Resisting Neoliberalization: Communicative Planning or Counter-Hegemonic Movements?

This article argues that existing critiques of communicative planning become more salient when we consider the challenges posed by neoliberalization, which is understood here to mean the ongoing project to install market logics and competitive discipline as hegemonic assumptions in urban politics and policy-making. I develop how neoliberalization, by its normal operation, produces important legitimacy problems that must be managed. Overcoming these legitimacy problems necessitates decision-making practices that do not fundamentally challenge existing power relations but still confer a high degree of political legitimacy. The article presents existing critiques of Habermasian ideals to argue that communicative and collaborative planning, insofar as they follow these ideals, provide an extremely attractive way for neoliberals to maintain hegemony while ensuring political stability. The article argues therefore that communicative and collaborative approaches are not well-suited to confronting neoliberalization. More promising instead are radical counter-hegemonic mobilizations whose goal is not to neutralize power relations, but to transform them.