The Emancipatory Limits of Participation in Planning: Equity and Power in Deliberative Plan-Making in Perth, Western Australia

Communicative planning scholars often claim that forms of participatory planning centred on public deliberation can facilitate more equitable decision-making by overcoming power differentials between citizens and stakeholders. This paper draws upon the communicative planning understanding of Habermasian 'communicative action' in order to evaluate the argument that deliberation removes power differences between participants of participatory processes. A case study of a deliberative plan-making process – the Western Australian government's 'Dialogue with the City' – is undertaken to assess this claim. The author argues that there are both deliberate (avoidable, strategic) and inevitable (unavoidable, unintentional) ways in which power differences can arise between participants of deliberative plan-making. Planners who are charged with the responsibility of moderation may find it difficult to identify and mediate power differences in participatory processes; in fact, they may act to reinforce existing power ...