Reshaping the Dutch Planning System: A Learning Process?

Abstract

The Dutch physical planning system is at a turning point. Recently the government proposed a new institutional framework for spatial planning. At first sight, the intended changes look like an example of improvements resulting from a learning process. However, the main lines of the proposal blatantly deviate from the insights into planning, balanced decisionmaking, and ‘governance’ that have emerged during the past decade. This is illustrated and explained from three perspectives. First, the growing need for change was put forward several times by the Scientific Council for Government Policy, a think tank whose task is to advise the government from a certain intellectual distance. The development of ideas by this agency is an example of cognitive learning. Second, the example of infrastructure planning that is crucial in this cognitive development is used to illustrate this by confronting the ideas with the experiences in two major national projects. As a third line, the deviations between the empirical evidence, the analysis, and the advice to the government on the one hand, and the governmental proposal on the other, are explained in relation to the ‘advocacy coalition framework’ theory on policy-oriented learning.