Tracing resident antagonisms in urban development: agonistic pluralism and participatory planning

Abstract

This article draws on research with resident action groups and other alliances in Sydney. It investigates the ways in which citizens work beyond the formal planning system to approach and achieve their urban development goals. The post‐political treatment of community voices in planning relies on the centrality of consensus politics in current participatory planning regimes. By providing a democratic outlet that is far removed from the actual development outcome, powerful urban actors can silence through inclusion. Planning theorists have posited that one pathway beyond this post‐political moment in urban planning is provided by Chantal Mouffe's critique of Habermasian communicative theory and consensus politics, which she bases on her theory of agonistic pluralism. Following Mouffe, to achieve a productive agonistic politics, any rigid antagonisms between “enemies” need to be moderated to more mutable “adversarial” positions. However, we have little knowledge of the conditions that might precipitate such a change in praxis. To address this gap between theory and praxis, we use focus group data to show how local resident action groups and urban alliances work through three modalities of antagonism to achieve their urban development goals. We add empirical weight to the idea that citizens can shift from rigid and fundamental antagonisms to the potentially more productive adversarial politics of agonistic pluralism but therein expose some limitations with how Mouffe's ideas are being applied to urban planning.

The politics of value in urban development: Valuing conflict in agonistic pluralism

“…Other individuals and RAGs, when faced with unequal relations of power within the bounds of the formal politics of community engagement and participation, strategically moved between the inside and outside of these formal processes, in their attempts to exert influence. This strategic antagonism manifested in a number of ways (see McAuliffe and Rogers, 2018; Rogers et al, 2017). Some groups directly lobbied Local or State government politicians, or drew on existing social capital with powerful actors outside of the officially sanctioned processes of community engagement to mobilise a political campaign.…”

“…Over the last two decades, the urban planning profession in Australia, as in other countries, has been building ‘consensus-seeking’ models of community engagement into their urban planning practices. There is an established and wide-ranging critique of this approach, which we will not repeat in full here (see Forester, 1989, 1993; Healey, 1992; McAuliffe and Rogers, 2018; Rogers et al, 2017; Sager, 1994). But, by way of summary, consensus-seeking modalities of community engagement are often implicitly, and at times explicitly, drawn from Habermas (1984, 1987), assuming that a very diverse group of social actors can come together and agree on certain short- and/or long-term planning development visions for the future city.…”

“… 8. For a more detailed consideration of the empirical case study and the development of the modalities of antagonism discussed in this section, see McAuliffe and Rogers (2018) and Rogers et al (2017). …”

More‐than‐human planning: the agency of buildings and bodies in the post‐political city

“…In the context of efforts to contain and control opposition to hegemonic development, the post-political project has been conceptualised at the interstices of politics and planning (Legacy, 2018), and these are of specific interest to geographers. In these literatures, there is explicit focus on the ways diverse social groups come together in relation to new agendas of social justice (Iveson, 2014;Purcell, 2013), urban regeneration (Ruming, 2018), strategic community engagement (McAuliffe & Rogers, 2018), and transport planning (Legacy, 2016). The morethan-human character of these political alliances nonetheless has attracted much less attention.…”

Beyond the post‐political: is public participation in Australian cities at a turning point?

“…In citing Denniss's recent essay, we pivot from Part 1 of our two‐part special section on planning the post‐political city in Geographical Research [, Volume 56, Issue 2], where we presented a collection of papers examining Australia as a place whereby the post‐political condition has taken hold. Part 1 presented papers exploring new ways in which Australian publics are resisting dominant neoliberal practices and logics of growth and, in doing so, are intervening into decision‐making practices to assert new forms of power and participation (see Butt & Taylor, ; Legacy, ; MacDonald, ; McAuliffe & Rogers, ; Ruming, ). Here, in Part 2 of our special section, we build on that discussion to consider if and how planning is showing signs of a post‐democratic turn more specifically.…”