Navigating the paradox of consensus: Insights from Amsterdam and Ankara

Abstract

The critique of consensus within post-political literature has characterised the relationship between consensus and conflict as oppositional. Drawing on an in-depth re-reading of Habermasian theory of communicative action and a comparative inquiry in to the experience of planning practitioners in Amsterdam and Ankara informed by Forester’s critical pragmatism, we propose that the relationship between consensus and conflict is dynamic and mutually constitutive, rather than simply oppositional, with planners serving as expert authorities. In both cities, consensus is regarded as an alternative to authoritarian approaches in planning and as a mechanism for addressing citizens’ demands and disagreements. The findings further indicate that planners in Amsterdam actively pursue consensus-seeking, while those in Ankara encounter difficulties due to political pressure. Although there are challenges and limitations associated with this approach, the article concludes that discontinuing the use of consensus is not considered a viable option in local planning processes.

Keywords

consensus conflict planning practitioner expert authority Habermas

Introduction

Consensus occupies a paradoxical place in planning theory — celebrated as the cornerstone of communicative and collaborative practice, yet increasingly contested through post-foundational critiques that question its theoretical foundations and practical relevance. This article re-examines the concept by providing an in-depth analysis of its affirmative aspects, particularly within Habermas’s theory of communicative action (TCA) and communicative planning theory (CPT), and by addressing critiques from post-foundational perspectives and their repercussions in planning scholarship.

Consensus is an approach, a way of collective decision-making that arises out of the need to create a common ground for coordinated action in society. Its universal significance and relevance persist within the planning discipline particularly with the rise of communicative/collaborative planning (Forester, 1989, 1993, 1999; Healey, 1992, 1996, 1997; Innes, 1995; Innes and Booher, 1999; Sager, 2018 etc.). This turn positioned the consensus-seeking approach at the core of planning practice, establishing it as the mainstream orientation within the field (Allmendinger and Haughton, 2012). Consensus has also become a highly contested concept (Mattila, 2016; 2020), often discussed in the framework of a binary opposition with conflict. This oppositional configuration was largely articulated through post-foundational - critiques of consensual governance, which diagnosed the latter as inaugurating a post-political condition, wherein ‘the political’ retreated in the name of consensus, power differences and inequalities were rendered invisible, and a democratic deficit was consequently instituted (Mouffe, 1999, 2005; Rancière, 1999, 2001, 2010; Swyngedouw, 2005, 2009). Under the influence of these discussions, communicative planning became subject to substantial criticism that questioned its neglect of power dynamics in societal interactions and its relevance for real-life planning practice (e.g. Allmendinger and Haughton, 2012; Flyvbjerg, 1998a; Hillier, 2000, 2003; Huxley, 2000; Kaza, 2006; McGuirk, 2001; Pløger, 2001; Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger, 1998; Yiftachel, 1998). While planning thought has gradually moved beyond this binary understanding of consensus and conflict, with scholarship exploring how they may coexist or even reinforce one another in planning processes (Legacy, 2017; Legacy et al., 2019; Özdemir-Ulutaş, 2019, 2021; Silver et al., 2010), this reframing remains at the margins of a field long shaped by an entrenched oppositional logic. Across much of the theoretical and empirical literature, consensus and conflict are treated as mutually exclusive orientations—whether explicitly articulated or implicitly assumed— thereby framing critiques of communicative planning and the calls for agonistic alternatives (e.g. Bäcklund and Mäntysalo, 2010; Hillier, 2003; Lee and Allmendinger, 2024; McClymont, 2011; Metzger, 2018; Pløger, 2004, 2018; Rannila and Loivaranta, 2015; Wilson and Swyngedouw, 2014; Verloo, 2018).

Against this backdrop, and motivated by the need to move beyond the impasse of the consensus–conflict binary, this article intervenes where dominant oppositional framings leave the most room for reconsideration. From this starting point, we aim to examine the relationship between consensus and conflict in both theoretical contexts and actual planning processes, investigating the positioning of planners as expert authorities. Since we take the view that a comparative inquiry helps assess the strengths and limitations of consensus in planning, offering a realistic understanding of its relevance to real-life practice and addressing criticisms about its applicability, we draw on a comparative qualitative research on Amsterdam and Ankara, based on in-depth semi-structured interviews, to examine how urban planners in these cities approach consensus. Our engagement with practitioners at this point can perhaps best be captured by Forester’s critical pragmatism, since we are interested in what planners do in the face of public policy conflicts and how they engage in crafting agreements to address real needs and interests (Forester, 2012). Drawing on the results of this study, we propose a revised definition of consensus that facilitates a deeper understanding of its mutually constitutive and dynamic relationship with conflict. Rather than viewing consensus as a fixed agreement of all, we conceptualize it as an ongoing process of addressing and resolving conflicts to achieve a mutually agreed-upon outcome. Referring to discussions on epistemic authority within deliberative democracy, we further argue that, while Habermasian ‘force of the better argument’ theoretically provides a critical standard to prioritize communicative over instrumental reasoning, the reality of planning might opt for the force of the expert argument in the pursuit of collective interests.

The article is structured as follows: We first present consensus in planning theory as a paradox requiring resolution. Next, we critically review literature on consensus, examining how it is valued, criticised, and reflected in planning debates, with an emphasis on its relationship to conflict. We then discuss our case study findings regarding consensus, conflict, and planners’ roles. Finally, we summarise our key arguments and call for a reconsideration of consensus in planning.

The paradox of consensus

In recent decades, planning theory literature has been significantly influenced by theories of radical democracy, such as those advanced by Rancière (1999, 2001, 2010) and Mouffe (1999, 2005), as well as the post-political critique (Swyngedouw, 2005, 2009), which emphasize conflict and disagreement as essential for fostering democracy and equality. Notions such as consensus and participation are increasingly problematized and contested for masking inequalities and creating a democratic deficit. In parallel, critique of CPT has gained a prominent place in the planning literature. Such a negative interpretation of consensus persists over the years, while the idea of Mouffean agonistic pluralism has become influential (e.g. Bäcklund and Mäntysalo, 2010; Bond, 2011; Brand and Gaffikin, 2007; Glover, 2012; Gunder, 2003; Hillier, 2003; Legacy, 2017; McClymont, 2011; Mouat et al., 2013; Pløger, 2004, 2018). This debate, spanning over two decades, has led to a broadly shared recognition of the necessity for urban planning to accommodate conflict more effectively. Although perspectives on alternatives vary, critical planning scholarship has largely reached consensus in its critique.

Such an emphasis on conflict and disagreement, despite the strong sense of engagement it brings into planning towards societal inequalities, leads to a paradox in planning theory. The paradox stems from planning’s resistance-orientation, despite being an action-oriented field or, as Forester (1999) describes it, a form of practical public action. Furthermore, it is not only a political activity, but also an administrative endeavour (Mattila, 2016), requiring decisions to be made at specific times and locations. This decision can be to go on with, cancel or postpone a planning proposal due to disagreements and for consideration of alternatives. Similarly, individuals may agree to disagree when they acknowledge significant differences, particularly in the context of moral disagreements, as highlighted by Gutmann and Thompson (1996). Nevertheless, a decision must be made, as planning practitioners, unlike social scientists, are expected to take action (Porter, 2011). If they abandon one proposal due to disagreements, they keep trying to find another to reach common goals. Thus, as Dryzek (2005) argues, the emphasis on conflict and particularly the Mouffean ideas leave no room for collective decision-making and resolution of social problems. Second, this implicitly -if not explicitly- absolute conflict/resistance orientation has the risk of exacerbating the uncertainties and yielding to Realrationalität (Flyvbjerg, 1998b), or, more precisely, to the interests of the neoliberal market logic rather than the collective interests (Özdemir-Ulutaş, 2021). As argued by Legacy et al. (2019), there is need to ‘be cautious not to over-generalize, recognizing that conflict can also result in the further oppression of some populations’. Put simply, ongoing conflict can backfire and cause the very outcome it was meant to avoid. This latter point also has empirical reflections. The committed and, as Forester (2012) describes, critically pragmatic efforts of practitioners to achieve positive results in complex, market-driven environments are frequently overlooked. Instead, these contributions are often subsumed under the broader narrative of planners marginalized by prevailing power structures that utilize consensus as a means to circumvent collective interests (Tasan-Kok et al., 2019). In summary, planning scholarship must address this paradox due to its political responsibility in tackling complex, evolving urban issues that demand collaboration.

Unpacking consensus and its relationship with conflict

In addressing this paradox, we need to pose a new look to consensus-conflict relationship. To do so, we turn to Habermas since his work provides the most influential theoretical grounding for understanding consensus not as a mere outcome, but as a communicative process that exposes and negotiates conflicts in the pursuit of social integration. His TCA (Habermas, 1984, 1987) is considered the root of CPT, which has attracted serious critique from the planning academia as previously noted. These critics are themselves criticized for making an unelaborate examination of Habermasian notions (Mattila, 2016). We think that Mattila’s assessment is fair. Accordingly, we should recall that Habermas has built TCA as a paradigm-changing alternative to teleological action. In doing so, his aim is to tackle the problem of societal rationalization and social integration, in which communication pursuing consensus has a critical and even indispensable role. What he means by social integration is not a process based on sacred foundations or those given by tradition, in other words, on basic religious consensus (Habermas, 1987: 82), but on ‘consensus that is achieved communicatively, that is agreed upon’ (Habermas 1984: 255), namely through communicative rationality. The purpose of consensus formation in this framework is not achieving one’s own goals, but it entails a collective goal that coordinates one’s action plans with those of others (Habermas, 1984: 113-114; Habermas, 1987: 262).

As opposed to Habermas, Mouffe and Rancière accord a negative meaning to consensus, treating it as an impossible and undesirable end point. The relationship built between consensus and conflict is strictly oppositional, just like war and peace. According to Rancière, consensus is ‘a topography of the visible, of what is possible in which war and peace are lodged (Rancière, 2010: viii). According to Rancière, once there was a time of war,

…when people wanted more than what there was: not simply economic groups but social classes, not simply a population but a people, not simply various different interests to align with one another but worlds in conflict, not simply a future to predict but a future to liberate (Rancière, 2010: viii).

In this metaphoric framework, consensus becomes the peace — not a generative or emancipatory peace, but a pacification that forecloses the very possibility of contestation. For Rancière, consensus does not signify the productive, reason-driven deliberation that Habermas envisions in the TCA; rather, it signals the erasure of disagreement itself, a flattening of the political landscape in which competing worlds, claims, and voices are rendered invisible or illegitimate. Where Habermas sees consensus as the horizon of rational communicative action — an outcome achieved through the ‘force of the better argument’ — Rancière sees it as the suppression of the dissensus that makes genuine politics possible.

Mouffe too accords an oppositional nature to the relationship between consensus and conflict. In this vein, she has argued that consensus approach inadvertently reinforces hegemonic discourse and existing power relations (Mouffe, 2000). Extending this critique, she has argued that ‘every consensus exists as a temporary result of a provisional hegemony, as a stabilization of power, and that it always entails some form of exclusion’ (Mouffe, 2005:105). It is something of an ‘empty signifier’ (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985), in which the content is provided by a plurality of demands. She further defines conflict in terms of agonistic strife and of disagreements between adversaries (Mouffe, 2000, 2005). Moreover, she sees the rational debate seeking consensus as an illusion, endangering the democratic institutions (Mouffe, 2000).

Consensus critique has been highly influential in the planning literature. Hillier (2002) critically problematizes the tendency to treat communicative rationality as a universally shared human property, contending that this assumption marginalizes alternative modes of expressions, including emotions, visual communication, and non-deliberative forms of democratic engagement. In a similar vein, consensus-seeking processes have been denounced as carefully managed and choreographed by experts, limiting the scope of debate and minimizing opportunities for conflicting views to be meaningfully expressed (Allmendinger and Haughton, 2012). Allmendinger and Haughton perceived consensus not as a solution to democratic issues but as a democratic problem in itself. Gunder and Hillier (2004) argued that efforts to achieve total consensus in planning were inherently flawed, as consensus was always incomplete and inevitably excludes certain perspectives. Further critiques have emphasized that the consensus approach fails to respect differences and conflicts, treating them as disruptive elements that need to be resolved rather than essential elements of the planning process (Beaumont and Nicholls, 2008; Krueger and Buckingham, 2012; Olesen, 2014; Porter, 2011) and risks supporting neoliberalization (Purcell, 2009). Another line of critique against communicative planning, observed by Mattila (2016), pinpoints a scale-mismatch between its predominant concern with the contexts of everyday planning practice and Habermas’s abstract and broad theories. While his later works were less explicit about local participatory practices (Mattila, 2016), his development of TCA considered communication at both macro and micro levels, including social-welfare state functions like urban planning, transportation, energy and water policy¹.

At this juncture, it is important to underline that, while we recognize the force and the value of critiques regarding the role of consensus in reinforcing hegemonic discourse, and their repercussions in planning theory, we have disagreements. First, we would nuance the claim that Habermas treats communicative rationality as a universally shared human property — it is perhaps more accurate to read him as viewing mutual understanding as a potential human ability, one that provides the normative foundation for consensus-seeking in democratic planning, and whose significance should not be too hastily dismissed. Second, while the inclusion of emotions or passions in policy-making and planning processes is valuable insofar as it renders planning more accommodating and inclusive of diverse experiences and perspectives, it also carries risks — not least the potential for collective decision-making to be swayed by emotional extremes, including outbursts of anger or fear, that may undermine rather than enrich deliberation. Third, –and this point constitutes the central concern of the present article-, while critiques of consensus-based planning have proliferated and agonistic alternatives have gained increasing credibility, they have reinforced the mutually exclusive and oppositional understanding of consensus and conflict. This understanding has become deeply entrenched in planning scholarship, although the reality of planning tells a different story, -a situation which we consider paradoxical. This tendency has not gone entirely unnoticed as we have mentioned before. It further resonates with the broader concern raised by Innes and Booher (2015), about the dividing discourses in contemporary planning theory, which they saw as an obstacle to building richer and more robust theory. Accordingly, this article, proposes a less oppositional and mutually constitutive and dynamic relationship between consensus and conflict, elaborating this position both theoretically and empirically in the discussion that follows.

Consensus as a process of seeking and settling conflicts

A careful re-reading of Habermasian TCA suggests that consensus is a process of seeking and settling conflicts and disagreements. The emphasis is not on consensus as a static outcome, but on consensus formation that rests on rational argumentation. Here, an argumentative speech is assumed to have a unifying and consensus-bringing force (Habermas, 1984: 10). As long as there are arguments based on reasoning and there are better ones, consensus is, at least in theory, possible. Thus, he does not see consensus as a fixed point of destination but a process whose result is indefinite. Consensus can be achieved, sustained, and renewed through communicative practice (Habermas, 1984: 17). Consensus formation can be occasional, feeble and fragmentary (Habermas, 1984: 128-129). ‘With every sequence of interaction, communicative actors … are groping from one problematic, momentary consensus to the next’. (Habermas, 1984: 124). Therefore, he uses the term ‘consensus formation’ more often than consensus itself. This idea of consensus as a process is also adopted in CPT. Like Habermas, Innes prefers the term ‘consensus-formation’ rather than mere consensus (Innes, 1996). For her, it is a collective search for common ground and the opportunities for mutual benefit (Innes, 1996), that has outcomes beyond the sum of the expectations of stakeholders such as social learning, network power, new ideas, and new institutional forms (Innes, 2004).

It is critical to note that consensus is understood not merely as a catalyst for generating new ideas, but also as a forum for the articulation of disagreements. It follows, therefore, that consensus-building can genuinely counteract market-driven authoritarian tendencies, rather than being co-opted by them, under conditions which are arguably embedded in the very properties that Habermas, Healey, and Innes attribute to the process itself. According to Habermas, processes of reaching an understanding are aimed at a consensus that depends on the intersubjective recognition of validity claims, and these claims can be reciprocally raised and fundamentally criticized by participants in communication’ (Habermas, 1984: 136). In that respect, he grounds communicative action ‘in the possibility of settling disagreements by adducing reasons’ (Habermas, 1987: 76), but not in avoiding or marginalizing them. Thus, there is room for criticism in this process; speakers in communication ‘relativize their utterances against the possibility that their validity will be contested by other actors’ (Habermas, 1984: 99). This line of thought, incorporating criticism and questioning into consensus-building, is further developed in CPT. Accordingly, for Healey (2003), consensus needs careful critical scrutiny and is best understood as a fragile, incomplete, and contestable outcome, which may or may not have enduring effects in structuring subsequent relations. For Innes (2004), it is ‘a self-organizing process unconstrained by conveners in its time or content and which permits the status quo and all assumptions to be questioned’. In a word, it is precisely when consensus-seeking remains open to fundamental criticism, contestation, and the questioning of all assumptions (Habermas, 1984, 1985; Healey, 2003; Innes, 2004) that it retains its emancipatory potential and resists being reduced to a mere instrument of legitimation for neoliberal authoritarian logic.

Studies in the planning literature that have criticized the binary understanding of consensus and conflict have sustained this emphasis on process, by demonstrating that agonism (or conflict) and communicative action (or consensus-seeking) can co-exist in processes (Beaumont and Loopmans, 2008; Habermas, 1987; Bond, 2011; Fougère and Bond, 2016; Inch, 2015; Legacy, 2017; Özdemir-Ulutaş, 2021; Silver et al., 2010). More specifically, Legacy (2017) emphasized the co-existence of formal engagement mechanisms and citizen-led contestation; namely consensus and dissensus. Similarly, Legacy et al. (2019) characterised consensus and conflict as co-constitutive and continuously being shaped by the performance of politics by state and non-state actors. For them, the conflict and consensus relationship was a complex one and it was no longer appropriate to fashion either consensus or conflict as one being more desirable than the other (Legacy et al., 2019). There are also empirically informed studies that shows planning processes involve both conflictual and consensual sub-processes and approaches (Audikana, 2021; Özdemir-Ulutaş, 2019; Pickerill and Chatterton, 2006). This article provides a detailed and a more specific analysis of the mutually constitutive and dynamic relationship between consensus and conflict, focusing specifically on how these dynamics are experienced by planners.

Force of the better argument vs. expert argument

Habermas accords ontological priority to communicative over teleological action. Consensus enables the coordination of individually pursued action plans, not through egocentric calculations of success but through acts of reaching understanding (Habermas, 1984: 285-286) for which language is the medium. There is a notion of collective interest in consensus building, rather than an aggregation of individual interests (Innes, 1996). The argumentation to reach consensus here is not any kind of argumentation, but a rational one. Verständigung (mutual understanding) rather than mere Verstehen (understanding) gets importance, and the former requires conditions of an ideal speech situation. However, the critics present a contrary perspective. According to Tewdwr-Jones and Allmendinger (1998), there is a certain level of ‘irrationality’ in Habermasian discourse ethics. As they have contended, it is unrealistic to expect individuals with divergent opinions to completely abandon their views after discourse and refrain from using other means to achieve their desired outcomes. Gunder and Hillier (2004) likened the ideal of consensus to the Lacanian concept of the impossible Real—an unattainable utopian dream rather than a reflection of actual social realities. Similarly, it is unlikely that an industrialist would be convinced by rational argument to reduce pollution if it meant lowering output or increasing costs at the expense of profit. On the other hand, a re-reading of Habermas shows that he does not put forward the ideal speech situation as one that should be accomplished but as ‘a critical standard that can also be used to call into question any factually attained consensus and to examine whether it is a sufficient indicator of real mutual understanding’ (Habermas, 2001: 97). Put differently, for him and within CPT, the role of such idealizations is not to provide a utopian vision of undistorted communication but rather serve as yardsticks for measuring the rationality of existing institutions and decisions (Blaug, 1999: 12; Forester, 1993; Healey, 2003). Nevertheless, the question of how this yardstick function will be implemented remains a weak spot in both TCA and its successor, CPT.

The notion of expert authority (or epistemic authority) has a key role in tackling this weak spot. While Habermas identifies ‘an elitist splitting-off of expert cultures from contexts of communicative action in daily life’ (Habermas, 1987: 330) as a central pathology of modernity, arguing that it systematically forecloses the meaningful integration of expert knowledge into the communicative lifeworld, he does not further theorize the conditions under which this process might be prevented, limited, or reversed. This issue has received limited attention within planning theory too, both in consensus-based and conflict-based frameworks. However, it has been addressed in research at the intersection of deliberative democracy and science and technology studies, as evidenced in the works of Mansbridge et al. (2012) and Moore (2017). Adopting a systemic approach to deliberative democracy, Mansbridge et al. (2012) argue that there is a division of labour among parts of a system in society, each with its different deliberative strengths and weaknesses, similar to the Habermasian two-track view of deliberation among ‘weak’ publics as opposed to more formal legislative deliberation. Accordingly, ‘a single part, which in itself may have low or even negative deliberative quality with respect to one of several deliberative ideals, may nevertheless make an important contribution to an overall deliberative system’ (Mansbridge et al., 2012). Expert communities in this framework are typical examples of such a negative deliberative quality. Here, the nuance between ‘belief in’ and ‘acceptance of’ the expert authority is crucial (Moore, 2017), which refers to an understanding of deference to expert authority as a spectrum, ranging from blind belief to forms of reflective acceptance. In line with this argument, in situations when an ideal speech situation is unattainable, not even as a critical standard, acceptance of planner authority, or in other words, force of the expert authority becomes necessary against the possibility of rationality of power (Flyvbjerg, 1998b) to take control, especially under conditions of high risk, uncertainty, urgency, or the existence of a macro-level strategy. What is meant here by planner’s authority is not domination or imposition of a single truth, but the use of ‘power-over’ of planner’s authority that is ‘justifiable when it is motivated by attempts to gain power-to, in terms of advancing the common good’ (Mäntysalo et al., 2023). Furthermore, planners, who function in a terrain of competing interests many of which are particularistic, tend to favour the force of the expert authority rather than that of the better argument. We will clarify what we mean in presenting our case.

The case: Consensus from the perspective of planners in Amsterdam and Ankara

In this section, we aim to elucidate our arguments drawing on our comparative case study. The contexts of Amsterdam and Ankara are appropriate for two reasons. First, at the national level, there are fundamental differences between them, enabling a critical comparison of ‘most different cases’ (Pickvance, 1986), which is particularly relevant in light of the calls for more research drawing on diverse urban experiences and the potential of such comparison for enriching the processes of theory building (Robinson, 2011). As for the methodology of data collection, we have conducted twenty-two semi-structured in-depth interviews with planners working for the Municipality of Amsterdam and planners in Ankara (from Ankara Metropolitan Municipality and two district municipalities). The time frame in which we have conducted the interviews covers the period from 2015 to 2024². The five interviews conducted in 2024 were specifically designed as follow-up interviews to update the empirical picture rather than to constitute a new and independent round of data collection. While limited in number, they proved sufficient for this purpose, as the views expressed by the planners interviewed showed a broad continuity with those collected in earlier rounds³. To analyse the data, we conducted a content analysis, a widely used data analysis method in qualitative research (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005; Ratcliff, 2008). We focused on municipal planners in both contexts. These aspects altogether constitute the rationale behind our case choice. We present the findings of our research in the following three subsections.

Contrasting the Netherlands and Türkiye: Consensus, conflict and (un)democratic culture

Significant contextual distinctions exist between the two countries regarding societal dynamics, political structures, and economic frameworks. The Netherlands, within the Western world, underwent the Industrial Revolution and following World War II, achieved the status of a robust welfare state. It gained international recognition for the polder model—a Dutch adaptation of consensus-driven economic and social policymaking developed in the 1980s and 1990s, with origins tracing back to the post-war era when corporatist arrangements shaped Dutch economic life (De Vries, 2015). Within this framework, interest groups participate in policy formation based on agreements between business and government (Tasan-Kok and Korthals Altes, 2012). Moreover, the tradition of consensus stems from historical efforts to address collective needs, such as securing land in a country where 27% lies below sea level and rebuilding after wartime destruction (Özdemir-Ulutaş and Taşan-Kok, 2019). Despite the effects of neoliberal policies, causing urban developments to be increasingly the result of private initiatives and investments (Straatemeier et al., 2010), planning is still highly institutionalized, where consensus building is the key approach in the decision-making process and is rooted in institutions, values, and aspirations. Türkiye, on the other hand, initiated its westernization process gradually during the late Ottoman period and adopted radical reforms in the early Republican era from the 1930s to the 1950s, coinciding with a period of industrialization (Tekeli, 2001). The country’s economic integration with the global economy and capitalist development continued throughout the 1950s. Unlike the historically entrenched culture of consensus in the Netherlands, Türkiye has been a country of deep and ongoing conflicts, not only along ethnic and religious lines but also regarding positive and negative attitudes toward westernization. These persistent tensions have shaped Turkish society and often resulted in significant polarization between opposing groups. On the other hand, Türkiye’s planning system, like many other policy fields, is highly structured, hierarchical, and bureaucratic, largely thanks to earlier westernization efforts. However, it is governed through increasingly more authoritarian policies and practices regardless of governance arrangements (Ay, 2019; Eraydın and Taşan-Kok, 2014; Karaman, 2014; Köse and Penpecioğlu, 2026; Kuyucu, 2022; Özdemir and Eraydin, 2017), which shows characteristics of a hybrid regime. Therefore, the Netherlands and Turkey are powerful examples of their own context, consensual and non-consensual respectively. The institutionalized and consensus-oriented Dutch urban planning system ensures a certain level of citizen participation and accountability through formal and non-formal mechanisms, yet, as a part of the general critical debate on consensus-based governance, it is also criticized for excluding conflict from its domain leading to anti-democratic practices. That being the case, there is generally a negative attitude among Dutch planners against the expert-based blueprint planning and a positive one towards consensus-seeking. The Turkish one, on the other hand, is increasingly neoliberal-authoritarian in nature and has a low level of institutionalization. The rules and regulations are in force yet involve uncertainties (Kuyucu, 2014, 2022), are fragmented and open to bypassing for the benefit of the private developers, leading to implementation problems (Ünsal and Türk, 2014). This situation also makes the Turkish planning context open to conflictual and antagonistic relationships that aggravate due to a lack of consensus-oriented governance mechanisms. In this framework, as we will clarify in what follows, Turkish planners’ negative attitude is more towards state-led neoliberal and authoritarian decision making favouring private interests than expert domination. It is noteworthy to mention as a final point that planning authority is largely accepted as legitimate in both contexts. However, they have been put in question at different times in their respective planning histories. Squatters’ movements in the Netherlands around 1960s and 1970s and more recent Gezi protests against the destruction of an urban park in Istanbul along with resistance against certain urban renewal projects in Türkiye are examples of such conflictual moments.

Consensus not as an endpoint but as a process of seeking and settling conflicts

The findings of our case study indicate that consensus is not a static endpoint but a search process. To begin with, it is noteworthy to state that neither the Dutch nor the Turkish planners we interviewed had an unquestioning and entirely positive opinion about consensus. However, we could easily see that Dutch planners’ attitude towards consensus in general was more positive, while the Turkish planners were more cautious. Additionally, the planners’ accounts pertained not to the achievement or absence of consensus, but rather to the ongoing process of seeking consensus, which encompassed their interactions with other participants. Consensus could obviously be fragile, incomplete, and contestable as Healey (2003) once argued, but what seemed to matter to the planners in both Amsterdam and Ankara was the communication processes of seeking it. In what follows, we further explicate these points by making direct reference to our interviews.

As Özdemir-Ulutaş and Taşan-Kok, 2019 have shown, Dutch planners employ both formal and informal mechanisms, as well as personal initiatives to interact with people, listen to their concerns regarding planning proposals, and reach a collective agreement. They were also critical against the post-war technocratic planning. One of the Dutch planners gave the example of the construction of the metro line in Amsterdam and seemed to have taken a lesson from this past experience:

‘The metro that connected the new area to the city centre led to a large-scale protest because the whole area had to be torn down and our conclusion was that the idea the planners had about the city was not a place where people wanted to live. This led to a giant crisis in planning. This whole top-down planning machine riddled with holes. No… If we think we have a good plan, a good idea, we will always start by engaging with the public at a very early stage. Because people don’t adhere to the planners' vision. Do not decide how the city will look like, let the people decide. An era of citizen participation later became a part of the planning process.’ (Amsterdam-P1)

The planners we interviewed were also eager to share their experiences regarding consensus-seeking processes. One of them mentioned inspraakavonden (public hearings) as gatherings that enable planning proposals to be discussed, and residents can reflect on what they think about the politically responsible persons and planners. One interviewee stated, “It doesn’t always change what is happening, but it is the way to directly influence the planning, by letting us know what the neighbourhood thinks of a plan. That is the normal procedure. When needed, and quite often, spontaneous discussions are also organized.” (Amsterdam-P2). Another Dutch planner emphasized the different ways of involving citizens:

I try to start at the beginning with communication and ask people what are you interested in? What is important for you? So, you can build up your plans step by step in interaction with people. Other means, other channels are for example to use social media, ask questions, go to people at home and speak to them. Ask and see how they live. So there are many different ways to get in contact. (Amsterdam-P3).

Not being selective in communication was important, as one of the Dutch planners pointed out: ‘I ask people. Not as stakeholders, but everybody. Like you, me, or anybody. And, they can decide what is in their interest. I am not going to decide that for them.’ (Amsterdam-P4). Another Dutch planner provided the example of a process in which citizens were asked to come up with ideas for the new zoning plan, which was then catalogued (Amsterdam-P5). Co-designing with citizens was mentioned as an implemented urban design method by another planner (Amsterdam-P6).

Not only new ideas and co-working, but compromise is seen as a vital part of consensus and conflict axis (Chan and Protzen, 2019). One of the planners in Amsterdam stated: ‘We try to make compromises and a plan about which everybody is content with’ (Amsterdam-P7). As an example for making compromises in planning processes, the same planner mentioned a proposal for a new highway between Amsterdam airport and the eastern suburbs, which required the construction of a tunnel in the natural preservation area. However, the conservationist lobby strongly opposed the proposal, and it was rejected by the national government. Instead, existing highways that ran through the city were widened. According to the planner who gave that example, people in the city made a compromise by accepting that choice because huge screens around these highways would be built, which was thought to be better than the existing situation. So, a ‘deliberative acceptance’ (Moore, 2017) on the part of citizens took place.

The planners from Amsterdam we interviewed in 2024 (Amsterdam-P9, P10) mentioned the municipality’s recent initiative, ‘samen stad maken’, which means ‘making city together’, when we asked about their experience with consensus. They both stated that the aim of this initiative was to carry out the planning process as a consensus-based planning. One of them made the following comment when he was asked to explain how effective consensus-seeking was in the long term:

There are stages in planning from ideas to designing, then to implementation and finally to the stage of correcting. The more you go on with the implementation, the bigger is the impact of citizens on planning, despite their pessimism about the process in the beginning. I mean, in the first stages, people are making suggestions and they doubt that these will be taken into account. But it is an element of time. Their views are in fact taken into account but years have passed, they have moved to somewhere else or nobody is telling them that their input is used. So, the input should be kept aside and be explained later with reasons. Planning is a long process involving constant circles, circles over time that you register the inputs and bring back when necessary. (Amsterdam-P9).

He further added that they were in a new process to formalize the steps: ‘The ambition of the municipality is now to formalize the consensus-seeking process. There is more attention now to follow specific steps defined in a stronger way. We have a Department of Democratization to make a plan for consensus-building.’ (Amsterdam-P9). The other planner we interviewed in 2024 was the most critical one in Amsterdam towards what he called the consensus planning: ‘Consensus planning is not the ideal way to fight the status-quo and the power dynamics’ (Amsterdam-P10), yet his further comments were in line with a process understanding of consensus to seek and settle conflicts:

This is the down side to consensus planning. But it has also many benefits. There is a tendency to be technocratic in planning; to have the idea: “we know what is good for the city”. Trying to find out a consensus with other stakeholders diminished the technocratic degree of how we work. And in a democracy it is important for different groups in the society to be knowledgeable of others’ perspectives, emotions, interests to find a middle ground. It is a way to avoid further polarization. Consensus planning makes this possible. (Amsterdam-P10).

Turkish planners, too, have a generally positive but comparably more sceptical approach to consensus-seeking processes than their Dutch counterparts. However, their scepticism has more pragmatic foundations than that of radical democrats concerning consensus. Unlike their Dutch counterparts who had concerns regarding technocracy, the planners from Ankara we interviewed in 2018 were extremely concerned about the neoliberal authoritarian approach of the time. One of the planners we interviewed stated that, as a result, there was almost no room left for planning, let alone consensus formation (Ankara-P8). However, later in 2024, this pessimism seemed to have been replaced by realism. When asked what exactly they understand from the concept of consensus, one planner stated that ‘it is a process where we seek consensus on a proposal, a consensus which will satisfy everyone as far as possible, bearing in mind that 100% satisfaction for all is impossible since the city has a wide variety of dynamics’. (Ankara-P9).

Another Turkish planner gave an example of a planning process where she worked at a local municipal office and had a good chance to interact with people. Based on this experience, she made the following comment:

In a planning area a few years ago, we held many meetings. Almost all members of the public were invited to one of them -those who wanted to come. We also organized surveys. We asked: What do you want here? What kind of an environment would you like to live in? We also aimed to prevent the private contractors from deceiving them. However, these efforts were not overall very useful because their background and education was not at a level that would give sincere answers to these questions. Therefore, most institutions are ready to do their part in terms of citizen involvement, but there are questions about how healthy and applicable the information that will come in return. (Ankara-P10).

Her comments suggested that she viewed consensus as a process of seeking diverse ideas and demands, but she was also sceptical about its flawless operation. Nevertheless, she concluded that ‘consensus seeking should never be abandoned as an option, since it is very useful for planners to have knowledge about the problems and needs of people, those problems and needs that planners cannot know by themselves’. In that respect, they also seem to defend planning rationality as opposed to the rationality of power (Özdemir-Ulutaş, 2021), which is a point which we will address in the next sub-section.

A young Turkish planner, who was working in a project for creating bicycle routes in the city, underlined the importance of conflict in planning. She would ‘prefer to search for conflicts rather than consensus, because people talk only when you let conflicts arise’. (Ankara-P11). She thought planners needed to ‘create arenas for conflict’ which is a role defined for planners in the agonistic model (Devos and Loopmans, 2021). But, when asked what she meant by conflict and how they pass to decision-making from conflicting views, her answer implied a process of consensus seeking:

What I mean by conflict is already conflict in communication. Letting and encouraging people talk and express their differences, disagreements. Enabling this around the same table and find the compromise in this conflict. I mean a process of searching for consensus in which conflicts are allowed to surface. For example, I love to listen to the fierce discussion between those who support motor vehicles and those who support bicycles. I remember one man who was almost obsessed with monorail system and thought it would end the transportation problem of the city. But when he discussed with a woman from the General Directorate of Railway Transport and listened to her explanations about why monorail would not be good in that context, then he was convinced. If you prepare the necessary conditions for discussion, with an appropriate venue, good moderation, attendance of related people, and a relaxed atmosphere where different views are welcome, people discuss and began to accept different views.

Furthermore, when we asked her if she saw a tension, a dichotomous relation between conflict and consensus, her answer was: ‘I have always thought there was a tension in between in general. And in planning processes, it is the planners who will break this dichotomy’. Finally, the comments from the young planners from both cities were similar in that they took a more critical approach to consensus. However, while speaking in reference to their experience in planning practice, they both were more positive towards consensus and even switched to a discourse not so different than the proponents of CPT as the last two quotes from each city show. This situation highlights an internal contradiction faced by planning practitioners, who have knowledge of the recent discussions in the planning literature; they utilize the consensus approach in practice and criticize it in theory. This last point is particularly interesting since it manifests the aforementioned paradox of the planning theory in the experience of planners from totally different planning contexts and suggests further research at the nexus of planning theory, practice, and education.

Force of the expert argument and the role of the planner in consensus-seeking processes

Planners are positioned in the relationship between conflict and consensus as expert authorities. This issue came up especially in interviews with planners in Ankara, particularly when they started to share their reservations about consensus for they did not find it totally realistic, if not utopic. However, their reservations were not in line with those of the post-foundational or planning theorists following them, rather the opposite. One of the Turkish planners particularly emphasized that ‘people who have knowledge and who do not have property-based motives should have a say in final decisions.’ (Ankara-P3). In relation to this, three planners (Ankara-P7, 8, 9) emphasized the lack of social and physical analysis before making plans and a comprehensive look at the planning issues. One of them said: ‘Especially project-based interventions such as high-rise prestige buildings are built without having any consideration on how this new building will affect the traffic and whether the transportation axes around are adequate’ (Ankara-P7). Such concerns about comprehensiveness, private interests or property-based motives vis-à-vis the public interest were not mentioned by the Dutch planners. This has basically economic reasons as we stress in presenting the contextual differences between the two cases. In that respect, conflicts in the Netherlands is less about material needs than lived experiences (MacLeod and McFarlane, 2014). One of the planners in Amsterdam said that the main disputes they faced were about the location and distribution of green zones and about who would be provided with new homes: families, poor people, expats, or single people (Amsterdam-P10). On the other hand, property ownership is very important and increasingly challenging in Turkey, forcing people to secure their future by having a real estate of their own rather than renting in an inflationary environment. Parallel to this, most of the planners from Ankara that we interviewed (Ankara-P3, P4, P7, P8, P9) stated that planning disputes were generally property-based in the Turkish context. P9 from Ankara made a more specific comment on her concerns about particularistic interests by referring to the importance of the expert authority:

I have seen how difficult it is for planners to interact with people. I think that for participation, the society needs to have some knowledge and be able to think in a truly holistic way. They should not be participating just for their own interests, to get what they want, to protect their building plots, to get 2 more flats from there.... Of course there should be the civil society involvement, but I do not think it is good to involve everybody… So, there should be consensus seeking but there should also be an authority, a responsible, knowledgeable and an experienced one, who will have the final word’. (Ankara-P9).

Although acceptance of the expert authority (see Moore, 2017) and deference to expert decisions were not stressed by the Amsterdam planners in general unlike most of the planners in Ankara, the need for public intervention was also emphasized by some of the planners in Amsterdam, particularly in certain case of important global developments or market uncertainty. An Amsterdam planner explained this as follows: ‘Although there is a lot of citizen involvement, the main decisions are still made top-down. And it should be so. You can oppose certain things but you cannot stop all developments’ (Amsterdam-P1). Another planner in Amsterdam added: ‘What I recognize is the tension between having control; making blueprints at the start of the process and flexibility; making space for individual initiatives and more organic growing’ (Amsterdam-P2). One Amsterdam planner we interviewed in 2024 emphasized the importance of a balanced approach with regards to such a tension:

We need a strong government to solve current problems such as sustainability and climate adaptation. But at the same time it should be in interplay with bottom up movements. We should also be top down when we manage the stakes of the market parties. There should be always a balance. (Amsterdam-P3).

Planners in Ankara also raised concerns about achieving this balance; however, their primary focus was on the implications of neoliberal authoritarian decision-making by influential political elites, distinguishing their perspective from that of their Dutch counterparts. The influence of political elites was not particularly mentioned by the Dutch planners, while most of the planners in Ankara we interviewed before 2019 explicitly complained about the neoliberal authoritarian nature of the planning in their city and the lack of participation. In fact, Turkish planners in general complained not only about lack of citizen participation as argued by Özdemir-Ulutaş, 2023; Penpecioğlu and Taşan-Kok, 2016, but their own exclusion as well, as expressed by one of them: ‘In Turkey, let alone citizens, planners themselves are excluded from the planning process. Decisions are coming from above’, meaning the political elites and other powerful groups in the city (Ankara-P1). Another one stated: ‘We have to implement what the politicians say. What can you do in a context where the location of the 3rd Bridge is determined by the head of government from a helicopter?’ (Ankara-P3). Interestingly, our interviews with planners from Ankara in 2024 indicate that things have not fundamentally changed in terms of political pressure, despite the change in the local government in 2019. One of the planners argued (Ankara-P4): ‘The administration is not as despotic as before, yet politicians are still very effective. It is the Municipal Parliament that approves the plans, and it is made up of rich people with political ties.’ An attitude open to top-down planning in certain cases was also observed. All three planners (Ankara –P4, P5, P6) confidently stated that not everything should be asked to public and certain planning decisions, especially those at the city level had to be made in a top-down manner for unity and coordination. So, a total rejection of top-down decision making, based not on political but on expert authority, was an option neither for Dutch nor for Turkish planners. This shows that the force of the expert argument was favoured by planners as opposed to the force of the better argument. Nevertheless, we do not regard this as an endorsement of restricted citizen participation; rather, it serves as a safeguard against specific forms of instrumental rationality and the predominance of market-driven logic.

Conclusion

The article demonstrates the paradoxical nature of oppositional understanding of the relationship between consensus and conflict in planning theory, proposing a reinterpretation that views them as mutually constitutive and dynamically interrelated. Put differently, consensus and conflict are interdependent and dynamic, not simply oppositional; the experiences of planners illustrate why and how this is the case.

While theoretical critiques from post-political perspectives often highlight the limitations and potential pitfalls of a consensus-based approach such as masking power imbalances and suppressing genuine political engagement, the practical experiences of planners in Amsterdam and Ankara suggest a more nuanced reality. Planners in both contexts generally perceive consensus positively, seeing it as a means of inclusiveness and a necessary component of participatory planning. This perception is not rooted in a belief that consensus is an ultimate solution but rather in the value of the process itself. The interactions and dialogues inherent in seeking consensus allow planners to uncover diverse needs and disagreements, which is crucial for informed decision-making. This aligns with the idea that ‘consensus can be possible and desirable’, offering also a critical pragmatist role for planners as brokers who navigate the complexities of both consensus and conflict.

Readdressing the relationship between conflict and consensus underscores the need to reconsider participation, through which the value and limits of consensus-seeking become more fully legible. At this juncture, it is important to note that while post-political literature effectively questions participation, it often fails to recognize the difference between formal participatory mechanisms and those outside of them. The latter type, as Legacy (2017) argues, is a political act, foregrounding the political subjectivity of citizens. Viewing participation through a sociological perspective, particularly within global Southern contexts, elucidates the inherently political aspects involved. For example, the works of Paulo Freire (Freire, 1970, 1998), Amartya Sen (Drèze and Sen, 2002; Sen, 1999), and Robert Chambers (Chambers, 1983, 1994) have powerfully shown the transformative agency of communication and particularly the power of participation in tackling deep societal problems such as poverty. The legacy of Freire particularly highlights the importance of dialogue as a central mechanism in communication. Following the Freirean legacy, Peruzzo argued that participation was not just a motto but a valid form of popular engagement in communication that can become a stepping-stone for processes of resistance (Peruzzo, 2020), thereby resonating with the idea that ‘protest is not the alternative to or opposite of participation, but its twin’ (Silver et al., 2010). As Özdemir and Eraydin, 2017 indicate, residents in low-income neighbourhoods demonstrate a genuine interest in participatory planning processes, seeking to have a say in shaping the future of their livelihoods. Although, for theoretical clarity, we confine our theoretical interest and framework in this article on theories of democracy in relation to planning theory, we deem it necessary to recall what these positive perspectives on participation have taught us in our discussions with regards to conflict and consensus. There is a need for further studies that build a link between planning theory and the participation studies focusing on the politicizing potential of participation particularly in the global South or in weaker democracies more generally.

In conclusion, the paradox of consensus lies in its dual potential: while it can legitimize market-oriented urban policies, as critics argue, it also has the capacity to foster inclusivity, uncover conflicts and hidden needs, and counteract authoritarian decision-making. This is often overshadowed by the sharp dichotomy between consensus and conflict, where consensus is dismissed as an enabler of neoliberal agendas, and conflict is celebrated as progressive. We addressed this gap in planning theory by offering a more dynamic view of consensus and conflict. Drawing on theoretical discussions and the input from practitioners, we have shown that consensus can both be re-conceptualized and implemented as a process to address conflicts by finding and settling them. On the other hand, by focusing solely on its drawbacks, critics of consensus risk disregarding the constructive role consensus can play in creating participatory and democratic planning processes. The issue is not consensus itself but its instrumentalization within the framework of neoliberal urban governance. While consensus can be co-opted to justify market-driven policies, it also holds the potential to serve as a mechanism for addressing conflicts and resisting authoritarian decision-making. The challenge, therefore, is to shift the focus from rejecting consensus to critically engaging with its application and ensuring it serves public rather than private interests. Therefore, the problem is less about consensus-seeking but more about the instrumentalization of consensus for urban plans and policies of neoliberal capitalism. The role of ‘politics’ in this instrumentalization warrants deeper exploration and critical investigation.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Esin Özdemir-Ulutaş

Ethical considerations

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal participants. There are intervieeves and their verbal consent is obtained at the beginning of the interview and no identifying information is given in the article.

Funding

The part of the research that was conducted in 2015 in Amsterdam was funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). Author(s) received no financial support for the rest of the research and authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

There is no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biographies

Esin ÖZDEMIR-ULUTAŞ studied City and Regional Planning at the Middle East Technical University (METU) and graduated in 2002. She completed her PhD at METU in 2013. Following the completion of her doctoral studies, she conducted research in the Netherlands on the Dutch urban planning system and consensus-oriented urban planning processes. She taught part-time at the Department of City and Regional Planning at Yıldız Technical University until September 2017. She subsequently worked as an Assistant Professor at the Department of City and Regional Planning, Kocaeli University. Since February 2022, she has been employed full-time as an Assistant Professor at the Department of City and Regional Planning, Izmir Institute of Technology.

Tuna TAŞAN-KOK graduated from the Department of City and Regional Planning at Dokuz Eylul University of Izmir. She completed a M.Sc. in Regional Planning at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey 1996. Being awarded by Turkish, Polish, and Hungarian scientific funds, she worked as a research fellow at the Polish and Hungarian Academy of Sciences until 2000. She received a PhD in Social Geography from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, under the supervision of Prof.Dr. Jan van Weesep in 2004. During her PhD, she was awarded a FURS (Foundation for Urban and Regional Research) Grant and a SYLFF (The Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund) Grant. Subsequently, she took up researcher and lectureship positions at the Universities of Leuven (2005-2007), TU Delft, OTB Research for the Built Environment (2007-2015), and University College Roosevelt (2011-2014), before her current position in the Department of Human Geography, Urban Planning and International Development at the UvA in September 2015.

Appendix

List of interviewees.

# Of interviwee		Year	City	Department/Institution
1	Amsterdam-P1	2015	Amsterdam	Municipality of Amsterdam
2	Amsterdam-P2
3	Amsterdam-P3
4	Amsterdam-P4
5	Amsterdam-P5
6	Amsterdam-P6
7	Amsterdam-P7
8	Amsterdam-P8
9	Amsterdam-P9
10	Ankara—P1	2016	Ankara	Metropolitan municipality of Ankara
11	Ankara—P2	2016		Metropolitan municipality of Ankara
12	Ankara—P3	2017		District municipality of Yenimahalle
13	Ankara—P4
14	Ankara—P5
15	Ankara—P6
16	Ankara—P7	2018		District municipality of Çankaya
17	Ankara—P8	2018		District municipality of Çankaya
18	Amsterdam-P10	2024	Amsterdam	Municipality of Amsterdam
19	Amsterdam-P11	2024	Amsterdam	Municipality of Amsterdam
20	Ankara—P9	2024	Ankara	Metropolitan municipality of Ankara
21	Ankara—P10
22	Ankara—P11

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