Planners – A silenced profession? The politicisation of planning and the need for fearless speech

Introduction

In this article, I argue that we are currently witnessing ongoing politicisation of planning, which aims at making planners loyal to the current neoliberal politics and threatens to silence planners. In order to come to grips with this tendency, which I interpret as a democracy problem, I also argue that there is a need for fearless speech among planners.

These arguments draw on findings from this study and from two previous studies in which I have investigated how different state governments, in parallel with introducing planning reforms, have implemented culture change agendas with the aim of transforming planning culture. The results from my previous studies, which analysed political and ideological changes to planning in England and Denmark, respectively, show that these reforms have been implemented with the same aim, that is, to strengthen a growth agenda by making planning more ‘positive’, ‘proactive’ and ‘strategic’. Furthermore, the planning profession has been described as a ‘demoralised’ profession, with an outdated ideological attitude and lack of ability to understand contemporary society’s needs, blocking development and economic prosperity. Hence, one of the means to achieve culture change in planning has been to implement a self-perception of failure among planners, in order to generate a self-governed desire among them to adjust in order to better meet political objectives. I argue elsewhere that such attempts to situate the crisis in planning in an outdated, anachronistic planning culture are playing a key role in strengthening the ideological commitment of planning to an advanced liberal social order (Grange, 2014). I also argue that if society is to reconsider the value of local authority planners having influence, then planners need to develop a deeper awareness of the political, and acknowledge that planning is inherently political (Grange, 2013).

Many others have recently emphasised the need for a better understanding of the political in planning. For example, Metzger et al. (2015) conclude that planning ‘has increasingly become an instrument to displace the political rather than creating a space where political disagreement can play out’ (p. 8). Consequently, they emphasise the need for planners to get to grips with the current practices of depoliticisation. There are many different ways of understanding the political/politicisation, depending primarily on different ontological perceptions regarding the instituting moments of society, that is, whether they are defined on, for example, conflictuality, as advocated by Laclau and Mouffe; on equality, as advocated by Rancière; or on universalisation, as advocated by Žižek (for comparative, or other analyses of the political, see, for example, Dean, 2014; Dikeç, 2015; Metzger et al., 2015; Swyngedouw and Wilson, 2015). In this article, I draw primarily on Dean’s (2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2014) interpretation of politicisation. This, in turn, draws on Žižek, by arguing that politicisation ought to be understood as entailing ‘raising the particular to the level of the universal’ (Dean, 2014: 266; see also Dean, 2005: 169–170). What Dean adds to Žižek’s understanding is a critique of how concepts such as politicisation and post-politics are used today. Dean claims that it is contradictory to talk about much of contemporary politics as if it were defined by less politicisation, since ‘post-politics, depoliticisation and de-democratisation are conceptually inadequate’ to deal with the fact that capitalism is producing a non-egalitarian world (Dean, 2014: 263). Consequently, she emphasises the need to refer to the ongoing universalisation of neoliberal demands with adequate concepts: ‘Of course, politicisation does occur today. The Right does it particularly well…’ (Dean, 2014: 266). ‘Depoliticised’, she adds, ‘thus well describes the contemporary Left’s inability to raise particular claims to the level of the universal, to present issues or problems as standing for something beyond themselves’ (Dean, 2014: 266–267).

I concur with Dean’s view of politicisation and agree that there is a need to analyse processes by which particular interests have been raised to the level of the universal as the outcome of politicisation, irrespective of their political content. In a recent article (Grange, 2014), I show how such universalisation of particular demands took place through the introduction of a new culture change agenda for Danish planning. The analysis drew on three Laclauian concepts – ‘the universal reference’, ‘the illusion of closure’ and ‘the incarnating body’ – and showed how neoliberal demands were projected on the planners, who, in turn, took on the hegemonic role of the particular, that is, to represent the universal.

According to Miller and Rose (2008), political interventions aimed at instituting a new relationship between expertise and politics can be viewed as ‘technologies for subjectivity’ that are deeply ideological and proliferate in what those authors call ‘advanced liberal democracies’. Hence, what we are witnessing today is a shift in how the relationship between politics and expertise is institutionalised; a change by which planners increasingly seem to be directed towards loyalty with politics, sometimes with the consequence that they refer to their role as neutral (Campbell and Marshall, 2002, 2005; McClymont, 2006), or simply distance themselves from the outcome of the planning processes in which they participate (Abram, 2004; Inch, 2009).Gunder (2016) has shown how planning is torn between two different roles currently given to it. On one hand, it is undertaking ‘statutory empowered responsibility of looking after the public interest’, while on the other hand it is ‘providing governance with a justification, or scapegoat, as to why its policy promises are failing’ (Gunder, 2016: 22). According to Gunder (2016), there is reason to believe that planning is ‘the chief remaining scapegoat of neoliberal governance’ (p. 23). He also points to ‘an extensive symbolic repression’ (Gunder, 2016: 33), due to the current hegemonic ideology, which favours ‘normative values of individual independence, self-determination and entrepreneurial success, while downplaying the contradicting values of in[ter]dependence, social justice and care of the other’ (Gunder, 2016: 34). Indeed, it has been stressed elsewhere that contemporary politics, by which planners are required to pursue goals that only suit part of the public, is making the planning profession become ‘schizophrenic’ (Baeten, 2012: 209). In much the same vein, it has been argued that planners risk ending up in a ‘pathological planning culture’, due to being forced to handle increasing demands for informality and efficiency, on one hand, and national rhetoric arguing for transparency and democratic legitimacy, on the other (Mäntysalo et al., 2015: 360).

Drawing on failures of Swedish planning, especially concerning a clear link between vision and outcome, Westin (2010: 33, 34; see also Loit, 2014) asks whether planning is doing any good to society at all. Underlying that question is a critique of the seemingly neutral expert planner. Westin (2010) concludes that planning has a role to play in guarding the common good, although she remains critical of what she interprets as victimisation of the Swedish planner and the view that planners are but a cog in a wheel (p. 276). Loit (2014: 248) identifies a similar gap between planning ideals and rhetoric, on one hand, and a ‘neoliberal planning mindset’ which ‘values a growth-oriented planning approach’, on the other. The result is planning that leads to increasing inequality in Swedish society. I concur with Loit (2014) when he concludes that given that planning has contributed to a neoliberal society, planning can also contribute to ‘counteract these processes’ (p. 244). However, I argue that this would require planners to take on the important role of resistance to politics. This might be a role that is not possible to shoulder in all political systems, but as I go on to show in this article, it is a role that is not only possible in the Swedish political system but in fact to a certain extent expected. However, I also show that it is a role that is increasingly under threat. Having said that, and given the current representative political system in the Western societies, it is my view that politicians should have the last say in planning processes. Nevertheless, it is my firm belief that no political decisions will ever become better by remaining unchallenged (see also Olsson and Hysing, 2012).

Hence, in this article I claim that there is a deep-seated need within planning to nurture a critical ethos, in order for planners to contribute to creating spaces where the political can play out in new and other ways. Consequently, and drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on the ancient Greek and Roman concept of parrhesia, which basically means fearless speech (Foucault, 2001, 2005, 2011), in this article I offer an alternative to the current institutionalisation of the relationship between politics and expertise (for more anarchistic suggestions for change, see, for example, Ansaloni and Tedeschi, 2015; Newman, 2009). It was to such ethical and potentially enabling aspects of the subject’s relationship to itself, or simply ‘the care of the self’ that Foucault increasingly directed his focus throughout his life (Foucault, 1985, 1986, 2001, 2005). However, until lately little attention has been paid to these aspects of Foucault’s work (for exceptions, see Bang, 2014; Dyrberg, 2014; Lazzarato, 2013; McGushin, 2011; Mendieta, 2011; Philo, 2012; Taylor, 2011). Some authors (e.g. Dyrberg, 2014: 49; Mendieta, 2011: 112) have even argued that Foucault’s work has been profoundly misunderstood as primarily being about normalisation, while the more creative aspects of his work have been downplayed. The unfortunate outcome, according to Lemke (2013: 51), is a field of governmentality studies characterised by ‘theoretical trivialization’. In line with this criticism, one could argue that until recently, little focus has been directed towards the ‘desubjugating’ and ‘empowering’ aspects of governmentality, that is, towards what Foucault himself refers to as the art of ‘not being quite so governed’ (Foucault, 2007: 57).

In order to contextualise the argument that we are witnessing an ongoing politicisation of planning that threatens to silence planners, in the next section of this article, I provide a short review of the contemporary critique of the modern notion of democracy, which argues that democracy today is characterised by trivialisation and passivity. In the third section, I introduce Michel Foucault’s work on parrhesia, which argues that discourses of truth materialise in certain forms of subjectivity and that empowerment and desubjugation, therefore, need to go through the development of a critical ethos. In the fourth section, I provide an analysis of the current politicisation of Swedish planning. The Swedish political system differs from that in most other countries, as government agencies are separated from ministries. Consequently, the Swedish system strongly advocates independent agencies and civil servants. Nevertheless, the analysis examines evidence of ongoing politicisation of Swedish planning. In the fifth and the concluding section, I discuss the need for planners to give voice to their professional judgment and shoulder the role as a counterforce to politics.

Democracy as an inherently anti-essential concept

In the wake of the neoliberal project on economic growth, it is clear that liberal values, such as property rights, capital enhancement and competitive positioning, are increasingly being secured at the expense of the egalitarian basis of democracy, which emphasises equality, solidarity and inclusion. Numerous voices today claim that the universalisation of liberal democracy ‘as the final form of government’ (Frug, 2013: 311) is contributing to a serious dismantling of democracy (e.g. Brown, 2003: 10, 2015: 26; Crouch, 2004: 3; Dahl, 1998: 177; Dean, 2009b: 78; Keenan, 2003: 2; Mouffe, 2000: 80; Purcell, 2013: 26). In response to this situation, two different strands have developed, one which finds democracy inadequate as a form for future aspirations and the other which aims for re-democraticisation. I briefly describe both of these below.

Dean (2005, 2009a, 2009b, 2014) embodies the first strand. In several articles, she questions the use of the concept democracy as ‘the primary signifier of the potential of emancipatory political struggle’ (Dean, 2005: 154). The problem, according to Dean, is that contemporary democratic language only serves to reinforce capitalism. Hence, she states that ‘for leftists to refer to their goals as a struggle for democracy is strange. It is a defence of the status quo, a call for more of the same. Democracy is our ambient milieu, the hegemonic form of contemporary politics’ (Dean, 2014: 268). Indeed, she argues that our current ‘fetishizing of democracy’ (Dean, 2005: 165) has led only to a situation in which we are stuck with a democracy ‘that talks without responding’ (Dean, 2009b: 78). Consequently, she argues that democracy today can best be viewed as a ‘neoliberal fantasy’, which only assists to render any change to capitalism unthinkable (Dean, 2009b).

Others, however, choose to stay with the concept of democracy, either arguing that our contemporary notion of democracy can be viewed as ‘democracy unrealized’ (Wallerstein, 2001), or that we are witnessing ‘de-democraticization’ (Brown, 2006), and consequently that what we need today is re-democraticisation. According to Brown (2003), today’s liberal democratic discourse is ‘void of substance’ (p. 10) and characterised by ‘political nihilism’ (p. 20). In a similar vein, it has been argued that we are witnessing an ongoing ‘trivialization of democracy’ and a move towards a ‘post-democratic society’ in which the ‘mass of citizens plays a passive, quiescent, even apathetic part, responding only to the signals given them’ (Crouch, 2004: 4). It is also clear that society today is characterised by a serious decline in public confidence (Bang, 2014; Marquand, 2004) and ‘a crisis of representation’ (Mouffe, 2013: 119; see also Newman, 2009; Kurlantzick, 2013: 26).

With this problematic diagnosis of contemporary democracy, many have turned their analytical focus towards the modern notion of democracy and how it can be radicalised (for a compilation of contributions from several contemporary political thinkers, see Agamben et al., 2011). For example, in several works, Laclau (1996, 2000, 2002) and Laclau and Mouffe (1985) have developed the concept of ‘radical democracy’ as an inherently anti-essential and open notion of democracy, in which the contingent, hegemonic relationship between (empty) signifiers and what they are made to signify is a main concern. It is through such illusory fixing of meaning that discourses are established. Consequently, Laclau (2000) claims that the only truly radical democratic society ‘is one which permanently shows the contingency of its own foundations’ (p. 86).

However, it has been argued that too little attention has been given in contemporary political theory to ‘the crucial moments that turn the subject into a democratic subject’ (Norval, 2007: 15). Keenan (2003) concurs with Laclau and Mouffe’s anti-essentialist approach of social openness, but at the same time criticises them for downplaying the need for closure, that is, practical guidance on how to act in order to achieve radical democracy. Keenan (2003: 16) concludes that what is needed today is ‘a distinct democratic ethos, rooted in and supported by a different language of democratic responsibility’ and that this democratic responsibility needs to be fostered in ‘a conscious identification with others understood not so much as those who share with us a common essence of a single community but rather as fellow sufferers from identity’ (p. 23; emphasis in original). Bond (2011) makes a similar suggestion when outlining a democratic ethos that recognises ‘the undecidability of the terrain in which decisions are taken’, although she argues that it must also respect the normative principles of liberty, equality and reciprocity (p. 179). Purcell (2008: 36) also emphasises that the notion of democracy must remain inherently anti-essential. He argues for the formation of networks of equivalence among democratic social movements. He also calls for a deeper awareness of the potential within each and everyone for a ‘down-deep delight’ in democracy and for the development of strategies that can help to ‘understand and mobilize that power’ (Purcell, 2013: 154). Such an empowering and creative interpretation of democracy comes close to its original meaning, which can be understood as the ‘capacity to do things, not majority rule’ (Ober, 2008: 3).

Which of these strands within democratic theory is most adequate to deal with the current practices associated with ‘depoliticisation’, that is, practices defined by inabilities to present problems as standing for something more than themselves? Dean (2009a) presents the problem in the following way:

If the diagnosis of de-democraticization and de-politicization is correct, then left politics should seek more democracy, should attempt re-politicization. But if I am right about the contemporary democratic deadlock, then a politics that reasserts democracy as the solution to all our problems will continue to entrap us in same old circuits of defeat. It will fail, moreover, to attend to the politicizations already conditioning the current conjuncture. (p. 22)

In this article, I concur with Dean on the need to see and deal with the politicisations currently going on. However, given the present political system, I choose to emphasise the need to nurture a critical ethos, in order for planners to take on the important role of resistance to politics, rather than giving up on democracy at this point. Nevertheless, like many of the authors mentioned above, I believe that the notion of democracy is an inherently anti-essential concept, and thus a certain notion of democracy at any time can be challenged and replaced with another notion.

In order to contribute to this debate, in the next section I examine some aspects related to the formation of a critical ethos and how it can contribute to a change in our current notion of democracy. I do so primarily by referring to Foucault’s later writings concerned with the concept of parrhesia.

Fearless speech/parrhesia

For there to be democracy there must be parrēsia; for there to be parrēsia there must be democracy. (Foucault, 2011: 155) ¹

The word parrhesia has its roots in the ancient Greek world, where it was one of three essential features of democracy, the others being equal right of speech and equal participation (Foucault, 2001: 22). A person who uses parrhesia, a parrhesiastes, speaks what they know to be true, regardless of potentially dangerous consequences:

The commitment involved in parrhesia is linked to a certain social situation, to a difference of status between the speaker and his audience, to the fact that the parrhesiastes says something which is dangerous to himself and thus involves a risk. (Foucault, 2001: 13; emphasis in original)

However, parrhesia should not be mistaken for confession, that is, telling everything about oneself in order to be saved, which developed later and became characteristic of the Christian pastoral mode of being (Foucault, 2011: 359). Parrhesiastes do not necessarily speak the truth about themselves, but rather speak in the interests of the city (Foucault, 2011: 179). Furthermore, no one forces parrhesiastes to speak; a person who ‘recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself)’ does so from a sense of moral obligation (Foucault, 2001: 19).

Ethics, according to Foucault, is ‘the conscious practice of freedom’, that is, ‘the form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection’ (Foucault, 1996: 435). Hence, it is the reflective exercise of freedom that drives the parrhesiastes to speak: ‘What characterizes the parrhesiastic utterance is precisely that, apart from statues and anything that could codify and define the situation, the parrhesiast is someone who emphasizes his own freedom as an individual speaking’ (Foucault, 2011: 65). Paradoxically, women, foreigners and slaves were not thought of in relation to parrhesia in ancient Greek and Roman culture, as they were not endowed with the right institutional privileges. For this reason, Foucault predominantly uses masculine nouns when referring to the evolution of parrhesia.

Despite the emphasis on truth-telling, parrhesia is not primarily about demonstrating the truth, but about the ethical commitment parrhesiastes establish with themselves, that is, ‘the relationship between the speaker and what he says’ (Foucault, 2001: 12; see also Foucault, 2011: 65). This commitment is not situated within a field of discursive strategies, Foucault (2011) underlined, but is rather characterised by ‘true discourse’, hence its agonistic structure (pp. 55–56, 68, 133). Consequently, what drew Foucault to investigate parrhesia was not a desire to investigate the problem of truth, but to investigate the problem of who could speak the truth, that is, ‘the problem of the truth-teller’ (Foucault, 2001: 169; see also Foucault 1985: 6–7). Indeed, elsewhere Foucault emphasises that ‘it is not power, but the subject, which is the general theme of my research’ (Foucault, 1983: 209). This perspective is particularly evident in his later work, in which he emphasised the need to ‘promote new forms of subjectivity’ (Foucault, 1983: 216; see also Foucault, 2011: 5).

Like parrhesia, ‘care of the self’ is a notion Foucault discusses in relation to the problematisation of the truth-teller in ancient Greek and Roman culture. During this period, the imperative to take care of oneself appeared as ‘an unqualified principle’, that is, as ‘a rule applicable to everyone’ and which could be ‘practiced by everyone, without any prior condition of status and without any technical, professional or social aim’ (Foucault, 2005: 126). However, it is equally clear that it was not a mode of existence put into practice by everyone: ‘The care of the self always entails a choice of one’s mode of life, that is to say a division between those who have chosen this mode of life and the rest’ (Foucault, 2005: 113). Of decisive importance was whether the subject has developed a critical ‘ethos’, a mode of being by which one is able to take care of oneself and others (Foucault, 2005: 93, 175, 237, 327).

According to Foucault (2007), a critical attitude is fundamentally linked to ‘the will not to be governed thusly, like that, by these people, at this price’ (p. 75). Consequently, he described the materialisation of critique as ‘the art of voluntary insubordination’:

I will say that critique is the movement by which the subject gives himself the right to question truth on its effects of power and question power on its discourses of truth. Well then!: critique will be the art of voluntary insubordination, that of reflected intractability. Critique would essentially insure the desubjugation of the subject in the context of what we could call, in a word, the politics of truth. (Foucault, 2007: 47)

It has been argued elsewhere that a critical mode of being implies a commitment to ‘expose oneself as a subject’ (Lemke, 2012: 70; see also Lazzarato, 2013: 158). By exposing oneself as a subject, with an ontological position, one gives an account of oneself before others. This requires ‘self-distancing and self-questioning’ (Lemke, 2012: 71, see also 73; and Taylor, 2011: 182), that is, through an agonistic relationship towards the self as much as towards adversaries (Foucault, 1985: 67). Indeed, all this indicates that critique as engagement, as opposed to withdrawal, ought to be viewed as a self-transforming ethical practice of freedom. However, it requires a commitment by which we acknowledge that we ‘actively participate in our self-constitution, and thus possess the capacity to engage in such analysis’ (Taylor, 2011: 181). Hence, daring to practise freedom, that is, daring to acknowledge fearlessly that we actively participate in our self-constitution, is far from a simple question of withdrawal. It demands of us that we engage by exposing ourselves as subjects, but also that we acknowledge that new forms of democratic subjectivity can only come about through desubjugating processes of self-questioning.

However, Foucault (2011) underlines that the bond between parrhesia and democracy ‘is problematic, difficult and dangerous’ (p. 168). The paradox lies in the fundamental circularity between parrhesia and democracy; if there are no parrhesiastes who dare to speak fearlessly, there will be no true democracy, but the nurturing of fearless speech also needs democracy in order to develop. According to Foucault, this circularity is precisely where the bond between parrhesia and democracy becomes dangerous. Democracy ensures that anybody can speak, but this right also introduces self-interest, flattery and possibly conformity, that is, submission to the voice of the prevalent opinion. The democratic paradox, according to Foucault, is thus that if true discourse, which can only be expressed as critique, disappears from democracy, democracy itself will secure its own reduction into consensus, the voice of the majority, or passivity:

[T]rue discourse is what will enable democracy to exist, and to continue to exist. True discourse must have its place for democracy actually to be able to take its course and be maintained through misadventures, events, jousts, and wars. So democracy can continue to exist only through true discourse. But on the other hand, inasmuch as true discourse in democracy only comes to light in the jousts, in conflict, confrontation, and rivalry, it is always threatened by democracy. And this is the second paradox: there is no democracy without true discourse, for without true discourse it would perish; but the death of true discourse, the possibility of its death or of its reduction to silence is inscribed in democracy. (Foucault, 2011: 184)

Hence, Foucault (2005) warns that without true discourse, without fearless critique, parrhesiastic speech can – and does – degenerate into seduction and pure rhetoric (p. 373). He also shows how parrhesia has gradually transformed and eventually ceased being a fundamental feature of our modern notion of democracy. Consequently, it should be noted that parrhesia cannot be taken as evidence of an ancient feature of democracy that can simply be reinvigorated and adapted to the contemporary political culture; Foucault’s primary subject of analysis is the history of thought, that is, how power relations and forms of subjectivity have been problematised in different times. Nevertheless, in an interview in the last year of his life, 1984, he stated that ‘it seems to me that contemporary political thought allows very little room for the question of the ethical subject’ (Foucault, 1996: 443). In view of the trivialisation of our current political culture, as discussed in the previous section, much seem to indicate that Foucault’s writings on parrhesia, as an inherently critical-ethical feature of democracy, have something important to offer contemporary debates on democracy (see also Dyrberg, 2014). In the concluding section of this article, I discuss the need for fearless speech among planners. Before that, I describe an empirical investigation of the current political advocacies for change in Swedish planning.

Current politicisation of Swedish planning

As in many other countries, Swedish municipal planning has faced erosion of power, expertise and trust in recent decades. However, with the launch of over 40 official investigations of Swedish planning and housing between 2010 and 2014 alone, the liberal-conservative government, which came into power in 2006, highlighted planning as an area of renewed political interest. A driver for this change was the government’s wish for local authorities to increasingly take economic growth and efficiency into consideration. ² In this section, I take a deeper look at mechanisms currently working to politicise planning.

Concluding remarks on the need for fearless speech

The stated aim of this analysis was to shed some light on what I refer to as ongoing politicisation of planning. In order to identify some of the mechanisms operating to enable this, I performed an analysis of the current politicisation of Swedish planning.

It has been concluded elsewhere that many Swedish planners advocate an ideal of neutrality, with an unwillingness to give voice to professional judgment. I show here that a weakly institutionalised Swedish planning profession might contribute to this situation. For example, there is no strong professional organisation that represents all Swedish planners and which can give voice to planners’ values. Consequently, there are no common ethical guidelines for Swedish planners. It is also clear that Swedish planning has recently become the focus of renewed political interest, with a clear aim to make planning more efficient. A similar politicising tendency is apparent in all the Nordic countries. However, the current political calls for more efficient and informal processes appear to be veiled in rhetoric arguing for transparency and democracy. Moreover, power has been transferred from civil servants to politicians and civil servant managers in Swedish society over recent decades. This clearly works against democratic ideals advocated in the Swedish constitution, which demands independent government agencies and civil servants. My interviews with Swedish planners confirmed this tendency. Several of the interviewees reported increasingly hierarchical organisations within local authorities. Taken altogether, the analysis confirmed claims of ongoing politicisation of Swedish planning.

It has been argued elsewhere (Lazzarato, 2013: 159) that in the Western world ‘there is no longer place for parrhesia. Democratic consensus is the neutralization of parrhesia, of truth-telling, and of the subjectivation and action that flow from it’. According to Foucault, this outcome is exactly where the bond between parrhesia and democracy becomes dangerous. True discourse can only be expressed as critique and when the imperative to do so fades away, that is, when parrhesia disappears from the notion of democracy, then what remains is a democracy that is reduced to consensus, to the voice of the majority and to passivity. Consequently, following Foucault’s advice to ensure ‘the desubjugation of the subject’ is not just a way of practising critique, it is a necessary feature of democracy that needs to be re-established and strengthened. Only thus can society aspire to new forms of democratic subjectivity (Foucault, 1983: 216, 2011: 5; see also Kelly, 2009: 160; Simons, 1995: 124); because ‘subjectivity is not some thing we are, it is an activity that we do’ (McGushin, 2011: 134; emphasis in original).

This clearly raises questions about whether the current professional commitment of planners best serves a democratic society and, more specifically, what a new subjectivity of a planner as a parrhesiastes would mean in a Swedish institutional context. As Foucault (2001) underlines, ‘the commitment involved in parrhesia is linked … to the fact that the parrhesiastes says something which is dangerous to himself and thus involves a risk’ (p. 13). And, indeed, planners who choose to shoulder the necessary role of resistance to politics might face reprisals, but it might also be the starting point of a new legitimacy for planning. However, according to Harvey (1984), it is questionable whether planners are fully aware of their current commitment, that is, from where they derive their legitimacy. This lack of awareness contributes to keeping planners primarily concerned with restoring the existing social order. In Foucault’s terms, that would involve submitting to the subjectivities imposed by the current politics. And drawing on Dean, it would reflect a practice from where no issues were raised to the level of the universal. I argue here that such commitment does not best serve a democratic society. True democracy needs planners with a professional commitment to problematise truth claims. Given the current political system in Sweden, which emphasises independent governmental agencies, but which nevertheless shows tendencies for these agencies to covertly become ‘instruments for national policy’, I contend that politics has more to gain from encountering civil servants who dare to raise problems that refer to something beyond themselves, than by loyal civil servants that see no other option than to be compliant. However, authority relationships must never stop being challenged and this goes for politicians and planning experts. Only through the development of such a critical ethos within the planning profession will the current neoliberal politicisation of planning encounter the fearless speech it so deeply needs.