From the ‘Scientized’ to the ‘Sociocratic’ City: The Politics of Knowledge and Norm Change in Post War Urban Planning in the Netherlands

This chapter presents a novel approach to the politics of knowledge in the post-war planning of Dutch cities. It explains how and why particular forms of knowledge became accepted and rejected against the backdrop of urban redevelopment schemes. Significant changes in the kinds of knowledge that were deemed instrumental to urban planning will be explained by employing the notions of social norm change and norm entrepreneurs. This approach moves the focus away from knowledge as such. Rather it stresses the socio-cultural and political norms that precede and presuppose the (re)production and legitimisation of particular forms of knowledge in urban planning. Based on this approach the chapter shows that the post-war norms pertaining to the ‘scientised’ or technocratic knowledge regime in urban planning were increasingly challenged and rejected by a number of norm entrepreneurs (e.g. architects, planners and social scientists). As new social norms were promoted, negotiated and eventually became consolidated from the late 1960s onwards, the knowledge regime of ‘sociocratic’ urban planning ultimately replaced the model of the ‘scientised’ city.