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without compulsion through a universal agreement - a pragmatic concept of
'truth': true is what the participants in 'undistorted' communication or a so-called
'ideal-speech situation' accept as being true. The essential criterion for such an
ideal-speech situation is that all members of the group have the same information
and all interests are represented. In such a symmetrically structured discursive
process, people can equally raise a claim on the validity of a certain action or state-
ment; they can suggest a good argument, ground or reason to justify or criticise it,
and are expected to reach a rational agreement. Thus, for Habermas, the rationality
of social action should be assessed in relation to the validity claims and the possi-
bility of reaching agreement in critical discourse. Rationality, hence, is conceived
as inherent in communicative practice which is intrinsically oriented towards con-
sensus. This kind of learning or knowledge-building is what Habermas (1984) calls
'communicative rationality': a process of learning and decision-making according to
certain principles such as assuring representation of all major points of view, equal-
ising information among group members, and creating conditions within the group
that allow the force of argument to be the deciding factor rather than an indi-
vidual's power. Validity and truth are the results of a rational argument within a dis-
course: the strength of an argument is determined by whether the argument is able
to convince the participants in a discourse. In this context, two types of consensus
are distinguished that can be reached through intersubjective communication:
compromise and shared understanding. Compromise is the consensus that results
from 'strategic actions', when people negotiate on rational grounds to try to reach
a decision that satisfies most of them. A different sort of consensus is 'communica-
tive', where people enter into dialogue, being prepared to relinquish their original
ideas and replace them with shared understanding. Negotiation accepts the exist-
ence of inequalities in power, dialogue tries to remove them (Habermas, 1984).
Central to communicative rationality is the role of language and the search for
undistorted communication as a basis for communication and action.
Habermas's theoretical approach has been highly influential in shaping
contemporary planning theory because in this conception, planning and its con-
tents are a way of acting that planners can choose through debate. The 'argumen-
tative turn' has been posited in planning theory as the moving on from a rationally
dominated view of the policy process (Fischer and Forester, 1993). Other authors
refer to the 'communicative turn' in planning (Innes, 1995) or describe it as 'collab-
orative planning' (Healey, 1997). What is common to all these communicative or
collaborative planning approaches is the objective of reaching consensus through
discourse. This conception of planning accepts limits to power, empirical know-
ledge and the resolvability of moral dilemmas. It acknowledges that any planning
framework embodies views and decisions about the nature of socio-economic
forces, the public and other interests and the planning objectives. This reflects the
