Spaces for planning evolution

Summary

Planning in Argentina has undergone many transformations since the beginning of the 20^th Century. State-led planning was attempted several times in the country and, after more than two decades where decisions regarding spatial organisation were rather market-oriented, it had a surprising return with the publication of the Strategic Spatial Plan ‘Bicentennial Argentina’ in 2008. This thesis analyses the conditions that enabled and constrained such revival focusing on the effects of a strong set of dependencies on the past (path dependencies), present (inter-dependencies), and future (goal dependencies). Understanding these dependencies, as well as their interplay, is important since they affect how actors and institutions are formed, how they interact and how the governance configurations transform over time. Thus, the thesis provides an interpretative key to contest predominantly static and linear perspectives on policy analysis through a new understanding of the dynamics of continuity and change in processes of policy formation.