IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eurpls/v32y2024i8p1837-1855.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The rationalities of strategic planning: a structural analysis of the legitimacy basis of MAL policy

Author

Listed:
  • Hanna Mattila
  • Matti Vatilo
  • Petri Jalasto

Abstract

Due to the minimal role of statutory city-regional planning in Finland, the Finnish state promotes inter-municipal, integrated planning of land-use, housing and transportation in the biggest city regions by a strategic planning instrument and a contractual policy tool called MAL procedure. MAL procedure includes MAL agreements, where the central government agrees to fund transportation infrastructure, while the municipalities in the city-regions commit to certain planning principles. MAL policy has advanced sustainability goals in planning, but it has also been argued to be prone to legitimacy problems as MAL negotiations take place behind the backs of citizens. The article discusses the structure of the MAL policy, assessing the ways in which this structure supports the legitimacy of the policy. It focuses on the interplay of strategic and communicative rationalities in the MAL procedure, starting from the observation that the theorists of strategic planning have focused predominately on communicative rationality as the legitimacy basis of planning. This paper aims to show that from a broader, structural perspective, both rationalities – and the way in which they interact – have a role in maintaining the legitimacy of planning. The article builds on theoretical studies and interviews with actors engaged in the MAL procedure.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanna Mattila & Matti Vatilo & Petri Jalasto, 2024. "The rationalities of strategic planning: a structural analysis of the legitimacy basis of MAL policy," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(8), pages 1837-1855, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:32:y:2024:i:8:p:1837-1855
    DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2024.2332510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2024.2332510
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09654313.2024.2332510?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:eurpls:v:32:y:2024:i:8:p:1837-1855. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CEPS20 .

    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.