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On the Liberal Moral Project of Planning in South Africa

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Abstract

In a recent publication on ‘Cityness and African Urban Development’, Edgar Pieterse calls for a suspension of the ‘humanist safety net’ that frequently underpins policy prescriptions in most liberal (and social-liberal) democracies. While I support Pieterse’s call, this paper sets out to demonstrate why it is difficult for most planners to suspend, let alone reject, the ‘liberal moral project of planning’. To this end, the role of planning is reassessed by focusing on some of the entrenched liberal legacies in South Africa. Findings spotlight how mainstream practices are directed towards serving ‘the public interest’ through a liberal calculus of public morality and obligations; and I propose that before planners might begin to engage with Pieterse’s project, we first need to challenge the current norms of planning.

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Notes

  1. For the purpose of this paper, ‘governmentality’ is used in the Foucauldian sense as ‘the conduct of conducts’ of the self and of others, or, in accordance with Rose (1999), ‘one’s moral obligations to oneself and one’s obligations to others’. ‘Mentality’ denotes the discursive ‘truths’ and ‘norms’ that serve as rationalities for the aims of government. ‘Government’, in turn, entails the practices, policies, and projects for ‘making up people’ (Huxley 2005). ‘Governmentality’ thus contains both elements.

  2. Laissez-faire means ‘let do’.

  3. Aidez-faire means ‘help do’.

  4. Polanyi (2001 [1944]: 268) is also concerned with the complexities of collectivist reactions, arguing that while it is important to embed the market in society, the ‘double movement’ can also ‘destroy society’.

  5. For some scholars, in particular Bond (2002, 2005, 2006) and McDonald and Pape (2002), ‘planning’ in South Africa is almost exclusively conceptualised by the state (and the profession) as a means to secure economic and individual liberty.

  6. ‘Freedom’ under the liberal rule also necessitates obligations and forms of regulation and control.

  7. Only after the Second World War did discourses of social and spatial improvement, through state and expert guidance, gradually give way to neoliberalism or ‘advanced liberal’ political rationality (Rose 1999).

  8. A similar conceptualisation of ‘market freedom’ is also evident in neoliberalism or ‘advanced liberalism’ (Rose 1999).

  9. Many scholars, including Bond (2002, 2005, 2006) and McDonald and Pape (2002), refer to this ‘era’ as one shaped, essentially, by neoliberalism, especially as the White Paper on Local Government (RSA 1998: 79) points out that “the privatisation of public assets, which are not considered strategic to the core purpose and role of municipalities, may boost municipal capacity and revenue”. But neoliberalism is founded on various discursive forms of liberalism.

  10. In other words, mainstream planning seldom entails working directly with resident groups to promote forms of collective action and social transformation. It is this embedded approach to planning that ‘radical’ planning theorists have been seeking to put forward for a while now.

  11. The White Paper on Local Government (RSA 1998) stipulates that municipal officials are obliged to prepare an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for a 5-year period that coincides with the political term of elected councillors.

  12. Cf. Visser’s (2001) embedded research that demonstrates how IDPs reflect liberal understandings of social justice.

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Margo Huxley, John Friedmann, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of City and Regional Planning, School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, University of Cape Town, Centlivres Building, Rondebosch, Private Bag X3, Cape Town, 7701, South Africa

    Tanja Winkler

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Winkler, T. On the Liberal Moral Project of Planning in South Africa. Urban Forum 22, 135–148 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12132-011-9110-4

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