Politics, planning, and ruling: the art of taming public participation

ABSTRACT Public participation is still a democratic challenge to city and municipal governments. Numerous studies have suggested experiments on participative processes, and conflictual consensus is seen as the best outcome of planning’s politicization, it is fair to ask if this is not accepting planning’s position as depoliticizing public participation. This article studies the governmentality around public participation formed by law and institutional regimes on participation and democracy, and how a dispositif ensemble is forming and framing the structure and content of the public participation process.