2.3.2. Planning and Civil Society.
If the aim of planning is to promote the positive
aspects of a `just city' via social change
(Blowers, 1980) and to improve people's quality of life
(Healey and Thomas, 1991), this aim may be similar to what CSOs, as agents
of `social transformations', promote. Accordingly, there is a strong
link between what planners for social transformation and members of the
CSOs do, in the sense that people may collectively be fighting for more just
cities. The major difference is that mainstream planning works according to the
government regulations, while most CSOs are autonomous and operate with their
own money received from external donors. This fact gives CSOs the power
to challenge state institutions in favour of marginalised groups.
Moreover, planning for social transformation is not regarded as mainstream
planning. Rather planning for social transformation favours working with CSOs
and social movements
to bring about structural changes.
Autonomy then increases civil society's power for
more democratic actions; while mainstream planning involves gaining
political support to get things done (Blowers, 1980). But both mainstream
planning and planning for social transformation are politicised (Blowers,
1980; Friedmann, 19898; and Marris, 1998), and the power
relation between planning, in
general, and politics is unbalanced.
2.3.3. Power relations between planning and politics.
This section will look at the power relations between
planning and politics as this research
report proposes some criticisms regarding the formulation
and implementation of the 1998
Refugees Act. Policy formulation is mainly the concern of
politicians who exert their power
to influence policy according to their ideology or values. The
«balance of power» emphasises that politicians share this
responsibility with appointed planning officials (Blowers, 1980). A deeper
investigation into this process of power sharing is required in order to
know, on the one hand how power can be used by both politicians and officials
to influence policies, and on
the other hand, the extent to which CSOs and planners working
with these organisations can use their power to influence policy-making
decisions in favour of FMs in the context of the inner city of Johannesburg.
A myth prevails that «planning and politics are related but
separate activities» (Blowers, 1980:
2), This assertion should be nuanced because, according to me,
both politics and planning go hand in hand and the degree of interaction
between the two is strong. Politicians have more power over planning, given
that they have control over all the spheres of government, including
parliament, government agencies and departments. They have their
representatives within parliament (who have legislative powers) as well as in
government departments. This gives them opportunities to influence
planning decisions and sometimes to manipulate planners and members of
civil society. Appointed planning officials, in turn, participate in
policy-making processes, but these processes, more often than not, respect
the decisions of politicians.
This is why, in my opinion, the CSOs need to be reinforced. In
the context of Johannesburg,
for instance, in order to change existing and
exclusionary migration policies, city officials, politicians, civil society,
and planners working for social transformation, will need to realise
collectively the values of promoting greater social justice for FMs.
But the benefits of promoting greater social justice for FMs will require
that CSOs (dealing with FMs) become more vocal and effective in
challenging existing exclusionary policies and decisions. Only once these
challenges become part of the mainstream thinkings can a collaborative approach
between the state and CSOs to promote a just city, be, realistically,
visualised. And only then
can an equity planning, as proposed by Krumholz (1982), be
imagined.
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