Annika Agger

Democratic Assessment of Collaborative Planning Processes

Collaborative planning is often mentioned as one of the most appropriate planning theories in relation to the network society owing to its focus on creating fair and inclusive institutional settings for deliberations among public and private stakeholders. Even though this theoretical framework discusses potential outcomes, the actual democratic effects of collaborative planning processes are notably overlooked in the literature. The central question raised in this article is: how can we assess the democratic effects of collaborative planning processes? The article presents a tentative evaluative framework for assessing the different stages (input, process and outcome) of collaborative planning processes deriving criteria from democratic theory, as well as from theories on collaborative planning, which can be deployed for empirical studies.

Involving citizens in sustainable development: evidence of new forms of participation in the Danish Agenda 21 schemes

This article examines how local authorities can engage citizens in sustainable development. Both in the scientific and political debates, it is widely acknowledged that sustainable development cannot simply be imposed top-down. Instead, citizens need to see themselves not only as part of the problem, but also as part of the solution if the transition to more sustainable lifestyles should be achieved. Based on theories of ecological modernisation, the article claims that we are witnessing some new and more deliberative forms of enacting local environmental policies. The Danish Agenda 21 centres are examined as an example of an innovative and a more participatory approach of promoting sustainable development at a local level. The article concludes that the centres have a broader outreach than traditional local environmental policies. This is achieved by coupling sustainable development to other policy areas and by tailoring participation to diverse target groups.

Exclusion in Area-based Urban Policy Programmes

Area-based urban regeneration programmes such as the New Deal for Communities in the UK, the German Soziale Stadt and the Danish Kvarterloft are based on a participatory approach emphasizing active citizen participation and the involvement of local stakeholders. The article argues that these initiatives are not as open and inclusive as they strive to be, and in this article, we explore the different types of exclusion that can take place when such programmes are implemented. Based on the theoretical literature and on empirical data from the Danish Kvarterloft project, we identify three types of exclusion—structural, discursive and deliberate exclusion—and offer a theoretical analysis and an empirical account of these exclusions. The article concludes that practitioners as well as politicians need to reflect critically on different types of exclusion in order to create transparent and inclusive democratic processes.

Area-based Initiatives—And Their Work in Bonding, Bridging and Linking Social Capital

Abstract In this article, we provide a conceptual and argumentative framework for studying how Area-based Initiatives (ABIs) can facilitate contact between networks in deprived neighbourhoods and external forms of power (linking social capital). These relations provide the residents and other members of civil society with crucial access to leveraging resources, ideas and information. Although few studies on linking social capital have been carried out in relation to urban regeneration, there is empirical evidence that suggests that it can play a positive role in establishing trust and relations between civil society and a municipality. We set out with a review of how social capital literature has been applied in an urban context, and then demonstrate empirical examples from Denmark of how, in different contexts (village, town and city), ABIs have facilitated processes that generated different forms of social capital (bridging, bonding and linking). The article concludes that ABIs contribute to creating linking social capital, but the extent of the contribution depends on the level of bonding and bridging social capital in the area. We argue that public planners as well as evaluators of the ABIs should increase their awareness about the potentials of an ABI to create linking social capital in deprived neighbourhoods.

Sustaining area-based initiatives by developing appropriate “anchors”: the role of social capital

Abstract This paper focuses on “anchoring”, understood as the process of building project-based organizational networks, or “anchors”, in order to sustain the efforts of area-based initiatives (ABIs) after they leave their targeted neighbourhoods. Drawing on the scholarly literature on social capital and an empirical examination of three different cases from an ABI in Copenhagen, the paper highlights why and how particular models of “anchors” develop in specific local contexts. We conclude by emphasizing the value of the lens of social capital, particularly, in the ABIs’ strategic efforts towards “anchoring”.

Managing collaborative innovation in public bureaucracies

Public planners are increasingly recruited to manage collaborative innovation processes, but there is hardly any research on how they deal with the tensions they encounter in managing collaborative innovation in the institutional context of a public bureaucracy. Drawing on emerging theories of collaborative planning, network management and public innovation, the article develops a taxonomy of tasks related to managing collaborative innovation, identifies potential tensions between these tasks and the institutional logic of public bureaucracies and investigates how these tensions are experienced by frontline planners who remain involved in face-to-face interaction with citizens while managing collaborative innovation processes within urban regeneration projects in Copenhagen.

Street‐level Bureaucrats Coping with Conflicts in Area‐based Initiatives in Copenhagen and Malmö

Partnering with citizens and civil society in order to find better solutions has become a growing strategy in many urban regeneration projects in Western Europe countries. Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) are increasingly recruited to manage what can be labelled ‘participatory planning processes’, where public and private actors co-produce joint solutions for the benefit of local neighbourhoods. Despite the fact that the quality of the interaction between SLBs and citizens is considered to be of vital importance for the degree to which a policy is being implemented, there is hardly any research on how SLBs deal with conflicts or the tensions they face mediating between different actors and institutional logics. This article shows how the scholarly literature identifies new and more interactive roles for SLBs, but notes that many of these descriptions are unable to unfold what they imply in practice. The contribution of the article, therefore, is to offer an empirical account of what kind of conflicts and coping strategies SLBs use in their everyday practices. The article is based on a study of 16 SLBs in area-based initiatives (ABIs) in Malmo and Copenhagen. By zooming in on ‘microlevel performances’ in a policy field characterised as having a high level of conflictual views of the use of common spaces, the article is able to shed light on contextual factors that can influence the performance of an SLB and thus inspire future work with ABIs and the practice field of public administration.

Borgernes stemmer i klimadebatten – hvilken vej blæser de globale vinde?

Det globale arrangement World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) var et innovativt eksperiment med borgerinddragelse i komplicerede videnskabelige og tekniske problemstillinger. Formal med WWViews var at skabe en faelles global borgerstemme, hvis budskaber skulle kommunikeres til de politiske delegationer, der skulle modes pa FNs klimakonference COP 15 i Kobenhavn i december 2009. Denne artikel er baseret pa et empirisk studie af det WWViews arrangement, der blev gennemfort i Kobenhavn. Teoretisk traekker vi pa teorier om deliberativt demokrati og teorier om borgerinddragelse i tekniske og videnskabelige problemstillinger. Analysen fokuserer pa, hvordan borgernes dialog blev institutionelt rammesat som en deliberativ proces. Analysen inkluderer saledes refleksioner over, hvordan processen var designet, hvordan forskellige typer af viden og ekspertidentiteter blev konstrueret og forhandlet, samt hvordan deltagerne oplevede at vaere en del af arrangementet. Eftervirkningerne af arrangementet, herunder relationen til COP 15, bliver vurderet i den afsluttende diskussion om den fremtidige brug af WWViews som metode til global borgerinddragelse. ENGELSK ABSTRACT: Birgit Jaeger, Erling Jelsoe, Louise Phillips and Annika Agger: Citizens’ Voices in the Climate Debate: Which Way Does the Global Wind Blow? The global event World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) was an innovative experiment with public engagement in science and technology, aiming to create a ”global citizen voice” on climate change. The purpose of WWViews was to convey the opinions of ordinary citizens to political decision-makers at The United Nations Climate Summit, COP 15, in Copenhagen in December 2009. This article is based on a study of the Danish WWViews event, drawing on theoretical perspectives of deliberative democracy and studies of public engagement with science. The focus of the article is on the manner in which citizen deliberations were institutionally framed as an exercise in deliberative democracy. The analysis includes reflections on how the process was designed, how different types of knowledge and expert identities were constructed and negotiated, and how the participants experienced being a part of the event. The implications of the event and its relation to COP 15 are also considered in the discussion about WWViews as an innovative design for global public engagement in science and technology. Key words: Public engagement, deliberative democracy, climate changes, global citizen voice.