Planning by opportunity: an analysis of periurban environmental conflicts in Indonesia

Published in Environment and Planning A

Delik Hudalah, Haryo Winarso, Johan Woltjer

Abstract. In this paper we seek to extend ideas about communicative planning and capacity building in collective action. In doing so, we combine political opportunity structure and Kingdon’s policy window in order to develop an agency-centered approach to opportunity. We argue that we need to see the moments and structures of opportunity not simply as fixed, but as something that actors can ‘make’. The moments of opportunity refer to the dynamic, emerging factors of opportunity. Meanwhile, the structures of opportunity consist of relatively consistent, stable factors of opportunity. This theoretical insight is then applied to two debates on development planning projects in the periurban area of North Bandung Area (Kawasan Bandung Utara), Indonesia. Three aspects of institutional capacity result from the practice of ‘constructing’ opportunity in the case study: mobilization of social resources, empowerment of weak actors, and focusing of politicians and policymakers’ attention.

Keywords: political opportunity structure, Kingdon, institutional capacity, North Bandung Area