A Muddled Landscape of Conflicts: What we can Learn about Planning/Conflict Relationship from the Story of Tor Marancia, Rome, and its Unexpected Shift

Our contribution aims at highlighting what we consider as a fundamental ambiguity of the relationship between planning and conflict, a point of view which deserves a wider and deeper reflection in planning theory, whilst more developed, with its own specificities, in policy analysis. In fact, policy analysis considers the inherent conflict potential of planning processes, particularly as the sign of different social demands and rationalities and consequently as a field of inquiry of public policy effectiveness and democratic legitimacy. Differently, planning practices often left these issues as implicit. In our research, we tried to bring nearer the two disciplinary approaches, making use of both the range of analytical and interpretive tools they provide. Through an in-depth case-study analysis, we aim at overcoming here what we see as a sort of simplified duality determined by considering planning as the source or origin of conflict or, vice versa, as a tool for conflict resolution.