Florence Delmotte

New town planning instruments: Participation or governance? the case of Brussels through the 'Botanique structure plan'

This paper presents an analysis of some of the socio‐political stakes riding on the recent implementation of a ‘structure plan’ (or schéma directeur) for the ‘Botanique’ area in Brussels. The aim is to build a bridge between the discussions about the new modes of governance and the development of participatory or deliberative democracy, on the one hand, and an empirical study of a public policy that borrows from these categories, on the other hand. The innovative practices that characterise the ‘structure plan’ are often labelled ‘participatory’. In this text, we intend to determine to what extent they participate more in a new type of urban governance without truly helping to enhance the people’s involvement.

Violence and Civilité: The Ambivalences of the State

This chapter questions some ambivalences in Norbert Elias’s work about the role of the modern state regarding civilite and violence. The authors first discuss Elias’s analysis of the state as a first-rank reducer of social violence, mainly present in On the Process of Civilisation. Secondly they show that this interpretation is partly challenged by Elias himself, especially in some later essays. Elias not only acknowledges that the pacification inside states entailed an increase in violence between states. He also stresses the reversible character of some aspects of the civilizing process. His analysis of the Nazi barbarity, in particular, shows a near-collapse of “mutual identification”, which therefore cannot be regarded as a definitive outcome of a “progress”. The conclusion draws a more nuanced or balanced picture of the relationship between state building, civilite and violence. The state is not always the guardian of civil peace and security, as the state even radically threatens it under certain conditions; and civilite is neither the opposite of violence, nor an attribute of a bordered community.

Beyond Epistemological Ambiguities: The Political Relevance of Elias Today

“In einer ganz bestimmten Richtung...” The sociology championed by Norbert Elias refers to a certain conception of social change. Considered in a very long-term perspective, unplanned social processes do not only seem to be structured but also “ordered”. Throughout centuries, these processes are more precisely to be seen as having followed in a definite way (in einer ganz bestimmten Richtung, in Elias 1939 II: 444) the undetermined logics of social interdependencies of different kinds, demographical, military, economic, cultural ones. If one considers for example the Western history, for the five last centuries these dynamics have given the “direction” (or “orientation”) for at least one aspect of the social and political development. Always increasing, growing and more and more complex, the interdependencies have led to always enlarging and more or less inner pacified social and political units (Elias 1939 II: 330-32) (...).

The ‘structure plans’ in Brussels: from participatory planning to urban governance, a first assessment about a new tool

This paper analyses the changes resulting from the use of a new tool in urban policies in Brussels, the schéma directeur (structure plan). We especially examine whether the new procedure has concretely achieved some of its major objectives: firstly, improving coordination of public action at different levels of authority; secondly, building real consensus with private partners; and thirdly, reinforcing democratic participation. Based on a collective empirical study devoted to the first implementations of the new procedure in the cases of four urban projects, this article also integrates some major elements of the theoretical debates about new modes of governance and the development of participatory and deliberative democracy, in order to clarify the meanings of some fuzzy notions frequently used either by researchers or actors. The authors argue that the new practices that characterize the structure plan, including promises of increased participation in a new type of governance, do not actually enhance peoples involvement. To conclude, a partial failure is diagnosed with regard to the structure plans initial ambitions.