Spaces for planning evolution : Path, inter and goal dependencies in the revival of spatial planning in Argentina

Abstract

The unforeseen revival of State-led planning on a national scale in Argentina raises thus theoretical and practical questions regarding the sense-making process around the formation of planning policies and how patterns of continuity and discontinuity in governance are grasped. In this sense, the next section introduces the main theoretical approaches that have sought to elucidate the dynamics of continuity and change in policy formation processes. The perspective adopted in this thesis, which will be presented later, recognises the value of this classical literature, but, will start from a different set of sources, ultimately arriving at a different understanding of these dynamics. of academic and policy discourses that contributed to (de)legitimise the formation of planning policies in Argentina since the 1950s is analysed. The focus is on the communicative/collaborative rationality discourses emanating from Anglo-American academic circles that played a role in the revival of the Argentinian planning system between 2004 and 2015. An evolutionary approach to policy travel and policy learning is adopted, deploying the concepts of discursive migration and discursive configuration to better understand how ideas, people and goods/resources reinvent themselves when transnationally circulating policy knowledge takes root locally. The migration process in Argentina led to the reinforcement of prevalent coordination mechanisms, redirecting concerns and conflicts into governance structures already existing, involving players already present and forms of expertise already dominant. The migrating collaborative discourse (self) transformed in relation to the receiving governance environment, becoming an effective compliance-gaining technique, while national actors found ways to engage and discipline provinces they depended on more than before.