IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v52y2020i2p318-336.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Land developers as institutional and postpolitical actors: Sites of power in land use policy and planning

Author

Listed:
  • Donald Leffers

    (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Canada)

  • Gerda R Wekerle

    (Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Canada)

Abstract

Land developers play an active role as institutional actors that shape the development and governance of urban regions. In this paper, we find that developers not only influence state institutions governing land use, they are place-based actors whose influence is normalized as invited strategic stakeholders in planning exercises. Our analysis highlights the complementarity of institutional and postpolitical theories in offering a nuanced understanding of the multi-faceted and multi-scalar relationships among powerful actors engaged in land development processes. Postpolitical theories highlight the participatory processes of inclusion and exclusion in collaborative-based planning exercises that privilege certain stakeholders and exclude others. Through the lens of institutionalist theory, we move beyond specific land conflicts to focus on the day-to-day interactions and institutionalized roles of key actors, ideas and political influences in shaping contested land policy and outcomes. The analysis is based on multi-year research projects that drew upon interviews, observation and document analysis of key actors’ engagement in initiatives to formulate and implement growth management policies in the Toronto region.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald Leffers & Gerda R Wekerle, 2020. "Land developers as institutional and postpolitical actors: Sites of power in land use policy and planning," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(2), pages 318-336, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:2:p:318-336
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19856628
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X19856628
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X19856628?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Lawton & Steven Mcguire & Tazeeb Rajwani, 2013. "Corporate Political Activity : A Literature Review and Research Agenda," Post-Print hal-02312913, HAL.
    2. Sanghoon Jung & Jae Seung Lee, 2017. "Korean Developers in Vietnam: The Mechanism of Transnational Large-Scale Property Development and Its Planning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-13, May.
    3. André Sorensen, 2018. "Institutions and Urban Space: Land, Infrastructure, and Governance in the Production of Urban Property," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 21-38, January.
    4. Nicole Gurran & Peter Phibbs, 2013. "Housing supply and urban planning reform: the recent Australian experience, 2003–2012," International Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 381-407, December.
    5. Nicole Gurran & Peter Phibbs, 2013. "Housing supply and urban planning reform: the recent Australian experience, 2003–2012," European Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 381-407, December.
    6. Liza Weinstein, 2014. "‘One-Man Handled’: Fragmented Power and Political Entrepreneurship in Globalizing Mumbai," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 14-35, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Antoine Paccoud & Markus Hesse & Tom Becker & Magdalena Górczyńska, 2022. "Land and the housing affordability crisis: landowner and developer strategies in Luxembourg’s facilitative planning context," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1782-1799, October.
    2. Ramezani, Sara & Nastaran, Mahin & Nooraie, Homayoon & Otsuki, Kei, 2023. "The role of the institutional environment in land use planning in Iran: A conceptual framework," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    3. Eichhorn, Sebastian & Ehrhardt, Denise & Münter, Angelika & Behnisch, Martin & Jehling, Mathias, 2024. "Understanding land take by low-density residential areas: An institutionalist perspective on local planning authorities, developers and households," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julie Pollard, 2023. "The political conditions of the rise of real-estate developers in French housing policies," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(2), pages 274-291, March.
    2. Katrina Raynor & Severine Mayere & Tony Matthews, 2018. "Do ‘city shapers’ really support urban consolidation? The case of Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(5), pages 1056-1075, April.
    3. Antoine Paccoud & Markus Hesse & Tom Becker & Magdalena Górczyńska, 2022. "Land and the housing affordability crisis: landowner and developer strategies in Luxembourg’s facilitative planning context," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1782-1799, October.
    4. Korthals Altes, Willem K., 2019. "Planning initiative: Promoting development by the use of options in Amsterdam," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 13-21.
    5. Murray, Cameron K., 2020. "Time is money: How landbanking constrains housing supply," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    6. Niedziałkowski, Krzysztof & Beunen, Raoul, 2019. "The risky business of planning reform – The evolution of local spatial planning in Poland," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 11-20.
    7. Ji, Qiang & Marfatia, Hardik & Gupta, Rangan, 2018. "Information spillover across international real estate investment trusts: Evidence from an entropy-based network analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 103-113.
    8. Khandakar Farid Uddin & Awais Piracha, 2023. "Neoliberalism, Power, and Right to the City and the Urban Divide in Sydney, Australia," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-18, February.
    9. Laurence Murphy, 2016. "The politics of land supply and affordable housing: Auckland’s Housing Accord and Special Housing Areas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(12), pages 2530-2547, September.
    10. Alex Lord & Philip O’Brien, 2017. "What price planning? Reimagining planning as “market maker”," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 217-232, April.
    11. Peter Phibbs & Nicole Gurran, 2021. "The role and significance of planning in the determination of house prices in Australia: Recent policy debates," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(3), pages 457-479, May.
    12. Liu, Wen & Beattie, Lee & Haarhoff, Errol, 2021. "Outcome-focused plan discretion for facilitating residential intensification: Exploring the insights and experience of property developers and planners," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    13. Taha H Rashidi & Milad Ghasri, 2019. "A competing survival analysis for housing relocation behaviour and risk aversion in a resilient housing market," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(1), pages 122-142, January.
    14. Murray, Cameron, 2019. "The Australian housing supply myth," OSF Preprints r925z, Center for Open Science.
    15. Easthope, Hazel & Palmer, Jasmine & Sharam, Andrea & Nethercote, Megan & Pignatta, Gloria & Crommelin, Laura, 2023. "Delivering sustainable apartment housing: New build and retrofit," SocArXiv z6yn4, Center for Open Science.
    16. John A. Parnell, 2017. "Cronyism from the Perspective of the Firm: A Cross-National Assessment of Nonmarket Strategy," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 32(Fall 2017), pages 47-74.
    17. Robert P. Ormrod & Annika C. Müller, 2022. "The Impact of Corporate Political Activity on Corporate Reputation Amongst Industry Stakeholders," Corporate Reputation Review, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(3), pages 226-238, August.
    18. Andersen, Sophie Esmann & Johansen, Trine Susanne, 2021. "Corporate citizenship: Challenging the corporate centricity in corporate marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 686-699.
    19. Shih-Chang Hung & Yung-Ching Tseng, 2017. "Extending the LLL framework through an institution-based view: Acer as a dragon multinational," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 799-821, December.
    20. Timothy M. Devinney & Christopher A. Hartwell & Jennifer Oetzel & Paul Vaaler, 2023. "Managing, theorizing, and policymaking in an age of sociopolitical uncertainty: Introduction to the special issue," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(2), pages 133-140, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:2:p:318-336. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.