NAMING POLITICS IN URBAN PLANNING AND POLICY

CRP 381: URBAN POLITICS AND PLANNING

ADAM OGUSKY
MAY 4, 2010
 The concern of democracy is not with
the formulation of agreement or the
preservation of order but with the
invention of new and hitherto
unauthorized modes of disaggregation,
disagreement and disorder. (Hallward,
2005, p. 35)
I. INTRODUCTION

In the field of planning, politics is inescapable. As planners, we deal with policymakers,

elected officials, the public, and the private sector. All the interests of these stakeholders must

be weighed, discussed, and ultimately decided upon. Interests between parties are always in

opposition to some degree and this process of weighing interests is, as we all know, political.

This is the conventional wisdom. We learn this in the classroom. As students of planning, we

are taught to be mindful of the politics involved in planning, that to ignore politics would be

foolish. But what does this tell us? What do we mean when we say that planning is political?

At the very minimum, when budding planners are instructed to pay attention to the

politics of planning, it is meant as a warning against relying on a technocratic and wholly

rational model of planning. It is meant to remind us that, even if a positivistic and scientific

planning paradigm were viable in the abstract, it would have to contend with the “irrational”

forces of public opinion, the needs of capital, and the various whims and desires of non-planner

stakeholders. Saying that planning involves politics is the admission that various stakeholders in

planning processes merely exist, and that their claims have an effect on the process and its

outcomes. This, however, does not tell us much. It tells us that as planners, we do not work in a

box. It tells us that planning is subject to external forces, but this is not terribly informative or

helpful. It is, if anything, a statement of the patently obvious.

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 But beyond these relatively uncontroversial claims, what does it mean to say that

planning and politics are intertwined? The deeper meaning of this statement, I believe, depends

largely upon how politics is defined. As it happens, however, politics more often than not goes

undefined in relation to planning. It is used as a stand-in for a wide range of things, from the

formal politicking of elected legislators to the airing of differences between stakeholders in a

public meeting. It seems to imply some degree of disagreement in most cases. It can describe

the empowering process of the enfranchisement of the marginalized or to backroom dealing

that eludes public input and debate. In short, as planners we are most often given only

implications of what is meant by the word political and must assume, glean from the context,

or read the word’s meaning as wholly self-evident. Although rarely defined, its many meanings

are not self-evident, I believe. Or at least, there is good reason to be careful and purposeful

about how we use the word rhetorically.

The reason we ought to be more purposeful and precise about our use of the word

politics is simple: the way we define politics shapes how we see the world; it shapes how we see

the object of our analysis and the social relationships therein contained. The way we define

politics determines the framing of problems and the way possible solutions are conceived. In

bringing a greater degree of specificity to our definition politics—limiting the universe of what

counts as political activity—certain relationships and opportunities are brought into relief. At

least they can be, in interesting and productive ways, if we take the time to define the term and

then use it rigorously.

In this analysis I intend to use a definition of politics given by Jacques Rancière. This

paper will proceed in two main sections. In the first section, Rancière’s definition of politics will

2
be laid out and this will be followed by a discussion of its use by other authors in their writings

on “post-politics”. In the second section, politics as conceived by Rancière will be brought to

bear on the planning literature, suggesting a critique and possible refocusing of Stone’s regime

theory.

II. RANCIERE AND POLITICS

Rancière has written extensively on politics, and on giving politics a very specific

definition in particular. This definition is laid out in his short and dense article, Ten Theses on

Politics (2001). In defining politics Rancière returns to classic philosophy, looking to Plato and

his discussions of politics and democracy. At the close of Rancière’s Ten Theses, we are left with

an idea of politics as intrinsically oppositional and radical regarding social conditions and

change.

With the first sentence of the article, Rancière sets about removing the word politics

from the realm of general usage and moves towards greater specificity. “Politics is not the

exercise of power,” he begins, casting aside what is perhaps a generally accepted rough

formulation of the word. He continues, “Politics ought to be defined on its own terms, as a

mode of acting put into practice by a specific kind of subject and deriving from a particular

form of reason” (Rancière, 2001, p. 1). This is the first thesis. It becomes immediately apparent

that not all things generally considered political will fall under Rancière’s specific definition of

the political.

A thing, then, is not political because it deals with the fact of or struggle to possess

power. To conceive of politics in this manner “is to do away with politics” (ibid., p. 1) argues

Rancière. Instead, a thing is political because “it involves a distinctive kind of subject

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considered, and it involves this subject in the form of a mode of relation that is its own” (ibid.,

p. 1). Although a thing is not political merely because it deals with power, however,

relationships involving power are necessarily a part of politics. Rancière cites Aristotle’s

argument that political rule is defined by the ruling of equals and Aristotle’s definition of a

citizen as “he who partakes in the fact of ruling and the fact of being ruled” (ibid., p. 1). This is

central to Rancière’s definition of politics: “Everything about politics is contained in this

specific relationship, this ‘part-taking’, which should be interrogated as to its meaning and as to

its conditions of possibility” (ibid., p. 1). The fact of this relationship of taking part in ruling

and being ruled—and also its challenging—is an essential component of politics.

Because the subject of politics (le sujet politique) is not predefined or given, the fact of a

thing’s being political must be sought in the form of its relation, in its mode of activity. The

political, then, is not a way of being, but rather a way of doing. The political is oriented towards

action. What, then, is the nature of this action? “That is proper to politics is the existence of a

subject defined by its participation in contrarieties. Politics is a paradoxical form of action”

(ibid., p. 2) Rancière points out. It involves both partaking in being ruled and ruling, but these

actions take place within the same person simultaneously. This is the paradox.

This paradox defies conventional logic of ruling (arche), Rancière argues. “Thus the

logic of arche presupposes a determinate superiority exercised upon an equally determinate

inferiority” (ibid., p. 3). There is, in other words, an identifiable and immutable individual who

rules and one who is ruled. This strict one-way relationship precludes politics, however. Thus,

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Rancière concludes, “In order for there to be a political subject(ivity),1 and thus for there to be

politics, there must be a rupture in this logic” (ibid., p. 3).

This brings us to Rancière’s third thesis, which describes the rupture of this one-way

logic of ruling necessary to bring about politics. “Politics is a specific rupture in the logic of

arche. It does not simply presuppose the rupture of the ‘normal’ distribution of positions

between the one who exercises power and the one subject to it. It also requires a rupture in the

idea that there are dispositions ‘proper’ to such classifications” (ibid., p. 4). It is here where we

begin to see how radical this Rancière’s notion of politics is. Politics does not simply rearrange

the players, putting new ones in a position of power, nor is it merely a rearranging or alteration

of the entire system of distribution of power. More than this, politics is a rupture of the very

idea that these two positions—one who rules and one who is rules—are legitimate or perhaps

that they even exist. Politics, then, may involve the rearrangement of the distribution of power,

but it must involve the rearrangement of conceptions of power vis-à-vis the traditional logic of

arche.

More particularly, this rupture of the logic of arche obliterates the idea that there is a

proper and innate capacity to rule on the part of the ruler. Democracy, then, is defined by there

being an absence of qualifications for governing—that is, that any and all have that capacity.

“Democracy is the specific situation in which there is an absence of qualification that, in turn,

becomes the qualification for the exercise of a democratic arche” (ibid., p. 4).

1
A translator’s endnote in the article having to do with this odd construction explains: “Our
English ‘political subject(ivity)’ does not give an adequate sense of Rancière’s ‘le sujet politique,’
a term that refers both to the idea of a political subjectivity and to the ‘proper’ subject of
politics.”

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 What does this say about democracy then? “Democracy is not a political regime” (ibid.,

p. 5) argues Rancière. We know that democracy is this rupture in the logic of arche, a logic of

domination. But what does Rancière mean by a ‘political regime’? “Democracy is thus precisely

not a political regime in the sense of a particular constitution that determines different ways of

assembling people under a common authority. Democracy is the institution of politics—the

institution of both its subject and its mode of relating” (ibid., p. 5, my emphasis). Here we see

that democracy is not defined by its specific structure or by its proper institutions. It is instead

defined by its support of politics, by its ability to bring into being a particular form of discourse

and a particular form of relations between those who paradoxically take part both in ruling and

being ruled.

Who are these people who take part in politics, in ruling and being ruled—the demos?

Rancière reminds us that the original usage of democracy was a term of derision by those who

opposed it. These opponents were those in power, having gotten there by virtue of very specific

qualifications of birth, wealth, or knowledge. To these opponents, the demos was made up of

those “who have no specificity in common, apart from their having no qualification for

governing” (ibid., p. 5). The demos “designates the category of peoples who do not count,

those who have no qualifications to part-take in arche, no qualification for being taken into

account” (ibid., p. 5). The demos includes those who do not count, who are not counted, who

should not take part. So while in Aristotle’s definition political rule involves citizens who take

part in ruling and being ruled, the demos is made up of those who are not counted, who are not

qualified to take part. “The one who speaks when s/he is not to speak, the one who part-takes

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in what s/he has no part in—that person belongs to the demos” (ibid., p. 5). This is the specific

rupture in the logic of arche of domination.

At this point, we still do not know specifically who the people are that make up the

demos however, nor how and by whom its ranks are determined. This question gets to the heart

of Rancière’s definition of politics:

There is politics as long as 'the people' is not identified with the race or a
population, inasmuch as the poor are not equated with a particular
disadvantaged sector, and as long as the proletariat is not a group of industrial
workers, etc… Rather, there is politics inasmuch as 'the people' refers to
subjects inscribed as a supplement to the count of the parts of society, a specific
figure of 'the part of those who have no‐part.' Whether this part exists is the
political issue and it is the object of political litigation. Political struggle is not a
conflict between well defined interest groups; it is an opposition of logics that count
the parties and parts of the community in different ways. The clash between the
'rich' and the 'poor,' for instance, is the struggle over the very possibility of these
words being coupled, of their being able to institute categories for another
(ac)counting of the community. There are two ways of counting the parts of
the community: The first only counts empirical parts—actual groups defined by
differences in birth, by different functions, locations, and interests that
constitute the social body. The second counts 'in addition' a part of the no‐part.
We will call the first police and the second politics (ibid., p. 8, my emphasis).

This crucial passage requires some elaboration. Rancière is at pains to avoid a politics that is

concerned with predefined group identities that exist in opposition to each other. He maintains

a certain structuralism but rejects orthodox Marxism: there are those that exist outside of those

who are counted, who take part, who are marginalized, but they are not ‘the laboring class’ or

any other predefined group. They are defined only in relation to their being not counted by

some other group. Politics is not the struggle between predefined groups with defined

ideologies, but between different ways of seeing, measuring, and valuating the world.

Rancière then proceeds to give us two different modes of counting the world—

essentially two different epistemological lenses through which society is viewed. These are

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politics and the police. The police is concerned with the total enumeration of all that is, of all

parts of society, based on observable and measurable traits—what Rancière calls the

“partitioning of the sensible” (ibid., p. 9). This counting, partitioning, does not leave room for

any absence. Nothing is left uncounted and without defined purpose and place. He continues:

In this fittingness of functions, places and ways of being, there is no place for a
void. It is this exclusion of what ‘there is not’ that is the police-principle at the
heart of statist practices. The essence of politics, then, is to disturb this
arrangement by supplementing it with a part of the no-part identified with the
community as a whole (ibid., p. 9).

Politics is always opposed to the police. By asserting that there is an uncounted group, one

which will speak although not authorized to do so or even recognized at all, politics expands

what is seen, how society is thought of and counted, and ultimately what is possible. This is

what Rancière means when he says: “Politics is first and foremost an intervention upon the

visible and the sayable” (ibid., p. 9).

Bringing us back to earth, Rancière argues that “The principle function of politics is the

configuration of its proper space” (ibid., p. 10), referring to space both figuratively and literally.

Politics produces and reproduces itself by creating a space for itself. “The essence of politics is

the manifestation of dissensus, as the presence of two worlds in one” (ibid., p. 10). Rancière

gives us an example of what he means, involving the intervention of the police in public space:

“Move along! There is nothing to see here!” The police says that there is nothing
to see on a road, that there is nothing to do but move along. It asserts that the
space of circulating is nothing other than the space of circulation. Politics, in
contrast, consists in transforming this space of ‘moving-along’ into a space for
the appearance of a subject: i.e., the people, the workers, the citizens: It consists
in refiguring the space, of what there is to do there, what is to be seen or named
therein. It is the established litigation of the perceptible… (ibid., p. 10).

The police would have public life perceived in its totality with nothing left out, and only in a

specific rational and ordered form—a sensible form. Politics litigates, challenges this. It is

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naturally opposed to this monolithic way of viewing the world. In a sentence, “The essence of

politics is dissensus” (ibid., p. 11).

Like a good philosopher, however, Rancière does not leave dissensus undefined. It is

given a specific meaning and function: “Dissensus is not the confrontation between interests or

opinions. It is the manifestation of a distance of the sensible from itself. Politics makes visible

that which had no reason to be seen…” (ibid., p. 11). Dissensus is not merely disagreement; it

is that part of society which is excluded or which has no proper place in the police order making

itself visible, challenging the sensible ordering of society. Through this process, this non-part

not only makes itself visible as a legitimate speaker, but makes visible other orderings of

society, expanding the realm of the possible.

Following from this definition of politics, Rancière has harsh words for what he views

as the common stand-in for actual politics: consensus. Far from constituting politics, he

argues, consensus is in fact politics-destroying:

The essence of politics resides in the modes of dissensual subjectification that

reveal the difference of a society to itself. The essence of consensus is not
peaceful discussion and reasonable agreement as opposed to conflict or violence.
Its essence is the annulment of dissensus as the separation of the sensible from
itself, the annulment of surplus objects, the reduction of the people to the sum
of the parts of the social body, and of the political community to the
relationship of interests and aspirations of these different parts. Consensus is the
reduction of politics to the police (ibid., p. 14).

The process of consensus, Rancière argues, involves identified groups with identifiable interests

and becomes a negotiation between these group interests, these counted and ultimately very

“sensible” positions. This negotiation does not include, does not recognize, and does not make

any space for those who are not part to assert their voice and alternate mode of counting the

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social body. In this reading, consensus becomes not only the opposite of politics, but its

annihilation.

III. POSTPOLITICAL DISCOURSE

A series of authors have invoked Rancière’s conception of politics in order to further a

critique of the current state of what gets labeled as politics. These authors generally conclude

that current politics is not politics at all, naming it instead postpolitics. Slavoj Žižek,

philosopher and provocateur, is among the most vocal theorists of postpolitics.

With Rancière’s definition of politics as its basis, Žižek argues that we are living in an

era of postpolitics. He therefore calls for the radical repoliticization of society in general and of

the economy in particular. Following from Rancière, Žižek stresses the departure from

particularity involved in true political action. Singling out and rejecting Habermas, Žižek

argues—echoing Rancière—that politics is not a rational debate between opposing interests,

but “the struggle for one’s voice to be heard and recognized as the voice of a legitimate partner”

(Žižek, 1998). But beyond this, Žižek also stresses the universality of political action, or rather

the link between the particular and the universal. When the excluded in society have protested

their situation,

they also presented themselves as the immediate embodiment of society as such,

as the stand-in for the Whole of Society in its universality, against the particular
power-interests of aristocracy or oligarchy (‘we—the ‘nothing’, not counted in
the order—are the people, we are All against others who stand only for their
particular privileged interests’). Politics proper thus always involves a kind of
short-circuit between the Universal and the Particular: the paradox of a singular
which appears as a stand-in for the Universal, destabilizing the ‘natural’
functional order of relations in the social body (ibid).

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Here we see two of Žižek’s most important points about politics in its opposition to

postpolitics: Politics always involves the metaphorical universalization of the particular as well

as a destabilizing of the existing order, through this universalization.

This metaphorical universalization of particular demands is all important. In its

absence, particular demands remain just that, applying only to their particular group, and can

be ‘solved’ through compromise and consensus without upsetting underlying conditions or

relationships. Only when the particular acts as the stand-in for all of society can social structure

be challenged and altered.

Politics of this sort, Žižek argues, is now precluded by postpolitical methods of

engagement and governance. Politics has largely been depoliticized: “From the sublime heights

of Habermas’ theory to vulgar market ideologists, we are bombarded by different versions of

depoliticization: no longer struggle but dialogic negotiation, regulated competition, etc”

(ibid.). Focusing on the economy, Žižek bombastically argues that only a “new model of

repoliticization questioning the undisputed reign of global capital” will be able to “break the

vicious cycle of liberal globalization” (ibid.) and its deleterious effects.

Venturing slightly outside of the realm of pure theory, Erik Swyngedouw (2007) takes

on postpolitics, liberal global capitalism, and sustainability in his book chapter from the edited

volume, The Sustainable Development Paradox. Swyngedouw’s overarching argument is that the

manner in which environmental issues are framed politically contributes to and sustains a

postpolitical condition that serves to prevent the emergence of a real environmental politics.

Moreover, he argues: “The consensual times we are currently living in have thus eliminated a

genuine political space of disagreement” (Swyngedouw, 2007, p. 25).

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 Citing both Žižek and Rancière, Swyngedouw argues that as part of the current

postpolitical condition, “consensus has been built around the inevitability of neoliberal

capitalism as an economic system, parliamentary democracy as the political ideal…” (ibid., p.

24). It is these categories, among others, that must be challenged in order to deal with

environmental issues, Swyngedouw argues. Consensual politics, however, precludes serious

discussion of these issues, and instead:

either eliminates fundamental conflict (i.e., we all agree that climate change is a
real problem that requires urgent attention) or elevates it to antithetical
ultrapolitics. Those who deny the realities of a dangerous climate change are
blinded radicals that put themselves outside the legitimate social (symbolic)
order. The same “fundamentalist” label is of course also put on those who argue
that dealing with climate change requires a fundamental reorganization of the
hegemonic neoliberal capitalist order (ibid., p. 25).

What is left after these options for debate and conflict are removed is postpolitics.

The answer, of course, it the reestablishment and insertion of politics into the discourse.

“There is an urgent need for different stories and fictions that can be mobilized” (ibid., p. 36) in

the interest of creating new social orders. Ultimately, it is the political process of naming of

new orders which can “make the new and impossible enter the realm of politics and democracy”

(ibid., p. 36).

IV. POLITICS AND REGIME THEORY

We have seen a quick sketch of Swyngedouw’s use of Rancière’s politics and

postpolitical discourse to critique current sustainability narratives, but what of other

sociopolitical phenomena? How does Rancièrian politics and the postpolitical discourse relate,

for example, to the currently dominant theory of local politics and governance—regime theory?

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What might be illuminated in regime theory by examining it through a Rancièrian political

lens?

It might be said that both Rancière and Stone had similar motivations in their

respective theorizing on politics. They were both looking to repoliticize their given milieus and

objects of study. Rancière saw the excision of politics from social and statist practices despite

being named as such. Similarly, Stone was reacting to the conscious rhetorical removal of

politics from studies of local governance and policymaking in favor of structural and

economically deterministic theoretical models.

While other political scientists dismissed local politics as unimportant and subservient

to other structuring sociopolitical processes, Stone boldly claimed that local politics does in fact

matter. As Stoker points out, in a challenge to Peterson and neo-Marxist work, “The founding

premise of regime theory is that urban decision makers have relative autonomy” (1995, p. 56).

Similarly, Davies notes that “Stone asserts that local politics matter and that agents other than

business elites can mobilize influence in alternative governing coalitions” (2003, p. 255).

Stone, I believe, does show quite well that local affairs are important to specific local

policy arrangements. Cities develop differently from one another; the shape of coalitions is not

consistent across cities and a host of outcomes are variable as well. Structuralists do not

account very well for these differences, although they may claim that they are not significant in

a larger sense. But Stone does not claim merely that the outcomes of local governance are of

some importance. Rather, he claims that local politics are central to local outcomes. What

Stone does not do, however, is make his definition of politics explicit.

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 In the absence of a formal explication of politics as conceived by regime theory, we are

left to make inference and piece together some vague ideas. Stoker’s reading of Stone is helpful

in this regard. Stoker cites Stone’s notion that politics is not about the distribution of benefits

in a governing regime, but of their production. These benefits are produced through

relationships formed between parties which become of value to the participants. Thus, “Regime

theory focuses on efforts to build more stable and intense relationships…. Politics is about

achieving governing capacity which has to be created and maintained” (Stoker, 1995, p. 59).

Similarly, Stone writes: “…if a governing regime is to do more than provide routine

services, it must be able to mobilize private as well as public actors. Informally achieved

cooperation is therefore vital to the capacity to govern” (1989, p. 219). From passages like

these and others, the picture of regime politics that emerges is one primarily of cooperation. In

order to govern, the politics of a regime becomes concerned with forming networks and

strategic collaboration. This is what is meant by power to as opposed to power over in regime

politics. Successful politics in regime theory is about organizing cooperation around strategic

goals. It is about building capacity, creating and maintaining a web of relationships. Governing

successfully demands these things and they are thus constitutive of politics in the world of

regime theory.

All this talk of collaboration and capacity-building is a far cry from politics as

conceived by Rancière and called for by Žižek and Swyngedouw. Here politics is not meant to

be transformative. It does not aim at the metaphorical universalization of the claims of those

who are excluded from society. It has no specific content and no specific goal. Much like the

theory of which it is a part, regime politics is merely a description of what happens in cities in

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regard to policymaking and governance. Regime politics has no special relationship to conflict.

It does not explicitly exclude conflict as a practice or a possibility, but it does tend to focus on

its opposite—collaboration. More importantly, perhaps, regime theory does not view conflict

as having any particular power or as being productive in any important way. Conflict in regime

theory is relatively invisible and when it is made visible, it is seen as a unproductive or as an

obstacle to the all-important process of relationship building and collaboration.

The cold shoulder given to conflict in regime theory grows out of Stone’s rather dismal

conception of the individual and his capacity to see society broadly and his motivations to

action. The essence of this conception is found in Stone’s description of the “small

opportunities” phenomenon:

…most people most of the time are guided, not by a grand vision of how the
world might be reformed, but by the pursuit of particular opportunities. … A
group or governing coalition that has a capacity to further small opportunities
on go-along-to-get-along terms is in a strong position to attract allies rather
than activate opponents. …The more concentrated and effective a capacity to
further projects is, the harder it is resist (1989, p. 193).

Davies (2002) notes that within Stone’s bounded rationality view of the individual, citizens in

urban regimes fail to see the big picture, or rather that the big picture is not visible to the

individual, that it is not possible for the individual to make out larger processes and structures.

As a result of this bounded rationality, the individual has no choice but to gravitate towards

these “small opportunities” which are best represented by what seems possible or most readily

achievable.

This, of course, is the antithesis of politics as conceived by Rancière. Not only is the

concept of “small opportunities” coupled with citizens’ inability to see broad social structure

apolitical in nature, but it precludes even the possibility of politics. If politics is defined by those

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who are non-part in society challenging the ruling logic and constructing a metaphorical

universal around their claim, then the idea that individuals cannot perceive the very structures

against which they might construct conflicting narratives and possible new social orders makes

the very idea of politics an impossibility, and both the citizen and the process of struggle is

demeaned. In short, the view of the individual in regime politics is not merely apolitical, it

precludes the very possibility of politics.

This is not to say that regime theory is blind to conflict. To the contrary, Stone

recognizes its existence in policymaking and governance. Citing Charles Tilly and his ideas on

society and politics, Stone notes:

The maintenance of the network … is a matter of struggle, with contenders

variously accommodating and resisting one another. In Tilly’s understanding of
society, instead of a single fulcrum of control, there are strategically
advantageous points from which to wage struggle and promote some forms of
collective action at the expense of others. There is no consensus (1989, p. 227).

This conception of politics and society which borders on the postmodern is certainly not out of

step with the possibility of Rancièrian politics. There is struggle, conflict, and a lack of

consensus. But Stone’s limited and ultimately rather bleak view of the individual immediately

steps in to quash the possibility of politics when he writes in the next sentence: “Cognition is

limited, and people hold contradictory views, with beliefs often yielding to situational pressures

anyway. What counts is how ideas are implemented, the decision rules people develop, and the

working alliances they form” (1989, p. 227). Ultimately, according to Stone, beliefs, ideology,

and thus Rancièrian politics are utterly meaningless and without power.

If ideology and Rancièrian politics have no power in regime theory, then it may be

helpful to ask how power is conceived of by regime theory. This subject is taken up by Stoker

(1995) who lays out four different dimensions of power functioning in regime theory: systemic

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power; command or social control power; coalition power; and preemptive or social production

power. Systemic power follows from parties which have strategically strong places within the

socioeconomic structure. Command/social control power dominates other interests through

the deployment of resources. Coalition power arises from the limited capacity for social control

power in most situations, deriving its strength instead from bargaining based upon a party’s

strategic strength. Finally, preemptive or social production power flows from the ability of

leadership to perform needed functions of partners in a coalition.

These four faces of power engage in Rancièrian politics only inasmuch as they may

resemble or take on the function of the police, by accounting for and ordering groups, and

serving as the antagonist of politics. There is, however, no reason that regime politics should by

its nature preclude Rancièrian politics. They are not fundamentally incompatible. The problem

is that conflict is not viewed by Stone as productive. True oppositional politics is not seen as

having any power over relationships, the way individuals perceive social structures, or ultimately

any ability to affect outcomes.

It is with this in mind that I propose a fifth form of power functioning in regime

theory: rhetorical power. Rhetorical power is the power that flows from conflict, opposition,

and the grand ideas which are a result of true politics. These ideas do not shatter against the

wall of small opportunities encircling what a governing regime portrays as possible. Following

from a true engagement with politics, existing sociopolitical orders are challenged and through

the universalization of the particular, the realm of the possible is enlarged.

We do not have to toss out the notion, so central to regime theory, that a thing

perceived as possible is a thing which is more likely to be implemented. It is also true that a

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currently governing regime has a privileged voice in shaping these perceptions of the possible.

But what Stone dismisses perhaps too easily is the power of true political engagement to

propagate new fictions which challenge and ultimately can change popular conceptions of what

is possible. As Hallward’s quote which serves as the epigraph for this paper so eloquently posits,

this is the very function of the political.

All this is not to say that regime theory does not accurately describe the phenomena it

analyzes. The needs of capital and the interests of the governing regime often collude to

forcefully control municipal agendas to each other’s mutual benefit. Regime theory is a

descriptive theory, and in this it is rather adept. But it also borders on the cynical and in its

views on the individual it devalues its participants and forecloses the possibility of true politics.

Imbroscio (2003) has argued that regime theory is prescriptively irrelevant, and though

I tend to agree, this does not mean that it cannot be otherwise. Instead of devaluing and

precluding politics, regime theorists might instead choose to focus on politics, in the Rancièrian

sense. Rejecting the purely descriptive, regime theorists can draw on the discourse of

postpolitics to construct a normative framework for regime theory. This framework would not

only define politics according to a classical, Rancièrian conception, but would value and seek

out the practice of politics. Using their keen understanding of local governance and

policymaking, these pro-political normative regime theorists might seek out and highlight

strategic opportunities for transformative politics. In this way, what is now an almost purely

descriptive and rather discouraging theory of local governance and policymaking can be

transformed into an activist agenda aimed at the repoliticization of local democracies and

radical social change.

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V. CONCLUSION

Urban planners have long been using the word politics with a troubling lack of rigor

and precision. This is as true in its general usage as it is for its employ in regime theory. As it

currently stands, using the word politics neither signifies nor highlights much in particular. This

is unfortunate, because employing the word with greater specificity might serve to call

attention to particular groups and processes that play out within the planning purview.

Choosing to use a normative definition of politics like Rancière’s might bring select groups and

processes into even sharper relief.

Rancière’s body of work reveals a philosopher who holds to a vision of radical equality

for all people and seeks to engage and encourage emancipatory practice for those who are

marginalized in society. This is a vision that is close to home for many planners, including

Clarence Stone. The conflict between the writings of Stone and Rancière represents a larger

conflict in planning between description and prescription, or perhaps between pragmatism and

idealism. The claims that Stone makes about the nature of individuals striving within regime

politics, as well as the overall functioning of regimes, are difficult to refute. Stone was not

intending to be cynical or foreclose the possibility of emancipatory or radical politics. The issue

here is not the accuracy or even intent of Stone’s theory in comparison to other theories. The

issue is perhaps one of focus.

Rather than challenge the validity of Stone’s descriptive theory, Rancière challenges us

to change our point of view. Rancière’s definition of politics not only forces us to see those who

are non-part, who are excluded from society, but also the ways which the excluded act to make

themselves heard and to challenge existing social orders. But perhaps more importantly as

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planners, by conceiving of politics in this particular way and excluding all those other things

which are casually called politics, we are forced to imagine the ways politics can be brought into

being. We cannot look at the world through the lens of Rancièrian politics and not imagine

new and challenging possibilities, unforeseen social orders, and the possibility of individuals to

engage with and alter the world.

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