Abstract

DASI, Joaquín Farinós  and  PASTOR, Olalla Vera. Territorial planning phronetics and ethical practice: Bridging the gap between plan and power (policy). Finisterra [online]. 2016, n.101, pp.45-69. ISSN 0430-5027.  https://doi.org/10.18055/Finis7812.

Plan capacity derives from the will of planners and their conceptualization of the territory, as well as other elements of the “decision environment”. Some authors have emphasized the “planning culture” (the old discussion on the ideal - normative - and possible - real - on the theory of planning), but as a determinant of “conduct planning”, that is, the action of decision makers. More specifically identifying the “environment decision conditions”: formal-legal structure, the informal structure and the characteristics of the system of government. Thus, spatial planning derives from the outcome of the democratic game (accountability, responsibility and sustainability) between the powers on the ground. We must therefore relate the culture of planning as a collective ethos, and the attitudes of planners, with the State's own role. The goal is to: facilitate a fluid relationship between government, good governance, governance and effective governance of the territories. The paper seeks to address this issue and to provide the reader with orientations to understand and improve this process. It recovers the value of the Aristotelian phronesis, adapted to the current context. The first section deals with the changes that deliberative rationality, and its limits, represent to planning theory. In the second section, taking Foucault as a reference, power relations as criticism and response to Habermas' approaches are introduced. The third proposes the phronesis as an option that combines both approaches, and serves as a basis for new planning and territorial management, through a better consideration of the territory on the political agenda. It is concluded that progress has been made especially in Phronetic Planning Research, a part of the equation, but not so much in the most important part, that of phronetic politics (decision makers). This calls for a reorientation of the focus from the study of instruments and the legal framework for territorial planning, to the processes by which decisions are made, to the systems of monitoring and evaluation (of territorial impact), but above all to the way that they promote a new more vigilant territorial culture (Aristotelian ‘areté '). The problem with many of the innovations and supposed advances is not so much in the definition of new legal and instrumental frameworks but with the fact that the population does not understand them and, worse, does not share them

Keywords : Phronetic planning; spatial policy; territorial politics; posnormal science; transdisciplinarity; path dependence.

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