Democratic Assessment of Collaborative Planning Processes

Abstract

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.