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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 ...

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).

Enligt den svenska förvaltningstraditionen, vilken bygger på den Weberianska byråkratimodellen, ska politiker fatta beslut och tjänstemännen verkställa dem. Men, relationen mellan politiker och tjänstemän i den kommunala vardagen förefaller inte vara så enkel. Förtroendevalda politiker upplever ett problem med att tjänstemännen har för stor makt, vilket leder till ett inflytande på den politiska processen som inte står i proportion till deras formella position. Problemet bottnar i att den Weberianska byråkratimodellen inte längre fungerar som ett vägledande ideal i praktiken. Den kommunala vardagen karakteriseras istället av en otydlighet i hur makten i praktiken konstitueras och distri-bueras i relationen mellan politiker och tjänstemän, med resultat att icke-förtroendevalda chefstjänstemän kan hamna i en maktsituation där de kommer i besittning av, förutom sin legitima chefsmakt, en reell politisk makt. Som en följd av detta kan våra svenska kommuner komma att ledas av en profession som tränger undan och kanske i praktiken övertar politisk ledning – en profession som enligt den Weberianska byråkratimodellen formellt ska vara politiskt maktlösa. Mot bakgrund av detta syftar studien till att bidra till kunskapen om de kommunala chefstjänstemännens politiska agerande och de maktförhållanden som konstituerar detta agerande. Med makt avses i avhandlingen en kapacitet att handla som ägs av agenter och som kan identifieras i kraft av chefspositionens varaktiga relationer med underliggande sociala strukturer mellan politik och förvaltning, mellan politiker och tjänstemän. Makt betraktas följaktligen som en förklaringsfaktor för att förstå chefstjänstemännens politiska agerande. Avhandlingen baseras på en fallstudie av kommunchefer, dvs. kommunens ledande tjänsteman som befinner sig i den omedelbara närheten av den kommunövergripande politiska ledningen, och som därigenom verkar i gränslandet mellan politik och administration. För att bidra till denna kunskap utvecklas i avhandlingen en analysmodell med utgångspunkt i den kritiska realismens synsätt på sociala strukturer och kausalitet. Modellen baseras på tre olika typer av analyser, en strukturell analys, en kausal analys och en förståelseanalys. Med hjälp av den strukturella analysen identifieras tre stycken strukturella maktresurser som kan ses som förbundna med den kommunala chefstjänstemannapositionen. Dessa benämns centralitet, kontroll över kritiska resurser, och närhet till makt. Med hjälp av den kausala analysen studeras vad och hur dessa maktresurser tillåter innehavaren av chefstjänstemannapositionen att påverka för att uppnå effekter. Analysen visar att de strukturella maktresurserna möjliggör för chefstjänstemannen att påverka hela den politiska beslutsprocessen genom att med rätt timing i ärendehanteringen, och de beslutsunderlag som ligger bakom detta, presentera olika problembilder och konsekvensbeskrivningar. Med hjälp av förståelseanalysen studeras chefstjänste-männens politiska agerande. Med utgångspunkt i en kritisk realistisk ansats kan de kommunala chefstjänstemännens politiska agerande förstås i termer av en proaktiv politisk roll som är inneboende i chefspositionens generiska karaktär. Den proaktiva rollen är intimt sammanlänkad med strukturella maktresurser genom det att den för sin existens kräver strukturella maktresurser som är förbundna med den kommunala chefstjänstemannapositionen. ; Politicians are meant to make decisions and administrators are supposed to execute them according to the Swedish public administration tradition; a tradition built on the Weberian bureaucracy model. But, power relations between politicians and administrators in municipal practice do not appear as unambiguous as the tradition purports. Administrators have too much power according to elected officials, which in turn have an impact on the political process that is not consistent with the administrators' formal position. This causes tension in the relations between politicians and administrators. The problem seems to stem from the fact that the Weberian bureaucracy model no longer serves as a guiding ideal in practice. Instead the local government practice is characterized by how vaguely the power is constituted and distributed in the social relation between politicians and administrators, resulting in the fact that non-elected public managers find themselves in a power position encompassing not only their legitimate managerial power, but also real political power – which is not consistent with the ideal bureaucracy model according to which this type of power is reserved only for elected officials. As a result the Swedish municipalities may be run by a profession that in practice take over the political leadership; a profession that in keeping with the Weberian ideal model is supposed to be powerless. This dissertation aims to contribute to field of knowledge concerning the municipal administrators' political actions and the power relations constituting this behaviour. For the purpose of this dissertation the term power intends a capacity to act inherent in agents and that can be identified by virtue of the managerial position's lasting relations with underlying social structures between politics and administration, between politicians and public administrators. Power is thus looked upon as an element of explanation in understanding public managers political behaviour. The dissertation is based on a case study of municipal managers, i e the leading public administrator in a municipality who is in the immediate proximity to the overall political leadership and thereby serves in the borderland between politics and administration. A model of analysis is developed with its basis in the critical realism's approach on social structures and causality- The model is based on three different types of analyses, a structural analysis, a causal analysis, and an analysis of understanding. The structural analysis helps identify three structural power resources that are associated with the municipal management position; centrality, control over critical resources, and nearness to power. By means of the causal analysis one studies what and how these power resources permit the holder of the managerial position to influence in order to achieve certain effects. The analysis shows that the structural power resources make it possible for the public managers to influence the political decision making process through right timing in delivering official documents, along with the decision support data, presenting different problem areas and consequences of these. With the support of the analysis of understanding the municipal manager's political behaviour is studied. With reference to a critical realist approach the answer is that the public managers' political behaviour can be understood in terms of a proactive political role inherent in the managerial positions generic character. The role is strictly interconnected with the structural power resources due to the fact that the role requires, for its existence, structural power resources as are associated with the municipal managerial position.