through the development of a critical ethos. In the fourth section, I provide an analysis of the current politicisation of Swedish planning. The Swedish political system differs from that in most other countries, as government agencies are separated from ministries. Consequently, the Swedish system strongly advocates independent agencies and civil servants. Nevertheless, the analysis examines evidence of ongoing politicisation of Swedish planning. In the fifth and the concluding section, I discuss the need for planners to give voice to their professional judgment and shoulder the role as a counterforce to politics.

Democracy as an inherently anti-essential concept

In the wake of the neoliberal project on economic growth, it is clear that liberal values, such as property rights, capital enhancement and competitive positioning, are increasingly being secured at the expense of the egalitarian basis of democracy, which emphasises equality, solidarity and inclusion. Numerous voices today claim that the universalisation of liberal democracy ‘as the final form of government’ (Frug, 2013: 311) is contributing to a serious dismantling of democracy (e.g. Brown, 2003: 10, 2015: 26; Crouch, 2004: 3; Dahl, 1998: 177; Dean, 2009b: 78; Keenan, 2003: 2; Mouffe, 2000: 80; Purcell, 2013: 26). In response to this situation, two different strands have developed, one which finds democracy inadequate as a form for future aspirations and the other which aims for re-democraticisation. I briefly describe both of these below.

Dean (2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2014) embodies the first strand. In several articles, she questions the use of the concept democracy as ‘the primary signifier of the potential of emancipatory political struggle’ (Dean, 2005: 154). The problem, according to Dean, is that contemporary democratic language only serves to reinforce capitalism. Hence, she states that ‘for leftists to refer to their goals as a struggle for democracy is strange. It is a defence of the status quo, a call for more of the same. Democracy is our ambient milieu, the hegemonic form of contemporary politics’ (Dean, 2014: 268). Indeed, she argues that our current ‘fetishizing of democracy’ (Dean, 2005: 165) has led only to a situation in which we are stuck with a democracy ‘that talks without responding’ (Dean, 2009b: 78). Consequently, she argues that democracy today can best be viewed as a ‘neoliberal fantasy’, which only assists to render any change to capitalism unthinkable (Dean, 2009b).

Others, however, choose to stay with the concept of democracy, either arguing that our contemporary notion of democracy can be viewed as ‘democracy unrealized’ (Wallerstein, 2001), or that we are witnessing ‘de-democraticization’ (Brown, 2006), and consequently that what we need today is re-democraticisation. According to Brown (2003), today’s liberal democratic discourse is ‘void of substance’ (p. 10) and characterised by ‘political nihilism’ (p. 20). In a similar vein, it has been argued that we are witnessing an ongoing ‘trivialization of democracy’ and a move towards a ‘post-democratic society’ in which the ‘mass of citizens plays a passive, quiescent, even apathetic part, responding only to the signals given them’ (Crouch, 2004: 4). It is also clear that society today is characterised by a serious decline in public confidence (Bang, 2014; Marquand, 2004) and ‘a crisis of representation’ (Mouffe, 2013: 119; see also Newman, 2009; Kurlantzick, 2013: 26).

With this problematic diagnosis of contemporary democracy, many have turned their analytical focus towards the modern notion of democracy and how it can be radicalised (for a compilation of contributions from several contemporary political thinkers, see Agamben et al., 2011). For example, in several works, Laclau (1996, 2000, 2002) and Laclau and Mouffe (1985) have developed the concept of ‘radical democracy’ as an inherently anti-essential and open notion of democracy, in which the contingent, hegemonic relationship between (empty) signifiers and what they are made to signify is a main concern. It is through such illusory fixing of meaning that discourses are established. Consequently, Laclau (2000) claims that the only truly radical democratic society ‘is one which permanently shows the contingency of its own foundations’ (p. 86).

However, it has been argued that too little attention has been given in contemporary political theory to ‘the crucial moments that turn the subject into a democratic subject’ (Norval, 2007: 15). Keenan (2003) concurs with Laclau and Mouffe’s anti-essentialist approach of social openness, but at the same time criticises them for downplaying the need for closure, that is, practical guidance on how to act in order to achieve radical democracy. Keenan (2003: 16) concludes that what is needed today is ‘a distinct democratic ethos, rooted in and supported by a different language of democratic responsibility’ and that this democratic responsibility needs to be fostered in ‘a conscious identification with others understood not so much as those who share with us a common essence of a single community but rather as fellow sufferers from identity’ (p. 23; emphasis in original). Bond (2011) makes a similar suggestion when outlining a democratic ethos that recognises ‘the undecidability of the terrain in which decisions are taken’, although she argues that it must also respect the normative principles of liberty, equality and reciprocity (p. 179). Purcell (2008: 36) also emphasises that the notion of democracy must remain inherently anti-essential. He argues for the formation of networks of equivalence among democratic social movements. He also calls for a deeper awareness of the potential within each and everyone for a ‘down-deep delight’ in democracy and for the development of strategies that can help to ‘understand and mobilize that power’ (Purcell, 2013: 154). Such an empowering and creative interpretation of democracy comes close to its original meaning, which can be understood as the ‘capacity to do things, not majority rule’ (Ober, 2008: 3).

Which of these strands within democratic theory is most adequate to deal with the current practices associated with ‘depoliticisation’, that is, practices defined by inabilities to present problems as standing for something more than themselves? Dean (2009a) presents the problem in the following way:

If the diagnosis of de-democraticization and de-politicization is correct, then left politics should seek more democracy, should attempt re-politicization. But if I am right about the contemporary democratic deadlock, then a politics that reasserts democracy as the solution to all our problems will continue to entrap us in same old circuits of defeat. It will fail, moreover, to attend to the politicizations already conditioning the current conjuncture. (p. 22)

In this article, I concur with Dean on the need to see and deal with the politicisations currently going on. However, given the present political system, I choose to emphasise the need to nurture a critical ethos, in order for planners to take on the important role of resistance to politics, rather than giving up on democracy at this point. Nevertheless, like many of the authors mentioned above, I believe that the notion of democracy is an inherently anti-essential concept, and thus a certain notion of democracy at any time can be challenged and replaced with another notion.

In order to contribute to this debate, in the next section I examine some aspects related to the formation of a critical ethos and how it can contribute to a change in our current notion of democracy. I do so primarily by referring to Foucault’s later writings concerned with the concept of parrhesia.

Fearless speech/parrhesia

For there to be democracy there must be parrēsia; for there to be parrēsia there must be democracy. (Foucault, 2011: 155)¹

The word parrhesia has its roots in the ancient Greek world, where it was one of three essential features of democracy, the others being equal right of speech and equal participation (Foucault, 2001: 22). A person who uses parrhesia, a parrhesiastes, speaks what they know to be true, regardless of potentially dangerous consequences:

The commitment involved in parrhesia is linked to a certain social situation, to a difference of status between the speaker and his audience, to the fact that the parrhesiastes says something which is dangerous to himself and thus involves a risk. (Foucault, 2001: 13; emphasis in original)

However, parrhesia should not be mistaken for confession, that is, telling everything about oneself in order to be saved, which developed later and became characteristic of the Christian pastoral mode of being (Foucault, 2011: 359). Parrhesiastes do not necessarily speak the truth about themselves, but rather speak in the interests of the city (Foucault, 2011: 179). Furthermore, no one forces parrhesiastes to speak; a person who ‘recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself)’ does so from a sense of moral obligation (Foucault, 2001: 19).

Ethics, according to Foucault, is ‘the conscious practice of freedom’, that is, ‘the form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection’ (Foucault, 1996: 435). Hence, it is the reflective exercise of freedom that drives the parrhesiastes to speak: ‘What characterizes the parrhesiastic utterance is precisely that, apart from statues and anything that could codify and define the situation, the parrhesiast is someone who emphasizes his own freedom as an individual speaking’ (Foucault, 2011: 65). Paradoxically, women, foreigners and slaves were not thought of in relation to parrhesia in ancient Greek and Roman culture, as they were not endowed with the right institutional privileges. For this reason, Foucault predominantly uses masculine nouns when referring to the evolution of parrhesia.

Despite the emphasis on truth-telling, parrhesia is not primarily about demonstrating the truth, but about the ethical commitment parrhesiastes establish with themselves, that is, ‘the relationship between the speaker and what he says’ (Foucault, 2001: 12; see also Foucault, 2011: 65). This commitment is not situated within a field of discursive strategies, Foucault (2011) underlined, but is rather characterised by ‘true discourse’, hence its agonistic structure (pp. 55–56, 68, 133). Consequently, what drew Foucault to investigate parrhesia was not a desire to investigate the problem of truth, but to investigate the problem of who could speak the truth, that is, ‘the problem of the truth-teller’ (Foucault, 2001: 169; see also Foucault 1985: 6–7). Indeed, elsewhere Foucault emphasises that ‘it is not power, but the subject, which is the general theme of my research’ (Foucault, 1983: 209). This perspective is particularly evident in his later work, in which he emphasised the need to ‘promote new forms of subjectivity’ (Foucault, 1983: 216; see also Foucault, 2011: 5).

Like parrhesia, ‘care of the self’ is a notion Foucault discusses in relation to the problematisation of the truth-teller in ancient Greek and Roman culture. During this period, the imperative to take care of oneself appeared as ‘an unqualified principle’, that is, as ‘a rule applicable to everyone’ and which could be ‘practiced by everyone, without any prior condition of status and without any technical, professional or social aim’ (Foucault, 2005: 126). However, it is equally clear that it was not a mode of existence put into practice by everyone: ‘The care of the self always entails a choice of one’s mode of life, that is to say a division between those who have chosen this mode of life and the rest’ (Foucault, 2005: 113). Of decisive importance was whether the subject has developed a critical ‘ethos’, a mode of being by which one is able to take care of oneself and others (Foucault, 2005: 93, 175, 237, 327).

According to Foucault (2007), a critical attitude is fundamentally linked to ‘the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these people, at this price’ (p. 75). Consequently, he described the materialisation of critique as ‘the art of voluntary insubordination’:

I will say that critique is the movement by which the subject gives himself the right to question truth on its effects of power and question power on its discourses of truth. Well then!: critique will be the art of voluntary insubordination, that of reflected intractability. Critique would essentially insure the desubjugation of the subject in the context of what we could call, in a word, the politics of truth. (Foucault, 2007: 47)

It has been argued elsewhere that a critical mode of being implies a commitment to ‘expose oneself as a subject’ (Lemke, 2012: 70; see also Lazzarato, 2013: 158). By exposing oneself as a subject, with an ontological position, one gives an account of oneself before others. This requires ‘self-distancing and self-questioning’ (Lemke, 2012: 71, see also 73; and Taylor, 2011: 182), that is, through an agonistic relationship towards the self as much as towards adversaries (Foucault, 1985: 67). Indeed, all this indicates that critique as engagement, as opposed to withdrawal, ought to be viewed as a self-transforming ethical practice of freedom. However, it requires a commitment by which we acknowledge that we ‘actively participate in our self-constitution, and thus possess the capacity to engage in such analysis’ (Taylor, 2011: 181). Hence, daring to practise freedom, that is, daring to acknowledge fearlessly that we actively participate in our self-constitution, is far from a simple question of withdrawal. It demands of us that we engage by exposing ourselves as subjects, but also that we acknowledge that new forms of democratic subjectivity can only come about through desubjugating processes of self-questioning.

However, Foucault (2011) underlines that the bond between parrhesia and democracy ‘is problematic, difficult and dangerous’ (p. 168). The paradox lies in the fundamental circularity between parrhesia and democracy; if there are no parrhesiastes who dare to speak fearlessly, there will be no true democracy, but the nurturing of fearless speech also needs democracy in order to develop. According to Foucault, this circularity is precisely where the bond between parrhesia and democracy becomes dangerous. Democracy ensures that anybody can speak, but this right also introduces self-interest, flattery and possibly conformity, that is, submission to the voice of the prevalent opinion. The democratic paradox, according to Foucault, is thus that if true discourse, which can only be expressed as critique, disappears from democracy, democracy itself will secure its own reduction into consensus, the voice of the majority, or passivity:

[T]rue discourse is what will enable democracy to exist, and to continue to exist. True discourse must have its place for democracy actually to be able to take its course and be maintained through misadventures, events, jousts, and wars. So democracy can continue to exist only through true discourse. But on the other hand, inasmuch as true discourse in democracy only comes to light in the jousts, in conflict, confrontation, and rivalry, it is always threatened by democracy. And this is the second paradox: there is no democracy without true discourse, for without true discourse it would perish; but the death of true discourse, the possibility of its death or of its reduction to silence is inscribed in democracy. (Foucault, 2011: 184)

Hence, Foucault (2005) warns that without true discourse, without fearless critique, parrhesiastic speech can – and does – degenerate into seduction and pure rhetoric (p. 373). He also shows how parrhesia has gradually transformed and eventually ceased being a fundamental feature of our modern notion of democracy. Consequently, it should be noted that parrhesia cannot be taken as evidence of an ancient feature of democracy that can simply be reinvigorated and adapted to the contemporary political culture; Foucault’s primary subject of analysis is the history of thought, that is, how power relations and forms of subjectivity have been problematised in different times. Nevertheless, in an interview in the last year of his life, 1984, he stated that ‘it seems to me that contemporary political thought allows very little room for the question of the ethical subject’ (Foucault, 1996: 443). In view of the trivialisation of our current political culture, as discussed in the previous section, much seem to indicate that Foucault’s writings on parrhesia, as an inherently critical-ethical feature of democracy, have something important to offer contemporary debates on democracy (see also Dyrberg, 2014). In the concluding section of this article, I discuss the need for fearless speech among planners. Before that, I describe an empirical investigation of the current political advocacies for change in Swedish planning.

Current politicisation of Swedish planning

As in many other countries, Swedish municipal planning has faced erosion of power, expertise and trust in recent decades. However, with the launch of over 40 official investigations of Swedish planning and housing between 2010 and 2014 alone, the liberal-conservative government, which came into power in 2006, highlighted planning as an area of renewed political interest. A driver for this change was the government’s wish for local authorities to increasingly take economic growth and efficiency into consideration.² In this section, I take a deeper look at mechanisms currently working to politicise planning.

Background – a weakly institutionalised planning profession

Without doubt, the historically long-lasting political majority of the Swedish social democrats, between 1932 and 1976, played an important role in how the Swedish planning system came to develop. The Swedish municipal plan monopoly, introduced in 1947 and still in practice, is an important outcome from this period. The monopoly principle gives the municipalities far-reaching rights to decide about the use and development of all land. Hence, all comprehensive and detailed plans are politically adopted at the municipal level in Sweden. National interests are monitored by County Administration Boards. There is also a National Board of Housing, Building and Planning. However, due to the Swedish principle of freestanding governmental agencies, this board has only an advisory role.

During the first half of the 20th century, professionalisation of the field of planning was an explicit political objective in Sweden (Strömgren, 2007: 89–118). The main reason for this was to overcome societal problems connected to Sweden’s very poor housing standards at the time. By the 1960s, Swedish society had undergone major urbanisation but was still facing severe shortages of housing and manpower. Large-scale solutions, which built on the establishment of large public housing companies and large contractors who could supply the demand, became an important precondition for the 1 million new dwellings that were built within the Swedish government’s ‘Million Homes Programme’ between 1965 and 1974. This programme was filled with good intentions, but by its end, the societal critique was devastating. It is widely recognised that this programme contributed to severely decreased legitimacy for Swedish planning (e.g. Christoferson and Öhman, 1998: 11; Granberg and von Sydow, 1998; Mattsson, 2015: 170; Strömgren, 2007: 154).

Partly as a consequence of the societal critique from this time, over several decades Sweden has seen a gradual decentralisation of political decisions (Strandberg, 2013: 1). The introduction of the Swedish Planning and Building Act in 1987 drew strongly on this tendency, however, with the consequence that much of central government’s control of planning disappeared (Blücher, 2006). Indeed, it has been argued elsewhere that the Scandinavian planning systems are probably the most decentralised planning systems in Europe today (SOU, 2013: 139). A devolved system clearly has its strengths, but also its weaknesses, one such being that Swedish local authorities today are expected to take into consideration over 100 national goals, divided between many different ministries and government agencies, when they make their plans (Boverket, 2011: 11). Not surprisingly, the Swedish National Audit Office (Riksrevisionsverket, 2005) has found that central government’s overview of planning is inadequate today. Similar conclusions were reached in another official investigation, which found the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning to be weak and fragmented, as a direct consequence of lack of coordination by central government (SOU, 2009). The board has acknowledged the criticism, admitting that ‘the de-prioritisation of resources that has occurred during recent years sends very negative signals to other planning agents’ (Boverket, 2007: 37; my translation).³ As a result, power and initiative in Swedish planning have increasingly been transferred from public authorities to private corporations (Boverket, 2012a: 8, 2014a: 10, 17; SOU, 2013: 342).

Furthermore, there is currently no professional organisation that represents all Swedish planners. Consequently, there are no common ethical guidelines for Swedish planners, nor is there a strong professional organisation that can give voice to their values or visions for the future. In addition, the Swedish planning profession has struggled with self-criticism (Tunström, 2009: 129–140). Lack of proper knowledge among planners has long been a recurring theme in the critique (Granberg and von Sydow, 1998: 37, 41, 55) and continues to be so today (e.g. Boverket, 2012b: 9, 2014b: 17; Government Offices of Sweden, 2014a: 3).

In view of the above, much seems to indicate that the Swedish planning profession is weakly institutionalised today. A period of self-criticism and the lack of a strong professional organisation with ethical guidelines and a clear voice in society have further exacerbated the problem. Such a position might be a problematic precondition given the renewed interest in politicising planning now becoming more apparent in Sweden.

Swedish planners – efficient servants or guardians of democracy?

As described in the previous section, interest by Swedish central government in planning was weak until recently. However, with the recent liberal-conservative government (2006–2014), a clear shift occurred. One of its first actions was to put planning on the political agenda, when the requirement for local authorities to take economic growth and efficient competition into consideration was added to the Swedish Planning and Building Act. Soon afterwards, the government launched many major investigations into Swedish planning, with at least 40 investigations between 2010 and 2014.⁴ These investigations can be understood as discourses that promoted changes which were later implemented to the Planning and Building Act. Without going into great detail on the investigations, it is clear that a common objective of all these investigations was a more efficient planning system. Among other things, the conclusions aimed at the following: a reduction in office turnaround times; fewer requirements for planning and building permits; fewer public consultations on planning proposals and no formal requirement for public consultations, but for the local authority to describe what initiatives they had taken; the abolition of requirements for public announcements and public posting of planning proposals; the possibility for the city council to devolve responsibility to the building committee for political adoption of plans (with the consequence that planning decisions made by local authorities would no longer be overt) and a reduction in the right to appeal, for example, regarding those with the right to appeal, time limits for such appeals and fewer levels of appeal (Government Offices of Sweden, 2013, 2014b; SOU, 2012, 2013).

Given the proposals in the investigations, it seems that many of them would come at the expense of democracy. However, although many of the proposals promoted more informal and efficient processes, it was argued that the changes would in fact encourage more democratic processes:

If the development that has taken place in recent years can be confirmed and more of the detailed planning can be entrusted to market players, many of the detailed procedural rules regarding consultation, exhibition etc. that currently surround the procedure when a zoning plan is carried out can perhaps also be scrapped. If it is possible to clarify in the law that citizens’ and residents’ views should be taken into account as far as possible, perhaps that is enough to replace many of today’s detailed procedural rules. Instead, it could be a requirement in zoning processes to demonstrate how legal requirements for public participation have been met. Such a provision could possibly encourage new and effective ways to achieve real citizen participation. (SOU, 2012: 45)

According to Mäntysalo et al. (2011, 2015), such a trend is currently leading to increasingly difficult situations for planners in all the Nordic countries. By trying to handle national rhetoric arguing for transparency and democratic legitimacy, on one hand, and increasing demands for informality and efficiency, on the other, Mäntysalo et al. (2011: 2121) argue that planners risk end up in parallel planning systems and thus in informal routines that would prohibit ‘the voicing of crucial tensions in planning processes’.

It should be emphasised that the proposed changes to the Swedish Planning and Building Act recommended by government to the Swedish Parliament in 2014 (Government Offices of Sweden, 2013; 2014b) did not in all respects go as far as the discourses reflected in the official investigations advocated. One reason for this might be that several consultation responses argued that if all the changes were to be approved, they would lead to large restrictions in democracy, with serious legitimacy problems for Swedish planning (BTH, 2013; Boverket, 2013a). The main changes approved by the Swedish Parliament in 2014 were that formerly standard planning procedures, now normal planning procedures, from now on will have fewer public consultations; public announcements and exhibitions that were formerly a requirement for standard procedures will from now only be made for major planning proposals; local authorities will no longer need to declare reasons for planning proposals ‘if apparently unnecessary’; local authorities will no longer need to deliberate over planning proposals with tenants and condominium owners, ‘if apparently of no interest for them’; local authorities will have the right to devolve chiefdom over public spaces to private developers; local authorities will no longer have the possibility to place local demands for technical solutions on developers and local authority agreements with developers will have to be made overt. The Parliament did not adopt the central Government’s suggestion to give local authorities the right to devolve the adoptions of plans from the city council to the building committees, which means that planning decisions are still overt for the public in Sweden (The Riksdag of Sweden, 2014).

In view of the above, much seems to indicate that Swedish planning has undergone a devaluation of democratic requirements as a consequence of the last decade’s drive for more efficient planning processes. However, this tendency stands in contrast to the statements made in the latest official investigation of democracy in Sweden (SOU, 2000: 131–133, 147) emphasising that civil servants are the guardians of Swedish democracy. Only with courageous civil servants and independent professionals, it is argued, will administrative bodies be able to offer necessary resistance to politicians. It should be pointed out that the Swedish political system differs from that in most other countries, as government agencies are separated from ministries. However, it is equally clear that this principle is increasingly under threat today. A recent report from the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning states that ‘Today this principle is fading away as the agencies are becoming less autonomous and more part of the central government and an instrument for national policy’ (Boverket, 2013b: 3). In view of the above, much seems to indicate that there is reason to question Swedish planners’ ability to act as independent guardians of democracy.

The politicisation of civil servant managers – Interviews with Swedish planners

The democratic ideal based on autonomous and independent agencies is in sharp contrast to the strong normative ideal advocated by many Swedish planners and politicians, which calls for neutral and value-free planners, acting at a distance from political decisions (Håkansson, 2005: 45; Isaksson, 2003: 58, 62, 70; Isaksson and Storbjörk, 2005: 64; Johansson and Khakee, 2008: 125; Lennqvist Lindén, 2010: 165; Orrskog, 2008: 61; Westin, 2010: 26). One consequence of the neutrality advocated by Swedish planners is an unwillingness to give voice to personal or professional values. A survey examining ethical concerns has shown that Swedish planners are more reluctant than planners from other countries to take sides, even regarding proposals they think are damaging or detrimental (Johansson and Khakee, 2008: 134–135).

However, in reality, much seems to indicate that politicians and planners act in a grey zone far from the ideal they both defend (Isaksson and Storbjörk, 2005: 74). Several official investigations have concluded that since the 1990s, Sweden has seen a transfer of power from politicians with other occupations besides politics to full-time politicians and civil service managers (SOU, 1996, 2000: 147, 150). It has been concluded elsewhere that this tendency constitutes a ‘serious democracy problem’ (Lennqvist Lindén, 2010: 239), characterised by an increasing demand for loyalty, a decrease in civil servants’ freedom of speech and, as a consequence, the spread of a ‘culture of silence’ (Lennqvist Lindén, 2010: 18, 33, 233, 248). Moreover, it seems that this development has also had an impact on Swedish planners: testimonies from within the profession demonstrate how politicians sometimes correct planners’ official statements (Isaksson, 2003: 59; Larsson 2013: 63) and how ‘cultures of fear’ have developed in some planning departments (Näslund, 2011: 14–15; see also Althén, 2010; Eriksson, 2012: 55; Larsson, 2010: 60).

In order to investigate the Swedish planning profession’s perceptions of recent political developments, in this study, I conducted interviews with Swedish planners, all of whom were either currently employed as local authority planners (five interviewees) or had formerly been employed as local authority planners but at the time of the interview had moved on to other roles such as working for a developer, a consultancy firm or a government agency (six interviewees). In total, 7 of the 11 interviewees either currently held or had previously held civil servant management positions within local authorities and two either currently held or had previously held civil servant management positions within government agencies.

Regarding their perceptions of their role as planners, many of the interviewees stated that it is an exposed and often criticised role. A majority claimed that the role of the planner is undervalued; all interviewees were strongly committed to their work and many emphasised integrity and guarding the common good as important parts of their self-perception.

A few interviewees reported that they had only experienced respectful relationships between planners and politicians. Others made statements that seemed to indicate a more problematic relationship. Some described weak support from civil servant managers and several pointed to increasingly hierarchical organisations within municipalities. One planner who had left local authority planning and was working as a consultant at the time of the interviews described it thus:

Very often things are just thrown down in your lap, with forceful instructions coming from politicians and down through civil servant management. (Planner 2)

The same planner was very troubled by the fact that in their municipality management did not stand up for its views and politicians did not seek the planners’ opinions:

It was very uncomfortable that the administration did not stand up and said ‘No, we stand by this view. You may however decide against it’. (Planner 2)

The politicians did not want people in there who listened. They wanted to be able to discuss more freely and it shows in fact such lack of confidence in their management, when officers can’t be present and take part in discussions and perhaps contribute with support. (Planner 2)

Another interviewee, who at the time of the interview was employed as a civil servant within a local authority, indicated consequences of such lack of confidence for planners’ meetings with developers:

In the meeting with the developers, one is not particularly strong in representing the common values. And that is because as an official, one must know that one has support in politics, in order to be able to be tough, and it’s not always certain that one knows that, or has that. (Planner 3)

One interviewee who had experience from several municipalities as a civil servant manager, but who at the time of the interview had left local authority planning and was working as a consultant, pointed to what seems to be a lack of clarity when it comes to matters of responsibility. This interviewee emphasised that politicians generally do not want to undertake discussions with the public, but rather refer them to the planners. The same planner also reported having stopped talking to the press and instead sending them to the politicians. This seems to indicate unwillingness among planners to take responsibility for political decisions. That planner also saw a clear tendency for centralisation of decision-making in Swedish local authorities. The result, according to this interviewee, is that planners are increasingly left solely with issues of implementation.

Several of the interviewees also confirmed that politicians sometimes correct planners’ official statements. However, a majority of the interviewees emphasised that such circumstances are unethical. One interviewee, who at the time of the interview was employed within the municipal executive administration, and thus had a role as a civil servant manager, described a contrasting opinion:

When we meet the officers working on detailed planning and we have different views, then I’ll go and check with the city councillor, ‘Is this how you want me to pursue these issues?’ And then I meet the planning officer and say, ‘You may think what you want, but I have not got political acceptance for your view, the city council wants this’. (Planner 11)

Hence, in the town planning office of that municipality, the planners’ opinions never became official. In contrast to many of the other interviewees, this civil servant manager was comfortable with such a system:

We choose political representatives to shape the city. Consequently, it is not up to individual civil servants to manifest themselves with a particular view. (Planner 11)

Hence, it is not only the normative ideals among planners advocating neutrality, and the consequent unwillingness among many planners to give voice to their professional standpoints, that are problematic. The interviews also confirmed an ongoing politicisation of planning, understood as a transfer of power to full-time politicians and high-ranking civil servants.

In the final section of this article, I return to the need for fearless speech and situate the politicisation of planning within a concluding discussion on whether planners’ current political commitment best serves a democratic society.

Concluding remarks on the need for fearless speech

The stated aim of this analysis was to shed some light on what I refer to as ongoing politicisation of planning. In order to identify some of the mechanisms operating to enable this, I performed an analysis of the current politicisation of Swedish planning.

It has been concluded elsewhere that many Swedish planners advocate an ideal of neutrality, with an unwillingness to give voice to professional judgment. I show here that a weakly institutionalised Swedish planning profession might contribute to this situation. For example, there is no strong professional organisation that represents all Swedish planners and which can give voice to planners’ values. Consequently, there are no common ethical guidelines for Swedish planners. It is also clear that Swedish planning has recently become the focus of renewed political interest, with a clear aim to make planning more efficient. A similar politicising tendency is apparent in all the Nordic countries. However, the current political calls for more efficient and informal processes appear to be veiled in rhetoric arguing for transparency and democracy. Moreover, power has been transferred from civil servants to politicians and civil servant managers in Swedish society over recent decades. This clearly works against democratic ideals advocated in the Swedish constitution, which demands independent government agencies and civil servants. My interviews with Swedish planners confirmed this tendency. Several of the interviewees reported increasingly hierarchical organisations within local authorities. Taken altogether, the analysis confirmed claims of ongoing politicisation of Swedish planning.

It has been argued elsewhere (Lazzarato, 2013: 159) that in the Western world ‘there is no longer place for parrhesia. Democratic consensus is the neutralization of parrhesia, of truth-telling, and of the subjectivation and action that flow from it’. According to Foucault, this outcome is exactly where the bond between parrhesia and democracy becomes dangerous. True discourse can only be expressed as critique and when the imperative to do so fades away, that is, when parrhesia disappears from the notion of democracy, then what remains is a democracy that is reduced to consensus, to the voice of the majority and to passivity. Consequently, following Foucault’s advice to ensure ‘the desubjugation of the subject’ is not just a way of practising critique, it is a necessary feature of democracy that needs to be re-established and strengthened. Only thus can society aspire to new forms of democratic subjectivity (Foucault, 1983: 216, 2011: 5; see also Kelly, 2009: 160; Simons, 1995: 124); because ‘subjectivity is not some thing we are, it is an activity that we do’ (McGushin, 2011: 134; emphasis in original).

This clearly raises questions about whether the current professional commitment of planners best serves a democratic society and, more specifically, what a new subjectivity of a planner as a parrhesiastes would mean in a Swedish institutional context. As Foucault (2001) underlines, ‘the commitment involved in parrhesia is linked … to the fact that the parrhesiastes says something which is dangerous to himself and thus involves a risk’ (p. 13). And, indeed, planners who choose to shoulder the necessary role of resistance to politics might face reprisals, but it might also be the starting point of a new legitimacy for planning. However, according to Harvey (1984), it is questionable whether planners are fully aware of their current commitment, that is, from where they derive their legitimacy. This lack of awareness contributes to keeping planners primarily concerned with restoring the existing social order. In Foucault’s terms, that would involve submitting to the subjectivities imposed by the current politics. And drawing on Dean, it would reflect a practice from where no issues were raised to the level of the universal. I argue here that such commitment does not best serve a democratic society. True democracy needs planners with a professional commitment to problematise truth claims. Given the current political system in Sweden, which emphasises independent governmental agencies, but which nevertheless shows tendencies for these agencies to covertly become ‘instruments for national policy’, I contend that politics has more to gain from encountering civil servants who dare to raise problems that refer to something beyond themselves, than by loyal civil servants that see no other option than to be compliant. However, authority relationships must never stop being challenged and this goes for politicians and planning experts. Only through the development of such a critical ethos within the planning profession will the current neoliberal politicisation of planning encounter the fearless speech it so deeply needs.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the outgoing managing editor Michael Gunder for constructive comments not only on this article but also on several occasions over recent years. I also want to thank the three anonymous referees of Planning Theory who helped to sharpen the argument in the article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was financed by The Swedish Research Council Formas.

Notes

Author biography

Kristina Grange is an Associate Professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning, at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She has an interest in poststructuralist and political theory and their implications for planning theory and practice. Her current research focuses on on-going political and ideological changes to planning, and what the implications of such changes are for democracy, as well as for the planning profession itself.

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