Reading institutional contexts
Cities are shaped by the chaotic, fragmented and complex collective efforts of diverse actors such as local governments, market parties, citizens and communities etc.
Nanke Verloo
[…] scholars concerned with participatory community development, planning, and policy processes should develop an eye for the micro-politics of citizen-state interactions […] A relationship or behavior in which one is not recognized in fact entails a misrecognition of one’s being […] I build on this scholarship to inform a critical geographic approach to studying the micro-politics of misrecognition in interactions among citizens and state actors.
Verloo, N. (2023). Ignoring people: The micro-politics of misrecognition in participatory governance. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 41(7), 1474-1491.
The relations between these actors are regulated through institutions, which can be formal in the case of planning regulations, laws and policy instruments, or informal and casual such as norms and principles, oral agreements, collective social activities, community efforts, etc.
The institutional context is defined by these relations, and they change continuously. Urban planning provides a platform to connect the diverse efforts of the state, market, and community actors to influence and rethink this continuous change.
Jochem de Vries
[…] cultural and institutional conditions are particularly helpful to explain the reasons for the degree of effectiveness of spatial planning in managing spatial development. […] for understanding the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of spatial planning “as we know it”, it is the relationship between the sub-culture of planning and the culture of society at large that is relevant. The relative effectiveness of Dutch spatial planning is not first and foremost explained by the unique character of the planning system or the distinctive ideas of planners but by the fit between spatial planning with conditions outside the system and the planning community.
De Vries, J. (2015). Planning and culture unfolded: The cases of Flanders and the Netherlands. European Planning Studies, 23(11), 2148-2164.
Tuna Taşan-Kok
Seeing the market as more than a place for the exchange of economic self-interest enables researchers to observe the collective system of norms, institutions, organizational structures, social networks, and behavioral patterns […] From this vantage point, it is conceivable that informal rules and routines need to be formulated, discussed, and negotiated by market actors, as these go beyond the official legal context that regulates them.
Taşan-Kok, T. (2024). Navigating the city: Role of property-market intelligence channels in urban governance networks. European Urban and Regional Studies, 0(0).
urban planning vision
The world between crisis and hope
Engaging with concrete issues that invite theory
Reading institutional contexts
Maintaining a critical yet constructive scholarly attitude