Positioning Self-organisation in a Multi-rational frame of reference

Over the last two decades the nature of civil initiatives and the associated governance attitude has changed dramatically, both quantitatively in terms of the number of practices and qualitatively in the ways in which individual actors and multiple networks of actors are continuously made and remade to carry forward particular results. The new and often critical collectives and coalitions are strongly result-oriented, are active on a range of levels and are interested in dealing with complex issues in a creative and flexible way. The new collectives radically challenge the traditional patters of rationalities closely associated to the debate on choice, planning and decision-making; indeed, their initiatives do no longer relate with approaches within the traditional range of rationales – the technical and the communicative – as opposing and complementary extremes. Between and beyond these extremes a multitude of realities of choice, planning and decision-making can be allocated and can be understood with regard to action to be taken. Building on this evidence, the paper states that rationality (existing rationality frames) as it is used within the contemporary planning debate, no longer holds since the developments within the empirical world ask for innovative steps towards an independent but intentional process of self-governance. Rationality is then introduced as a multi-layered and interdependent frame of reference through the notions of dynamic patterning and multiple layering – notions that have their roots within the debate on complexity and non-linearity – with the purpose to investigate and innovate the rationality/planning nexus.