DIGIPART: Digital solution of participation deficits? Multi-channel-participation at the three critical interfaces of the planning process

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Christian Diller
• Subject Area: City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468523613

Even if participation is a permanent issue since a longer time and participation-activities multiplied in the last years, some problems remain unsolved: especially the social selectivity of participation and connected the question of political legitimacy oft he participation-processes and results. There are numerous research-findings on the forms of participation and their direct impacts on the involved actors, but fewer findings to the question if participation-results influence political planning-processes and especially if they are implemented in a longer view.Since almost two decades the digitalization has entried in participation-procedures. With the web 2.0 the possibilities of the two-way-participation increased. The present studies however give hints that digital elements in participation meanwhile are almost indispensable, but they don´s solve the deficits of participation named above: mainly social selectivity and political legitimacy. Furthermore the question is if digitalization leeds to a loss of quality of communication and participation results. Largely consens exists that analog and digital formats have to be combined for good participation-results. For this multi.channel-mixes of participation formats and their impacts there are almost no research findings at least for spatial planning processes. This is the starting point of this research-project. Its aim is to investigate the forms, appilcation, process, results and impacts of multi-channel-participation-procedures in several types of spatial planning (especially regional and local land use planning, urban renewal policy, urban development policy) in a comparing perspective. In the analysis there will be done a systematic differenciation between the three interfaces of partitipation-procedures and the political planning process: At which point o the process participation starts, how do the results of participation influence political decisions and do they get implemented in a longer view?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants