Making sense of exceptional planning decisions: exploring the agonistic dynamics of sustainability in infrastructure planning

Mirka Virtanen

European Planning Studies, 2025, vol. 33, issue 10, 1735-1753

Abstract: The ambiguity of sustainable development is commonly perceived as negative, leading to unsustainable planning decisions and projects. In the UK, the devolution of planning powers to the subnational level, as in the case of Wales, however, is resulting in re-interpretations of sustainability through the emerging planning framework. This article utilizes agonism to explore the contested nature of sustainability to assess the scope for re-interpretations provided by the devolved planning system in Wales. To explore the formation of localized sustainability discourses and their influence on the planning process, this paper takes inspiration from the field of media studies, adopting the method of media analysis to investigate the research questions. Exploring how the media represents the contested sustainability of the case of the proposed M4 Corridor around Newport (M4CaN) motorway plan in Wales, the paper argues that local media provides an agonistic platform for constructing alternative arguments that challenge those initially put forward by decisionmakers. While the media’s own news logic influences how narratives come together and which ones gain traction, it nevertheless provides space for local actors to construct alternative knowledges of sustainability that, over time, come to facilitate support for political decisions to move away from unsustainable infrastructure planning.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2025.2522234 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:33:y:2025:i:10:p:1735-1753

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CEPS20

DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2025.2522234

Access Statistics for this article

European Planning Studies is currently edited by Philip Cooke and Louis Albrechts

More articles in European Planning Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().