The Role of Planning in Anti-Democratic Times

Edited journal issue, 2025

Planning has always been an ambivalent practice. On the one hand, for the ruling powers planning can be a tool to exercise control and establish hierarchies of power. On the other hand, it can be a tool to distribute resources and lay ground for welfare structures. However, the benefits of planning have never included everyone and there is always a need for a critical eye on planning as a governing practice. This critical eye is today urgent as attacks on democratic institutions are now spreading so fast that, according to Freedom House (2021), there is reason to talk about an “antidemocratic turn” in history. Over a few decades, in Europe and elsewhere, there has been an increasing support of far-right and ethno-nationalist parties. Many of these draw on ideologies of white supremacy and disregard fundamental principles of democracy, such as respect for all people’s rights regardless of race, gender, religious beliefs, etc. In a recent report from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), it is stated that in as much as half of the world’s democracies, democracy is currently in retreat. A similar negative tendency is visible among the world’s non-democracies; half of them are becoming significantly more repressive (International IDEA, 2022).

This thematic issue for Urban Planning focuses on the consequences of anti-democratic tendencies for planning practices in different geographical and political contexts and how they risk reinforcing existing un-equal power structures based on e.g., gender, sexuality, class, race and colonial relations (Grange, 2023; Listerborn, 2016). We especially welcome contributions which critically reflect on the effects of current anti-democratic development, what the implications are for different social groups, and what new roles planning must take on in order for it to contribute to new and democratic futures for all.