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Participatory processes are becoming widely established in areas such as policy and planning. They promise to achieve more inclusive, sustainable, and democratic outcomes. However, this is often only an ideal that is not achieved in reality due to dynamic power relations that shape planning practice in various forms. Moreover, planning contexts differ between countries, producing different power dynamics that affect participatory processes. Planners have an essential role in identifying and facilitating different power relations, so their role is often linked to guiding participatory planning processes towards more balanced outcomes. Yet, the issue of power is insufficiently addressed and analyzed in the planning literature of the Global North and the Global South. To contribute to the discussion on power in participatory planning in the Global South and beyond, this study investigated how planners understand and experience power in Latin America. Therefore, interviews with planners from Argentina, Bolivia, and Colombia were conducted. Their practice stories were analyzed by drawing on the framework of the three dimensions of power. After being introduced to the three dimensions of power, they could relate to the second and third dimensions of power to varying degrees through their practical experience. The planners' practice stories illustrate how power can be exercised differently in the three dimensions and in the interplay of these dimensions in participatory planning processes. The practice stories make less visible power exercises in the second and third dimensions in planning practice more visible. Thus, they provide practical examples for planners that can promote reflection and understanding of how power works in practice. Furthermore, the findings point to the importance of looking beyond the formal, invited spaces of participatory planning processes and considering exercises of power that take place outside of planning processes. Therefore, the value of this work is that it provides valuable insights ...

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This thesis aims to deepen the understanding of entrepreneurship as an ideal and practice in local government administration. Organization, practices and the roles of civil servants in public administration are all grounded in certain ideals of what a modern public administration should look like. In order to capture the relationship between ideals and practices in local government administration, this introductory essay takes its point of departure in an institutional logic perspective. Entrepreneurial practices are well documented in a public administration context. Both civil servants and organizations can be more or less creative, alert and energetic, in other words more or less entrepreneurial. However, practices such as these are often understood to derive from the motives, driving forces and extraordinary characteristics of the specific actor. By contrast, this thesis aims to contribute to the literature on public administrative trends and reforms, by discussing entrepreneurship in terms of institutionalized ideals and patterns of action, i.e., institutional logics. The analysis is based on empirical studies of local development work in ten Swedish municipalities. The research design is grounded in an interpretative ethnographic approach and the development projects in each of the municipalities were closely followed for three years. Local development work is studied as a policy field where entrepreneurial ideals and practices are likely to arise, making it a suitable subject for studies that aim to deepen the theoretical understanding of entrepreneurship in a public administration context. The thesis demonstrates how an entrepreneurial logic is institutionalized in local government development work and embedded in governance and administrative practices as a natural consequence of certain contemporary reforms and trends in local policy and administration.Through ethnographic studies of local development work, the ideals and practices of the entrepreneurial logic are made visible. The entrepreneurial logic is contrasted to the still prevalent and institutionalized bureaucratic- rational administrative logic. These two logics are in many respects the logical opposite of one another and provide different answers to the question of which administrative practices are appropriate. The thesis makes three contributions to different theoretical discussions. First, the clarification of the entrepreneurial logic helps both researchers and practitioners make sense of and bring conceptual order to the messy practices of local development work. Second, the entrepreneurial logic expands the concept of entrepreneurship in a public sector context by viewing entrepreneurship as an institutional phenomenon rather than a phenomenon that represents a break from traditional institutions. Third, the entrepreneurial logic sheds light on institutionalized administrative ideals and practices that potentially imply major changes in public administration legitimacy, values and norms.

High hopes for democracy and sustainability are placed on participatory planning. Policy makers and scholars argue that broad participation can revitalise democracy and tackle sustainability challenges. Yet, critics claim that power asymmetries stand in the way of realising the potential of participatory planning. In the everyday practices of planning, this controversy comes to a head. Here, planners interact with citizens, politicians and developers around making choices about places and societies. Planners' practices are contested and they are challenged by the complexity of power relations. They need conceptual tools to critically reflect on what power is and when it is legitimate. Reflective practice is a prerequisite for making situated judgements under conditions of contestation. Yet, the planning theories, which are most influential in practice, have not been developed with the intention of conceptualising power. Rational planning theory, which still is influential in practice, largely reduces planning into a technical power-free activity. Communicative planning theory, which underpins participatory practices, instead suggests that expert power ought to be complemented by inclusive dialogue. This theory criticises hierarchical power relations as domination, without providing elaborated understanding of other facets of power. Hence, the conceptual support for reflective practice is too reductive. The aim of this thesis is to rethink power in participatory planning by developing concepts that can enable reflective practice. I draw on power theory and explore the utility of treating power as a family resemblance concept in participatory planning. Applying this plural view, I develop a family of power concepts, which signifies different ideas of what power is. The usefulness of this "power family" is tested through frame analysis of communicative planning theory and Swedish participatory planning policy and practice. The result of the research is a family of power concepts that can enable reflective practice. 'Power to' signifies a dispositional ability to act, which planning actors derive from social order. This ability can be exercised as consensual 'power with' or as conflictual 'power over'. The latter is conceptualised as an empirical process which, on a basic level, can be normatively appraised as illegitimate or legitimate. This thesis contributes to planning theory and environmental communication by problematising reductive notions of power and, as an alternative, rethinking power as a family resemblance concept. This theoretical contribution matters to planning practice as it can enable planners to develop their ability to be sensitive to what a situation requires, i.e. to acquire practical wisdom (phronesis).