The Network Society

A New Context for Planning

Louis Albrechts, Seymour Mandelbaum

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781135991845
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architettura
• Subtopic: Pianificazione urbana e paesaggistica

In a clear and rewarding style, Albrechts and Mandelbaum consider the challenges that the new paradigm of the Network Society creates for Urban and Regional Planning. Chapters grouped into five themes discuss theoretical and practical perspectives on the contemporary organization of social, economic, cultural, political and physical spaces. These sections are:

• models of the Network Society
• the impact of physical networks such as transport
• challenges for Planners raised by society's increased reliance on new technology
• an examination of local networks including community networks and the possibilities of setting up local networks for disaster recovery
• a comparison of spatial and policy networks and an exploration of the institutions involved.

This book is essential reading for graduate level courses in urban studies, city and regional planning, and urban design. With its clear structure – unitary sections but a diversity of perspectives – the book can be used easily in courses such as Planning Theory, Urban Infrastructure and Public Policy.

PART I
The Network Society:
A New Paradigm

CHAPTER ONE
Communicative Action and the Network Society: A Pragmatic Marriage?

Niraj Verma and HaeRan Shin

Pursuant largely to the works of Manuel Castells, sociologists and social theorists have recognized the network society as a new construct within which to think about society. But, despite Castells’ prominence within planning, planning theory has been slow to see the network society as central to its agenda. This tide may be changing. A new literature on the network society is emerging in planning (Innes and Booher 2000; Graham and Healey 1999; Hajer and Zonneveld 2000) and – as this volume further attests – there is continuing interest in the network society on both sides of the Atlantic.

This chapter is addressed to planning theorists and to others with more than a passing interest in ideas of a network society. Our goal is to assess whether the thesis of a network society raises fundamental challenges for planning and planning theory, demanding, for instance, a new paradigm or a new theoretical apparatus to deal with planning issues. Alternatively, we want to explore whether the recognition of networks simply implies – as some authors have claimed – an extended role for collaborative planning and related theories of planning (Booher and Innes 2002).

Given that there has been a “communicative turn” in planning (Healey 1996), a turn that has come to stand for a vast array of approaches, such as rhetorical analysis, storytelling, negotiation, and even Deweyan pragmatism (Beauregard 1995; Innes 1995), our way of assessing the import of the idea of a network society is to ask whether it can be “accommodated” within the ambit of these ideas. That is to say, might the ideas of a network society find a home within the communicative turn of planning theory or are they so different that they constitute a new kind of planning theory?

Such a question is more about the potential of communicative action theories than it is about the particular forms these theories have taken in planning. It is for this reason that we have not limited ourselves to planning applications of communicative action but have looked toward Jürgen Habermas as the inspiration behind these applications. Similarly, while there may be other contributors to the debate on the network society, we take the network society to exclusively mean the construct so convincingly articulated by Manuel Castells in his trilogy beginning with The Rise of Network Society (1996) to The Power of Identity (1997) and finally to End of Millennium (1998a).¹ From this lens our operational questions become: Can the Habermasian tradition in planning theory incorporate Castells’ ideas about the network society with only modest accommodation in its theory? Or, does Castells’ work on the network society constitute a new paradigm to think about planning?²

Castells describes the network society as a global behemoth of firms, groups, territories, and populations that are interconnected and interdependent. On one hand this brings us closer but in a deeper way it brings about, what Castells calls, a struggle between the Self and the Net. The struggle is consequential. Self-determination, meaning, and identity are challenged by external forces of the Net: globalization, mobility, information, and technology. As a result, meaning and identity do not change as part and parcel of civil society but do so by an enlarging of the struggle outside civil society.

The provocative significance of this thesis becomes clear when contrasted to Giddens’ (1991) notion of “reflexive lifeplanning.” As Giddens and Pierson (1998: 115) tell us, reflexivity is about “how we live in a world after the retreat of tradition and nature,” and where presumably organization is by information rather than tradition. In such an information-rich world, life-planning is about seeing life itself as a project. But, even though the network society is also about information and the connectivity it brings, Castells’ main argument is that the tension between Self and Net makes reflexive life-planning impossible. That is to say, it is impossible to be reflexive and to see life itself as a project because the main struggle between Self and Net does not happen within civil society.

But such a thesis, we will argue, relies on a much too formal interpretation of reflexivity. A reading of Habermas, inspired by American pragmatism’s influence in his writings,³ tells us that although reflexive life-planning in a traditional sense might become impossible, in reality, the meaning of reflexive life-planning has itself changed. Reflexivity happens within a vastly intricate web of relations – no less complex than the network society – and in continued contact with everyday practice. So, while the contact with civil society is not a formal contact, such as in the labor movement, it is a de facto contact because members of the civil society are, first and foremost, ordinary human beings with ordinary, everyday aspirations. In this sense, civil society is not limited by the Gramscian idea (1971) of the rise of organizations and institutions that help to secure the capitalist enterprise. As capitalism is becoming the norm rather than only an alternative, the Gramscian idea is much less compelling. Rather, civil society is the kind of “deliberative democracy” (Sunstein 2001: 7) where ordinary values are coveted and where there is “a high degree of reflectiveness and a general commitment to reason-giving.”

Our chapter is divided into four parts. First, we discuss the roots of communicative action by delving into Habermas’ works. Our goal here is to show how communicative action can help to restore ordinary unconstrained virtues. Next, we visit the idea of the network society to show its key arguments and trace it in Castells’ terms to the tension between the Net and the Self. Our debt in this part is almost completely to Castells’ works. Third, we compare the ideas of communicative action and the network society. Our argument is that there is an analogical link between them and that Castells describes for social movements what Habermas describes for epistemology. Finally, we go to the pragmatism-inspired literature on civil society and democracy and argue that if civil society is broadly interpreted in the context of deliberative democracy, it retains its vibrancy and relevance for the network society.

Communicative Action and Habermas

As the Marxist ideas of an economic crisis of capitalism are made irrelevant by the successes of the welfare-capitalist state, an important goal of the Habermasian project is to explain the consequences of the emergence of this welfare state (Baxter 2002). A key consequence is the transformation of an economic crisis to a social crisis, where fragmentation and the lack of social cohesiveness threaten the legitimacy of the nation-state. The explanations for this are complex and we will show this through a recounting of some key ideas in Habermasian philosophy.

The Tension between System and Lifeworld

One way of understanding Habermas’ argument concerning the penetration of a cultural regime by a political one is by framing the question within a Habermasian (1975, 1984) dialectic between “system” and “lifeworld.” System can be best explained by contrast to lifeworld, a concept that Habermas borrows from Husserl and Schutz, and which denotes the broad assembly of shared understandings, ordinary values, and practices. Based on these shared values and practices, lifeworld identifies with communicative rationality, while instrumental rationality defines the logic of the system. The competition between these two rationalities brings out the tension between system and lifeworld resulting in the colonization of the lifeworld by the system; a phenomenon that eventually becomes what Habermas (1975) has called “the legitimation crisis.”

Colonization can be thought of as the manipulation of ends by means, i.e., the disassociation and eventual replacement of moral considerations by instrumental ones. This plays out in different arenas. When system denotes the legal system, the concern is the replacement of the ordinary idea of justice by formal laws, i.e., Mary Glendon’s (1991) example of the legal language of rights percolating into ordinary American discourse. When system denotes the state, the concern is the transformation of the “citizen” to a “client” of the nation-state, which reduces the nation-state to becoming merely a service provider. The demise of ideas such as loyalty and entrepreneurship is a casualty of this kind of colonization. More generally we can say that the colonization of the lifeworld by the system results in pathologies that interfere with the reproduction of the lifeworld and that this, in turn, contributes to the problems of the nation-state in advanced capitalist societies. If nation building is the expressed goal of the nation-state, this aim is not helped by its colonizing of the lifeworld. Rather, colonization forces it into a situation of crisis.

On the other hand, increasing distance between the system and the lifeworld can also be problematic. In the extreme case this implies total autonomy of the lifeworld from the nation-state. An autonomous lifeworld poses a challenge to the capitalist nature of the nation-state because its values, culture, symbols, and traditions are intrinsically different from the functional way in which such values reside in the capitalist state. In the hands of the capitalist nation-state, the symbols and traditions become strategic tools to buttress the very idea of the nation-state. In this reduction, a value such as loyalty, which is otherwise linked with honor and dignity, becomes the worst form of nationalism. Religion – once thought of as the Protestant ethic that accompanies capitalism – can just as easily become an intolerant fundamentalism.

As communicative rationality is replaced by instrumental rationality, meaning, motivation, commitment, and loyalty are not produced within the lifeworld, and this creates the legitimation crisis where legitimation refers to “an interchange relation between the polity and the lifeworld.” When the lifeworld is colonized by the system, the concern is the withdrawal of legitimation to the nation-state and the identity problems for the collective or the individuals. When lifeworld is autonomous, the issue is the manipulation of its ideals as strategic elements in the design of the nation-state.

Ideologiekritik and Self-examination

How might the authenticity and reproducibility of the lifeworld be restored? Planning theorists know of the Habermasian idea of the undistorted speech and its consequent dictums from Forester’s works (1980, 1985, 1993). But, just how does this distortion-free situation result? To answer this is to inquire into the tradition of the Frankfurt School of which Habermas was a leading member. The Marxist idea of an Ideologiekritik is central to understanding the stance of the Frankfurt School and, particularly, to critical theory. Although somewhat simply translated as a criticism of ideology, an Ideologiekritik is, in fact, much more. Raymond Geuss (1981: 26) explains its significance by contrasting it with the customary meaning of criticism of ideology. Whereas this criticism is usually “moralizing,” i.e., it is only concerned with ideology as being immoral or unpleasant, in Marxism and in the Frankfurt School ideology can be criticized for being wrong or delusionary. Another way of saying this is that when ideology is immoral, it is not just about false consciousness but also about distorted reason. Hence, Habermas emphasizes getting rid of speech distortions and exposes the conditions of ideal speech.

Consciousness cannot be transformed from the outside and Ideologiekritik, in this sense, extracts “the very instruments of criticism from the agents’ own form of consciousness – from their views about the good life, from the notions of freedom, truth, and rationality embedded in their normative epistemology” (Geuss 1981: 87). Said differently, this process of selfreflection has the emancipatory goal of ridding agents of mistaken consciousness – or as Geuss calls it “from the frustrations of consciousness” – and restoring to agents the ordinary values of the lifeworld free from the effects of the system.

Habermas has been seen as being interested in the role of Ideologiekritik in reducing identifiable suffering. One method of doing so – and this is a key role of an Ideologiekritik – is by assisting people to reflect on what they would want if they knew what they could want. In this sense, an Ideologiekritik is about restoring meaning as well as being about interests. The word “to restore” suggests a preceeding pathology. The pathology is the replacement of everyday communicative rationality by instrumental rationality where every end becomes a means and where shared values, shared meaning, motivation, commitment, and loyalty become casualties. Restoration of the lifeworld by bringing back communicative action seeks to undo the ills of this pathology. Ideologiekritik, in this sense, is the deepest form of self-examination and the most fundamental form of restoration.

Castells and the Network Society

Castells’ network society is characterized by the twin phenomena of an ever increasing globalism on the one hand and a narrowness resulting from people’s search for self-determination and control on the other. The globalization is embodied in the widely distributed networks of communication that end up changing the structure of modern organizations. The Net, as Castells calls this, represents not only organizational forms such as the distributed multinational corporation but also other forms such as widely distributed diasporic connections and the almost professionalization and globalization of protest movements.⁴ Characteristic of the growing reach of the Net is the emergence of almost parochial identities, called the Self, through which individuals take control in an otherwise growing sea of anonymity. The identities of the Self are often fundamental in nature and are developed around a parochial but powerful sense of belonging. The core value around which the Self thrives can take many forms: religious entities may evolve such as the Islamic Jihad; social entities may arise such as the ones around environmentalism or nature preservation; ethnic identities arise as in the independence movement in Indonesia or in Eastern Europe; and professional identities evolve as in “the expatriate worker.”⁵

The Tension between the Net and the Self

Castells’ contribution is to show both empirically and conceptually how the tension between the Net and the Self plays out and how it ends up changing and redefining technology relationships, power, and experience. We might contrast this, for instance, with the World Systems Hypothesis of Immanuel Wallerstein (1974). Wallerstein studied the transformation from a feudal to a modern capitalist world: a change that was, in its time, no less far reaching. His interesting contribution was to show that the political and economic hegemony of European capitalist countries came at the cost of feudal economies and was achieved by transforming the political and labor conditions of these feudal economies. But, although Wallerstein was interested in disparities and his work foreshadowed the emergence of linkages between national economies, Castells’ variables are more far reaching.

Castells’ variables are more far reaching. In Castells’ world it is possible to work “in real time on a planetary scale” (Castells 1996: 92) allowing for new kinds of flexibility. This is reminiscent of David Harvey’s (1989) description but goes beyond it in documenting the emergence of flexible organizational forms that can change strategies with sudden shifts in global markets (Castells 1996: 439). It is within this Net of flows – and confronted by it – that the Self asserts its independence by its identification with primary identities. Hand in hand with globalization we see the construction of meaning on the basis of cultural and social attributes. Castells (1997: 8) categorizes these into three distinct identities that play different roles and are identified with different social associations.

The Three Identities in the Network Society

The “Legitimizing Identity” for social action is traditionally the nation-state. But, increased globalization of the Net makes it cede its power and some sovereignty to a diverse group of institutions formed by inter-country unions (such as the European Community) or multilateral agreements (such as Interpol).⁶ As Castells shows, the more a nation-state acts under the influence of the Net the deeper its problems of legitimation. We see this, for example, in the case of Pakistan, where being part of “the global war on terror” is distancing the current government from its Islamic population (although the dictatorial Musharraf regime may have other problems of legitimacy independent of this issue!).

As the legitimizing identity weakens, a stronger “Resistance Identity” takes form. The Zapatistas of Mexico, the Japanese Aum Shrinriko, and American Militia groups are Castells’ choices for inquiry but to the list we might also add the recent Al Qaeda and perhaps also the WTO protests. The “Resistance Identity” develops to counter what it sees as the threats to its immediate surroundings due to globalization and often sees itself as a martyr in stopping the march of a homogeneous culture of globalization.

When dissent is visible and proactive, Castells finds it useful to identify it as the “Project Identity.” When the growing reach of the Net makes people feel powerless, project identities such as environmentalism, feminism, gay and lesbian movements make for the possibility of self-determination.⁷ More generally, the more the Net makes the Self powerless, the greater the quest of the Self to search for meaning through project and resistance identities. How and why the identities transform is a complex phenomenon, which Castells explains as involving the everyday interaction of humans with themselves, with others, and with the external world. In our view, Castells’ description matches the spirit of what Habermas might have called “communicative action,” and shows the mutual relevance of their approaches in a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: A New Context for Planning?
• Part I: The Network Society: A New Paradigm
• Part II: Organization of Space and Time
• Part III: Policy Networks and Governance
• Bibliography