The circulation of spatial planning tools in Europe: Theoretical framework and research questions

Since the 1990s most European countries have witnessed the proliferation of new forms of intervention in the field of urban and regional planning. Besides regulation, multiple tools have been increasingly used by national and local governments to structure public action: government sponsored enterprises, competitive grants, public-private contracts and others. In the disciplinary debate, one can see a significant growth in the analysis and discussion of common spatial visions and policies, and trans-European infrastructural initiatives. Due to simplistic conceptions of planning instrumentation and to an excessive concentration in static national planning systems or, on the contrary, in contingent multilevel governance arrangements, planning theory underestimated the great research opportunities deriving from the analysis of spatial planning tools. On the contrary, in the policy study field, innovative research recently adopted the policy tool as the relevant unit of analysis. Critical but generative questions regarding spatial planning emerge from this perspective. How are the decisions regarding tool change and multiplication made? Why does a specific tool diffuse, integrate, hybridize or terminate in European countries? What are the technical and political consequences of a tool choice and use at the European, national and local levels? The paper suggests that the analysis of spatial planning tools and their circulation will disclose a new dimension in explaining spatial planning at the European level and will give impulse to new research across the frontiers between planning and policy studies.