Why do our best-laid plans often over-reach and under-achieve? Why do our attempts to solve problems in some rational way often run afoul of politics and power? Why do we so often accomplish so little, even as we sense that so much more is possible? By looking closely at the work of city planners, Planning in the Face of Power addresses these questions and provides a new way of thinking about the practical and inevitably political work of improving our neighborhoods, schools, community organizations, and the public institutions that shape our lives.
Power and inequality are...

Too often attacked as hopelessly abstract, contemporary critical social theory can help us to understand both public policy and its analysis. In this book, John Forester shows how policy analysis, planning, and public administration are thoroughly political communicative practices that subtly and selectively organize public attention. Drawing from Jurgen Habermas's critical communications theory of society, Forester shows how policy developments alter the social infrastructure of society. He provides a clear introduction to critical social theory at the same time that he clarifies the...

Public policy is made of language. Whether in written or oral form, argument is central to all parts of the policy process. As simple as this insight appears, its implications for policy analysis and planning are profound. Drawing from recent work on language and argumentation and referring to such theorists as Wittgenstein, Habermas, Toulmin, and Foucault, these essays explore the interplay of language, action, and power in both the practice and the theory of policy-making.
The contributors, scholars of international renown who range across the theoretical spectrum, emphasize the...