Doctoral theses of the School of Engineering are available in the open access repository maintained by Aalto, Aaltodoc.
Public defence, Spatial Planning and Transportation Engineering, MEng Xunran Tan
E-participation in urban planning from a power perspective. Public defence from the Aalto University School of Engineering, Department of Built Environment
Title of the thesis: E-participation in urban planning from a power perspective
Thesis defender: Xunran Tan
Opponent: Associate Professor Yanliu Lin, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Custos: Professor Marketta Kyttä, Aalto University School of Engineering, Department of Built Environment
Urban planning and the associated public participation are undergoing a digital transformation. Digital public participation, namely e-participation, presents opportunities and challenges to planning practices. Existing research on e-participation tools (EPTs) has predominantly focused on the usefulness of digital tools, while paying limited attention to the development process of EPTs and the decision-making during the development and adoption. Inspired by the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theory, this research conceptualised the e-participation process into three phases: EPTs development, adoption, and implementation, and studied each phase. Afterwards, this thesis examined the findings in these studies with a power framework developed based on Steven Lukes’ and Mark Haugaard’s power theories. The purpose of this research is to understand the potential challenges brought by the digital transformation of public participation in urban planning from a power perspective.
This thesis demonstrates the potential of the Lukesian-Haugaardian power perspective as an interpretive tool for re-examining e-participation studies. The examination reveals that various actors, including EPT developers, development funders, planners, governments, and the public, interact with and shape the e-participation process through the power dynamics. This research calls for attention not only to the proactive inclusion of public participation in the development of EPTs, but also to structural factors, including power relations embedded in participatory processes, funding sources, and the dissemination of technology and information.
Key words: e-participation, public participation, urban planning, power, digitalisation
Thesis available for public display 7 days prior to the defence at .
Doctoral theses of the School of Engineering
