Reading Plans as an Exercise in Evaluation

The communicative turn in policy analysis and planning has resulted in increasing interest in the issue of what the text of the plan has to narrate to different categories of readership. The quality of the text of the plan is a central aspect of this new concern. According to rational planning theory, a plan should be an exposition of various directives. The plan is based on the scientific examination of issues and the readership is assumed to consist of persons with technical and/or juridical proficiency. Evaluation in rational planning amounts to the examination of the effectiveness and legitimacy of the plans. Communicative planning theory, on the other hand, conceives of the plan as the result of a broad democratic discourse, comprising a large number of stakeholders. The plan acquires different functions according to different readerships. Besides examining effectiveness and legitimacy, evaluation in communicative planning involves an appraisal of how plans promote a broad stakeholder involvement and help in building relational resources. The reading of plans becomes a rich assessment of the policy discourses that characterize the planning process. This article presents three approaches to reading plans as part of evaluation in communicative planning: (1) the plan as an account of a drama with many actors; (2) the plan as an instrument for uniting rational rhetoric with a multitude of opinions; and (3) the plan as the product of a democratic discourse. The empirical analysis consists of a reading of five Swedish strategic spatial plans. The aim of this exercise is to examine the attributes of the plans when their texts are analysed from different perspectives, and in turn to determine the implications for the quality of the planning process and the programme of actions.