Resisting, Ameliorating, or Perpetuating the Dark Side? Non-Governmental Public Action, Communicative Rationalities, and the Struggle for Democratisation in Israel's Planning
Joseph Leibovitz
'Planning advocacies' represent various forms of non-governmental public action (NGPA) and non-governmental actors (NGAs) that seek to represent, or work on behalf of, marginalised communities vis-à-vis spatial planning and development institutions. This paper discusses the organisational foundations and political strategies of planning NGPA and NGAs working with, or representing, various Israeli-Palestinian communities in Israel. Since Israeli spatial policy has constituted a central element in the process of state and nation building, planning-oriented NGPA represents an important dimension of - and indeed offers a prism into - the contested nature of state - (Israeli-Palestinian) civil society relations in the country. The paper presents a framework for analysis of this type of NGPA, drawing on democratisation, networked governance, and communicative (deliberative) rationalities. It outlines a number of important communicative rationalities that typify civil society organisations in this field, and provides an assessment of their implications for democratisation.
About the author
Dr Joseph Leibovitz is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Edinburgh, with particular research interests in urban politics, spatial planning, and the political geography of citizenship. He has worked on the political economy of urban governance in the USA, Canada, and Scotland; the social-institutional dimensions of technology-intensive industries in various urban contexts; and on ethnic mobilisation and the political geography of claim-making among the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
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