The Age of Planning. Planning as a paradigm for policy history of post-war Europe: national cases and the European integration process (1940s-1960s)

Project Information

PLANAGE

Grant agreement ID: 750887

DOI

10.3030/750887

Project closed

EC signature date 5 May 2017

Start date 1 May 2018

End date 30 August 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 180 277,20

EU contribution

€ 180 277,20

Coordinated by

EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PLANAGE (The Age of Planning. Planning as a paradigm for policy history of post-war Europe: national cases and the European integration process (1940s-1960s))

Reporting period: 2018-05-01 to 2020-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project aims to contribute to the history of planning as an concept and the policies inspired by it in Western Europe between 1945 and the 1970s. Hitherto the topic has mostly been dealt with by reconstructions unable, or not intending, to go beyond the confines of individual national cases or individual policies, or else limited to the field of planning theory. For this reason the project first and foremost set out to adopt a novel synoptic standpoint and embrace three policy fields (economic, social, urban spatial) that are traditionally the target of planning.
In order to be less partial than the existing reconstructions, the project aimed: 1) to study four national cases comparatively (Italy, France, Great Britain, the German Federal Republic), revealing the differences but also any borrowing/adaptation from others’ experience; 2) to map the transnational circulation of ideas, approaches and applications among the countries studied and also further afield; 3) to show the dynamics of how the respective national approaches penetrate one another and are transferred onto a supranational scale, especially involving the European Community; 4) finally, to place the planning experience within a historical reconstruction of Western Europe’s recovery from World War II.
Although the project is distinctly historical, its results are of interest to society as a whole, since they cover topical issues such as: the limited national horizon of public policies, whereas knowledge circulates transnationally more and more; the difficulty of combining national experiences and transposing them onto a European scale, the risk always being that the upshot will be an unsatisfactory lowest common denominator; the problematic relation – glimpsed once again in the handling of our present health emergency – between the political sphere, democratic policy control and expertise.
Work carried out during the project achieved these objectives, or came close to doing so, given the international scale of the archive research (alas, limited by the pandemic) and the multidisciplinary approach that evolved from background reading in political science, sociology, economics and philosophy. The natural outcome will be a meeting (Strasbourg, September 2021) stemming from all the networking with top international experts in the field over the last couple of years. The proceedings will come out as a jointly-authored volume establishing the groundwork for a global history of planning in which Western Europe has its rightful place.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The first phase of the project was devoted to analysing the extensive multidisciplinary literature on planning policy (in the three fields mentioned), planning theory, philosophy and practice of expertise, transnational circulation of ideas, history of the social sciences and their connection with the political sphere and events in the respective countries. The European University Institute, with its open, multidisciplinary character, here proved an ideal base and greatly contributed to achieving this goal, as well as broadening the researcher’s background and enhancing his academic profile. This work on the literature served to draw up a novel interdisciplinary approach and fill in some of the gaps and previously understudied areas.
Phase Two – albeit restricted by health emergency measures – consisted in a broad archival reconnaissance on sources both of government institutions involved in planning and those of private “technicians” who powered such operations.
Meanwhile participation in meetings and networking revealed the growth of a parallel interest in the topic on an international scale. There formed an international exchange and interaction network which should shortly become formalised and will underpin the final meeting and proceedings publication by multiple authors. One chapter of the book will condense the first scientific results of the project, as will two scientific articles currently in the pipeline (one of a comparative nature, the other tracing the relationship between policy and expertise) and due for publication in Green Open Access by specialist journals. In the longer term, when conditions return to permitting archive research, there remains the aim of writing a monograph on the planning experience of postwar Western Europe (1945-1970s), destined perforce to extend beyond the four national cases examined by the project. As for the work of communication and dissemination, it has involved, inter alia, participation in six scientific conferences, one workshop and three seminars open to the public; also publication of five articles in journals widely circulating in Italy and abroad.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

By its research, networking and communication/dissemination activities the project is contributing a new thrust, in various directions, to the history of planning policy in post-WWII Europe. Being grounded in a wider and more complex interpretation of “planning”, it has reviewed a series of primary sources (government agencies, research organizations, individual experts) that the mainstream had tended to neglect. This has fleshed out, and updated where obsolete, the interpretation of some of the cases examined (especially that of Italy). Again, the comparative phase has unearthed instances of mutual imitation and inspiration which national-based historiography has overlooked, points helping us understand how Western European societies have drawn closer since 1945. The tricky relations between politics and expertise when it comes to planning; the difficulty of implementing long-term programmes in political regimes based on alternation in power; the mechanisms by which national approaches are transmitted to EU policy areas: these are all themes that the project has covered, providing stimulating keys to understanding of history and also connections between history and the present day. In short, by disseminating its results the project would claim to have added to the public debate items of knowledge as to the impact of decision-making and government planning on economic and social development even today; likewise, the vital need for wide-scale employment of technical know-how in running complex societies such as our own, though also the risks this entails and the need for enlightened democratic control.
Lastly, the experience of this MSCA Individual Fellowship and the work it entailed have greatly boosted the researcher’s career prospects: one concrete positive illustration being that even before the project terminated he was selected and appointed to a role at Verona University (Italy).

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