SBP 4030E - Pluralist Planning Approaches

Course Objectives

1. To explain the global development of pluralist and inclusive planning;
2. To analyze pluralist paradigms in the planning discipline;
3. To identify stakeholders that influence and are influenced by planning decisions;
4. To identify vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in society and the tools and approaches required to empower them;
5. To examine the main methods and processes of inclusive and participatory planning;
6. To adopt pluralist approaches of collaborative governance and good governance in the management of planning

Course Description

In this course, the discourse of pluralism in planning will be examined at the policy level in both theoretical and practical contexts. Pluralist approaches in planning play a role in such diverse concepts as the public interest, communicative rationality, community inclusion, systems of power and values, vulnerability, and the politics of difference. These concepts have given rise to an array of planning paradigms that include communicative, inclusive, participatory, advocacy, collaborative, and deliberative planning, as well their attendant policy implications. The role of the planner in these planning and policy-making processes is also an important issue. The theory-driven first part of the course will be complemented by the practice-related knowledge about vulnerability and vulnerable groups in the community, stakeholders who influence and are influenced by the planning process, the levels and methods of stakeholder involvement, and advanced methods such as action research, stakeholder interactions and mediation of possible conflicts, and capacity building and organizing activities with a focus on pluralism. The course will later examine collaborative governance and good governance as concepts that support pluralist planning practices. It will end with a discussion of the future of pluralism and the planner’s role in the developed and developing world and in Turkey.