Planning on Democracy: The Past and Future of Government Planning

COVID-19 has exposed the challenges and importance of coordinating government policies. Historically, planning institutions played this key coordination role. They also were seen as critical to thinking about long-term risks and policies while voters and politicians focused on the short run. But planning institutions rightly were criticized as top-down and bureaucratic. This talk looks at the ambition of state planning institutions, with a focus on their role in Latin America. It then shows how the response to COVID-19 exposed many flaws in the traditional notions of planning. Finally it turns to the future: what does participatory planning look like? How can citizens and governments better coordinate to respond to the challenges that COVID-19 will continue to raise? And which tools from the RXC movement can help create new, democratic forms of planning for the long run?

Speakers

Alisha C. Holland is an associate professor in the Government Department at Harvard University. She studies the comparative political economy of development with a focus on Latin America. Her first book, Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2017), examines the politics of law enforcement against the poor. She is working on a new book on the institutional determinants and challenges of large-scale infrastructure projects.

Paul Healy (moderator) is a Policy Advisor at the RadicalxChange Foundation, where he works with governments, NGOs, and private companies who are implementing RadicalxChange mechanisms. He is also a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on antitrust and state/local government issues.