Communicating visions for urban development : a micro-study of a governance process

Sammanfattning: This thesis studies the topic of policy making in the context of producing a comprehensive plan. The thesis uses the case of a municipality in Sweden. Contributing to the understanding of how governance processes can be performed, this thesis studies policy making in a collaborative situation. A form of micro-study is used to scrutinize in detail the dialogues between participants. The thesis applies Membership Categorization Analysis and Conversation Analysis to uncover the participants' accomplishments. The approaches reveal a variety of ways the participants perform planning, how visions and strategies are implemented in practice and how participants can reach agreement on planning issues. The study provides planning research with further understanding of the situatedness and epistemology of policy making, and it brings to light the variety of ways participants in policy making can enter and inform discussions, thereby enhancing the level of democracy in governance processes.