Planning in the Face of Conflict in Un-Democratic Contexts: Lessons from Two Sicilian Municipalities

Within planning theory, the disciplinary tradition that is more attentive towards conflicts can be placed in a triangular position between politics, citizens and power, where the different research directions can be identified as studies into the élites, the hierarchy of governance and, last but not least, the role of social movements. Through élite theories and theories of classical pluralism, the reflection on conflicts has been measured mostly against the enigma of “who is in power” applied to city management, whereas in the sphere of urban economic policy, questions have mainly regarded the objectives, despite their having to come to terms with the limitations of rational choices (Bish and Ostrom, 1973). In neo-Marxist urban theory, however, the space dimension of conflicts prevails, linked to principles of social justice and urban movement battles with consolidated reference to the classics written by Lefebvre, Castells, Harvey, and Melucci . In the last ten years, many conflicts regarding spaces, some of them common, contended public spaces have emerged, in many areas of the world and with different characteristics and reasons (De Leo and Lo Piccolo, 2013); among their causes, the increase of injustices in the systems of redistribution of resources (including spatial resources) is viewed as the effect of the mix of neoliberalism and the economic and financial crisis. Classic contributions of some of the abovementioned authors are consequently being reconsidered and studied in more depth, supporting movements (with somewhat excessive enthusiasm and liberality) that have a completely different relationship with space and the city compared with those of the past (Castells, 2012). Despite a wide spectrum of nuances and theoretical fine distinctions, at the base of this corpus of literature and research there is still the assumption of the classic contrast between élite and participative forms of democracy, either in democratic or in un-democratic contexts. In this regard, a more complex theoretical issue is to analyze the dimension of conflict when (and where) it faces the very idea of democracy in its dichotomy: formal versus substantial.