Cvetinovic, Marija (2015) Do Blurred Institutional Organisation and Inconsistent Policy Agendas Hinder Urban Development of Post-Socialist Neighbourhoods in Serbia? MAS-ANT Method of Analysis. REAL CORP 2015. PLAN TOGETHER – RIGHT NOW – OVERALL. From Vision to Reality for Vibrant Cities and Regions. Proceedings of 20th International Conference on Urban Planning, Regional Development and Information Society. pp. 767-775.
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Text (Do Blurred Institutional Organisation and Inconsistent Policy Agendas Hinder Urban Development of Post-Socialist Neighbourhoods in Serbia? MAS-ANT Method of Analysis)
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Abstract
In transitional countries, the course of merging socialist and neoliberal socio-economic condition, regulatory practices and organizational solutions led to inefficiently operationalized and inconsistently formalized institutional reforms rather known as “growth without development”. Included in this range of spatially and economically turbulent surroundings, post-socialist cities in transitional countries have undergone highly dramatic change in political, economic and social terms. This paper interprets blurred regulatory framework of post-socialist cities in Serbia through an assemblage methodological approach which combines Multi-agent system (MAS) procedure from computer science and Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT) on social networks. Generally speaking, any built environment always reflects political and economic processes, especially in turbulent social times such as the disintegration of Yugoslavia’s political system and the introduction of new context of market economy, decentralized administrative powers and a lack of investment and resources. Dramatic shifts in social organization and spatial transformations result in the incapacity of the post-socialist planning to define contextually appropriate and coherent urban management for tracing its chaotic urban development pattern. Conversely, with the huge socio-cultural base inherited from the socialist period, cities in transitional countries have continued to be centres of economic growth with a variety of services, expansion, technological innovation and cultural diversity. Therefore, the post-socialist period in these cities contains prevailing characteristics of the disintegration of the preceding system rather than a coherent vision of what should follow. The post-socialist urban governance fails substantially through the lack of consensus on priority goals, action-oriented implementation and horizontal and vertical coordination. Tracing institutional articulation of post-socialist context through MAS-ANT methodology involves structural analysis of administrative procedures and content analysis of policy agendas to systematically deconstruct local urban governance in terms of political, economic and cultural aspects of transition with a multitude of actors, variety of interests, conflicted strategies and fragmented implementation. Multi-agent System serves as a generative bottom-up topography of the complex urban reality while Actor-Network Theory flattens the social into a panoptic internalized ontology. The schema thereafter involves taking into account all active agents regardless of their sort and form of social manifestation (ANT) and notwithstanding theoretical bias of their interdependencies and interconnections (MAS). Finally, this dynamics of relations and influences between different layers of decision making and urban key agents indicates opportunities for altering post-socialist urban planning by analysing in which manner regulatory framework relates to urban actors and address spatial issues, and what urban patterns and social impact result from these actions and induce building a spatial and social vision. In the long run, the identification of relations and influences on post-socialist urban governance examines how urban actors, space and regulatory framework rely on planning and decision support systems as means to forecast and orchestrate any movement or change of the system.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | post-socialist cities, multi-agent system, actor network theory, Serbia, regulatory framework |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor J Political Science > JS Local government Municipal government |
| Depositing User: | REAL CORP Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 23 Mar 2016 09:11 |
| Last Modified: | 23 Mar 2016 09:11 |
| URI: | http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/73 |
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