Faculty of Logistics

Facts about the course

ECTS Credits:: 5
Responsible department:: Faculty of Logistics
Course Leader:: Lisa Hansson
Lecture Semester:: Autumn
Duration:: 1 week

DRL033 Critical Governance Perspectives in Transport Policy and Planning (Autumn 2024)

About the course

This course provides students various theories and empirical cases focusing on critical governance perspectives of transport policy and planning. The course emphasis on the fact that transport policy making and planning is not an instrumental objective liner process, instead it holds various interests, relations and power dimensions that needs to be understood. The students will be introduced to some classical texts/theories that has been influential for the themes addressed, as well as to empirical articles that have applied the theoretical perspective on the transport field.

A main feature of the course is the discussion of how the classical texts relate to current practices and theories. Reading and discussing these texts improve the understanding of tools and theories used today.

The course covers the following themes:

Multi-level governance and accountability
Power in heterogeneous networks: The advocacy coalition framework
Objects as mediators
The role of Planners and ethics
Right to the city – citizen engagement from bottom-up

The literature mainly originates from perspectives within political science, science and technology studies (STS) and urban studies.

Please note:

This course is arranged on demand, and only if there are at least three committed participants.

Please ask for information, or register your interest by email to Professor Lisa Hansson: Epost: lisa.hansson@himolde.no.

The course is connected to the following study programs

Philosophiae Doctor in Logistics (PhD)

Recommended requirements

The course is open for all doctoral students. You don’t have to have a background from social science to understand the texts or discuss the themes. However, an interest in transport and mobility questions is encouraged.

The student's learning outcomes after completing the course

After the course, the students should have in-depth knowledge of the origins and development of key concepts within:

Multi-level governance and accountability
Power in heterogeneous networks: The advocacy coalition framework
Objects as mediators
The role of Planners and ethics
Right to the city – citizen engagement from bottom-up

Students should also be able to relate these areas to current practices and theories.

Forms of teaching and learning

The course will run over five 2-hour weekly seminars. Before the seminar, the students shall read the literature and up-load a summary of the articles that are to be addressed that week.

The seminaries are discussion-based. Each student shall prepare three questions in advance that they would like to address. At the start of the seminar the lecturer will give a short presentation of the theme, then we will focus on discussing the theme, clarifying texts, concepts and addressing the questions.

Some of the text might be rather new in terms of perspectives and concepts for the students. A discussion based seminar structure is therefore recommended.

Coursework requirements - conditions for taking the exam

Active participation in all seminars
A short (2 page) preparatory paper with discussion points should be written to each seminar, comprising
- A short summary of the articles
- A comparison of the articles in relation to each other, similarities, differences, perspectives
- A list of three questions you want to address at the seminar

Examination

A final 3-4 page paper should be submitted at the end of the course, based on one of the themes addressed. The theme should them be related to the student’s own research.
Grading scale: Pass / Fail

Syllabus

Multi-level governance and accountability

Bache, I., Bartle, I., & Flinders, M. (2016). Multi-level governance. In Handbook on theories of governance (pp. 486-498). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Hansson (2021) Transport Policy and Governance. In: Vickerman, R. (2021). International Encyclopedia of Transportation. Elsevier.

In addition to above, pick one article to read:

Bache, I., Bartle, I., Flinders, M., & Marsden, G. (2015). Blame games and climate change: Accountability, multi-level governance and carbon management. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17(1), 64-88.
Joss, S. (2010). Accountable governance, accountable sustainability? A case study of accountability in the governance for sustainability. Environmental Policy and Governance, 20(6), 408-421.

Power in heterogeneous networks: The advocacy coalition framework

Marsden, G., & Reardon, L. (2017). Questions of governance: Rethinking the study of transportation policy. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 101, 238-251.
Sabatier, P. A. (1998). The advocacy coalition framework: revisions and relevance for Europe. Journal of European public policy, 5(1), 98-130.
Ardıç, Ö., Annema, J. A., & van Wee, B. (2015). Non-implementation of road pricing policy in the Netherlands: An application of the ‘Advocacy Coalition Framework’. European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, 15(2).

Objects as mediators

Lieto, L. (2017). How material objects become urban things?. City, 21(5), 568-579.
Trompette, P., & Vinck, D. (2009). Revisiting the notion of boundary object. Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 3(3-1).
Biermann, S., & Martinus, K. (2016). Boundary objects as tools for integrated land use-transport planning. Planning Boomtown and Beyond; Biermann, S., Olaru, D., Paul, V., Eds, 384-410.

The role of Planners and ethics

Forester, J. (1982). Planning in the Face of Power. Journal of the American planning association, 48(1), 67-80.
Sager, T. (2012) Collective action. Balancing public and particularistic interests. In: Weber, R. and Crane, R. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 25–45.

In addition to above, pick one article to read

Richardson, T. (2005). Environmental assessment and planning theory: four short stories about power, multiple rationality, and ethics. Environmental impact assessment review, 25(4), 341-365.
Woltjer, J. (2002). The'public support machine': Notions of the function of participatory planning by Dutch infrastructure planners. Planning Practice and Research, 17(4), 437-453.

Transport justice and citizen engagement from bottom-up

Winner, L. (2017). Do artifacts have politics?. In Computer ethics (pp. 177-192). Routledge.
Fainstein, S. S. (2014). The just city. International journal of urban Sciences, 18(1), 1-18.