The challenges of contemporary societies demand new theoretical approaches that integrate social with environmental and life sciences. Evolutionary Governance Theory is a theoretical framework that adds new insights to now fashionable work on complex adaptive systems. During this meeting we will discuss novel ways to understand change and evolution in governance and how these can be used to design interventions that enhance the reflexive and adaptive capacities of governance. DATE/TIME: Monday, December 9, 2013, 15:00 h. LOCATION: Room C 63 of the Leeuwenborch building, Wageningen University ORGANISATION: Kristof Van Assche, Raoul Beunen | Strategic Communication… Read more Book presentation: Evolutionary Governance Theory | Monday, December 9, 2013, 15:00 h. | Room C 63 of the Leeuwenborch building, Wageningen University →
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Based on a detailed reconstruction of the planning process of a controversial major building in the Dutch city of Groningen, we develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for studying object formation and stabilisation. We argue that the many forms of resistance against the object itself triggered a variety of counter-strategies of object formation. We make a distinction between sites, paths and techniques of object formation. To study object formation in more detail we distinguish three techniques: reification, solidification and codification. The techniques of object formation are accompanied by three techniques… Read more Making things irreversible. Object stabilization in urban planning and design →
In this article, we present a perspective on the interaction between formal and informal institutions in spatial planning in which they transform each other continuously, in processes that can be described and analyzed as ongoing reinterpretations. The effects of configurations and dialectics are often ambiguous, only partially observable, different in different domains and at different times. By means of analyses of key concepts in planning theory and practice, this perspective is illustrated and developed. Finally, we analyze transformation options in planning systems, emphasizing the limits of formal institutions in transforming… Read more Formal/Informal Dialectics and the Self-Transformation of Spatial Planning Systems: An Exploration →
Heritage planning, as an integrated approach to dealing with traces of the past in the ongoing organisation of the landscape, must be a trans-disciplinary endeavour. Bridging differences between scientific disciplines, as well as sciences and the law, administration, politics and economy, is a continuous challenge. We argue that Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, with its sophisticated understanding of society as an evolving population of social systems, is very useful in understanding the value and difficulty of trespassing boundaries in heritage planning, and in understanding the value of conflict and cultivated… Read more The good, the bad and the self-referential: heritage planning and the productivity of difference →
Summer ‘2012 we visited three national parks in Georgia (Vashlovani, Lagodekhi and Tusheti). The aim of our visit was to study transition and innovation in natural resource governance. We combined field observations with interviews with a wide range of stakeholders involved in the planning and management of these areas. Georgia is an interesting country, characterised by rapid developments in all domains. Also nature conservations, often in relation to tourism developments is a dynamic field. With a multitude of organisations developing ideas, activities and projects, sometimes in cooperation, sometimes not things are… Read more Natural Resource Governance in Georgie →
In this paper we analyse the successful local/regional opposition to a proposed new town north of the Dutch city Leiden in terms of pathways, sites and techniques of object formation. In the struggle over spatial plans and policies, new objects are constructed and played out. In some cases, the new objects became institutionalized and codified future development in the region. We focus on the strategic role of the construction of heritage and nature in the planning process, concepts utilized by opponents of the urban plans. Revisiting Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge… Read more The Power of Tulips: Constructing Nature and Heritage in a Contested Landscape →
Kristof Van Assche, Martijn Duineveld, Raoul Beunen & Petruta Teampau In this paper, we adopt a Foucauldian perspective on power/knowledge interactions to investigate the evolution and implementation of policy for the Romanian Danube delta. We argue that a better understanding of the potential for citizen participation in environmental governance can be obtained from a careful analysis of the pathways of emergence, enactment and implementation of policies affecting an area. Policies are seen as temporary conceptual structures coordinating knowledge and power, in constant transmutation because of the confrontation with other power/knowledge configurations. For the Danube… Read more Delineating Locals: Transformations of Knowledge/Power and the Governance of the Danube Delta →
Kristof Van Assche, Raoul Beunen, Martijn Duineveld & Harro de Jong In this article we develop an evolutionary perspective on spatial planning to investigate the potential contributions of design approaches to the coordination of spatial organization. After a re-articulation of the concepts of planning and design in this perspective, we distinguish six essential features of the planning/design dialectics in a community. These aspects ought to be understood when evaluating the risks and benefits of design perspectives in a planning system, and the potential for re-positioning design in planning. It is… Read more Co-evolutions of planning and design: Risks and benefits of design perspectives in planning systems →
Raoul Beunen, Kristof Van Assche and Martijn Duineveld In this article we present the results of a study towards the reality effects of discourses affecting the implementation of Natura 2000 in the Netherlands. The Dutch case shows how fast deinstitutionalization of conservation policies can take place. Traditions of conservation are disrupted as an unintended consequence of international policy. This study shows that conservationists and others involved in nature conservation should pay more attention to the ways in which conservation needs and practices are represented and institutionalized, how these representations become… Read more Performing failure in conservation policy: The implementation of European Union directives in the Netherlands →
Politics and anti-politics 