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Planning Theory, Vol. 5, No. 3, 223-254 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1473095206068629
© 2006 SAGE Publications

The Logic of Critical Communicative Planning: Transaction Cost Alteration

Tore Sager

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

Communicative planners are often criticized for lacking a credible strategy for dealing with biased power relations. The purpose of the article is to make it evident that critical communicative planning has a strategy for handling this problem. The logic of critical communicative planning (John Forester’s ‘critical pragmatism’) is reformulated in terms of transaction cost politics. The critical planner counteracts systematically distorted communication by augmenting the transaction costs of those trying to influence the planned solution by leaning on their power base instead of the force of the better argument.Also, the critical planner aims to diminish the political transaction costs of deprived groups standing to lose from the results of power-based argumentation. The idea is to make it relatively more difficult to pursue special interests by means of repressive or manipulative strategies. Hence, the rationality of critical communicative planning rests on power management by deliberate alteration of political transaction costs. Analysis of ‘network power’ shows that the same chain of reasoning does not fit well for strongly consensus-seeking collaborative planning.

Key Words: communicative planning • critical theory • planning rationale • planning theory • transaction costs

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