K Van Assche
Biographic Data
| ID | 259915 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Van Assche |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Van Assche |
| SIGNATURE | VAN ASSCHE K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alberta |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1745-0043 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 187 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Transition as the navigation of dilemmas
C.S. Peirce Loves Craft Beers
We present a perspective on the potential of craft production to strengthen place brands and vice versa, in a positive dynamic enabling local community development. Tradition and innovation are not constructed as mutually exclusive. The perspective is semiotically inspired, more precisely by the work of C.S. Peirce (1839–1914). We expand on Peirce by including concepts of narrative and place brand in our framing of craft potential, but for the ke…
Expressions of untruth, suppressions of truth. A 21st century reintroduction to “Simulation and Dissimulation”
Asset mapping 2.0; contextual, iterative, and virtual mapping for community development
We argue a re-appraisal of asset mapping is needed based on revisiting the concept of assets. Asset mapping is useful for inter/trans-disciplinary work involving complex systems: organizations, administrations, governance systems, social-ecological systems, etc. Asset mapping can be an integrative method, allowing a combination of different disciplinary insights and knowledge types; co-defining what is valuable in and for a system. We propose a n…
Multiple transformations, coordination and public goods. Tbilisi and the search for planning as collective strategy
Tbilisi has undergone spectacular changes which can be grasped by the concept of ‘Multiple Transformations’, characteristic of post-socialist cities. Along with the reform of legislative, institutional and social frameworks, an urban or spatial transformation took place. We distinguish different phases of Tbilisi's urban transformation, discuss the reasons and analyze the outcomes of the transitional process. We argue that the multiple transforma…
Toward a digital transformation of the theory of the firm
Embracing methodological individualism, the mainstream economic theory of the firm has little to say about the precarious nature of the firm's embeddedness in encompassing socioecological systems. The digital transformation of the theory of the firm can address this gap by deconstructing the standpoint of methodological individualism. In transaction cost economics, this standpoint is manifest in two assumptions about human nature, namely bounded …
Permanent incompleteness
New Nordicities for Northern communities
We analyse the construction of new Nordicities, as in new and guiding discourses for urban development which engage with a Northern location. Spatial planning and place branding are proposed as mutually reinforcing instruments to support the strategic positioning of cities located in northern climes. Planning in such an environment must take on board urban and landscape design, not merely for esthetics but as necessary tools to integrate scales o…
Transnational circuits of policy knowledge and discursive migration. The formation and transformation of planning policies in Argentina
We analyse the migration of academic and policy discourses that contributed to (de)legitimise the formation of planning policies in Argentina since the 1950s. We focus on the communicative/collaborative rationality discourses emanating from Anglo-American academic circles that played a role in the revival of the Argentine planning system between 2004 and 2015. We adopt an evolutionary approach to policy travel and policy learning, deploying the c…
The interplay of riskscapes and objects in unplanned settlements in Monrovia
Reimagining craft for community development
In this paper we link contemporary thinking on craft and craftsmanship to concepts in community development. Craft is contrasted with popular development dogmas such as innovation, planning and the knowledge economy. Our aim is to reimagine craft as a form of production linked to traditions of trade-craft and blue-collar work, yet open to blending with the creative economy and innovation agendas. While emphasising tradition, craft can be forward-…
Evolution of place-based governance in the management of development dilemmas
In this paper, we reflect on the evolution of place-based governance from a long-term (15 year) study of rural development initiatives undertaken in a region of Poland as part of its accession to the European Union. We decompose the recursive process of institutional learning arising from initiatives for heritage preservation and rural economic development. In our analysis, we elaborate a typology of unavoidable development dilemmas that must be …
Steering as Path Creation
We develop a perspective on steering in governance which understands steering as intended path creation. Inspired by evolutionary governance theory, critical management studies and social systems theory, we argue that steering is shaped and limited by co-evolutions, disallowing for any formulaic approach. In order to illuminate the space for steering in governance, we analyze the interplay between different dependencies. Those dependencies are no…
Steering in Governance
Steering has negative connotations nowadays in many discussions on governance, policy, politics and planning. The associations with the modernist state project linger on. At the same time, a rethinking of what is possible by means of policy and planning, what is possible through governance, which forms of change and which pursuits of common goods still make sense, in an era of cynicism about steering yet also high steering expectations, seems emi…
Strategy and Steering in Governance
Based on a detailed study of the return of national-level planning in Argentina as embodied by COFEPLAN, the national planning council, we develop a conceptual framework to analyse the possibilities and limits of steering in governance. We lean on the theoretical apparatus of evolutionary governance theory and use the concepts of goal dependency, interdependency, path dependency and material dependency (effects in governance) to analyse the reali…
Adaptive methodology. Topic, theory, method and data in ongoing conversation
This paper explores the concept of adaptive research design, in which topic, theoretical framing, method, and data are in principle open to adaptation during the research process. The main premise is that adaptations in one element of the research process can trigger changes in other elements. Both positive and negative reasons for adaptivity are discussed along with various valid reasons for limiting adaptivity in particular cases. Grasping the …
Strategy for the long term
Strategy for collectives and common goods
Reinvention paths and reinvention paradox
Comparative Planning Research, Learning, and Governance
In this article, the authors develop a perspective on the value of, and methodologies for, comparative planning research. Through comparative research, similarities and differences between planning cases and experiences can be disentangled. This opens up possibilities for learning across planning systems, and possibly even the transfer of best planning and policy practices across systems, places, or countries. Learning in governance systems is al…
Learning from Other Places and Their Plans
In this thematic issue we pursue the idea that comparative studies of planning systems are utterly useful for gaining a deeper understanding of learning processes and learning capacity in spatial planning systems. In contemporary planning systems the pressures towards learning and continuous self-transformation are high. On the one hand more and more planning is needed in terms of integration of expertise, policy, local knowledge, and response to…
Rethinking Planning Systems
The authors reflect on recent experiences at UN-Habitat and other international organizations to rethink the roles of planning towards larger development goals and to reform planning systems in places most in need of them. They consider the difficulties but ultimate necessity to learn from a variety of contexts and experiences to articulate general orientations for planning and planning reform which can partly transcend context. Within the variet…
Ecosystem accounting's potential to support coastal and marine governance
The paper presents an exploratory assessment of ecosystem accounting's potential to support marine and coastal governance. Norwegian kelp forest management and restoration, and a series of nested case studies are used as examples. By analysing a series of institutional experiments where ecosystem accounting (EA) can potentially be applied, and by including the theoretical lens of evolutionary governance, EA is found potentially valuable. It can e…
From coal not to ashes but to what? As Pontes, social memory and the concentration problem
Resilience, Reinvention and Transition during and after Quarantine
Quarantine measures and the crises triggering them are never neutral in the sense that a return to the past is impossible. These measures are also a signal of other things like systemic risks and weaknesses. A period of quarantine is also a thing in and by itself. What happens after quarantine is thus shaped both by the state of the social-ecological system preceding quarantine and by what happened during quarantine. The selectivities introduced …
Performing Success and Failure in Governance
We present an analytical framework for analyzing the functions of failure and success ascriptions in public administration. The framework incorporates concepts and insights from Michel Foucault, Mieke Bal, and other discourse theorists, enriched with notions derived from Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems. The Dutch system of spatial planning serves as a context to investigate the rhetorical functions, performance, discursive configuration…
The Limits of Planning
In this article, we argue that Niklas Luhmann has a lot to offer present-day planning theory. Until now, planning theory has been engaged with Luhmann's work only minimally. Convinced of its potential, we want to show how Luhmann's systems theory offers fresh insight into both limits and possibilities of planning in contemporary society. We argue that Luhmann's understanding of society as functionally differentiated into self-referentially closed…
Strategy for collectives and common goods
Co-evolutions of planning and design
We develop an evolutionary perspective on spatial planning to investigate the potential contributions of design approaches to the coordination of spatial organization. After a re-articulation of the concepts of planning and design in this perspective, we distinguish six essential features of the planning/design dialectics in a community. These aspects ought to be understood when evaluating the risks and benefits of design perspectives in a planni…
Making things irreversible. Object stabilization in urban planning and design
Adaptive methodology. Topic, theory, method and data in ongoing conversation
This paper explores the concept of adaptive research design, in which topic, theoretical framing, method, and data are in principle open to adaptation during the research process. The main premise is that adaptations in one element of the research process can trigger changes in other elements. Both positive and negative reasons for adaptivity are discussed along with various valid reasons for limiting adaptivity in particular cases. Grasping the …
The social, the ecological, and the adaptive. Von Bertalanffy's general systems theory and the adaptive governance of social‐ecological systems
Based on biological insights, Ludwig von Bertalanffy coined general systems theory (GST) and later expanded his perspective, exploring what GST could mean for other disciplines and other types of systems. We make a case for the relevance, or rather, the importance, of GST for coming to a new understanding of the resilience of social‐ecological systems and the possible forms of adaptive governance that might increase such resilience. After analyzi…
Governing for resilience
Understanding contracts in evolving agro-economies
Farm Restructuring and Land Consolidation in Uzbekistan
In this article we investigate the potential for and limitations of land consolidation as a tool for rural development in transitional environments, focusing on the Khorezm region in Uzbekistan, Central Asia. We frame our analysis in a broader evaluation of land consolidation as a tool for economic development based on European experiences. It is argued that both the European tradition and the Uzbek case indicate that land consolidation as an iso…
Reinvention paths and reinvention paradox
Forgetting and remembering in the margins
This article investigates the process of social forgetting by relating it to the disintegration of social and spatial networks. Looking at the case of Sulina, a small town on the eastern edge of the Romanian Danube Delta, we analyze how the unraveling of networks caused a process of social forgetting with margin-specific features, a fundamental restructuring of social memory and social identities. An important focus of our investigation is the co…
Steering as Path Creation
We develop a perspective on steering in governance which understands steering as intended path creation. Inspired by evolutionary governance theory, critical management studies and social systems theory, we argue that steering is shaped and limited by co-evolutions, disallowing for any formulaic approach. In order to illuminate the space for steering in governance, we analyze the interplay between different dependencies. Those dependencies are no…
Steering in Governance
Steering has negative connotations nowadays in many discussions on governance, policy, politics and planning. The associations with the modernist state project linger on. At the same time, a rethinking of what is possible by means of policy and planning, what is possible through governance, which forms of change and which pursuits of common goods still make sense, in an era of cynicism about steering yet also high steering expectations, seems emi…
Asset mapping 2.0; contextual, iterative, and virtual mapping for community development
We argue a re-appraisal of asset mapping is needed based on revisiting the concept of assets. Asset mapping is useful for inter/trans-disciplinary work involving complex systems: organizations, administrations, governance systems, social-ecological systems, etc. Asset mapping can be an integrative method, allowing a combination of different disciplinary insights and knowledge types; co-defining what is valuable in and for a system. We propose a n…
A coevolutionary perspective on the adoption of sustainable land use practices
From coal not to ashes but to what? As Pontes, social memory and the concentration problem
Water Governance in Central Asia
We develop a social systems theory perspective on Central Asian post-Socialist transition, placing particular emphasis on the coordination problems in transboundary water governance. The extensive Soviet water-energy infrastructure around the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers required coordination, but this could no longer be politically secured after the 1991 Soviet disintegration. According to the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, coordinatio…
Expressions of untruth, suppressions of truth. A 21st century reintroduction to “Simulation and Dissimulation”
Permanent incompleteness
The interplay of riskscapes and objects in unplanned settlements in Monrovia
Strategy for the long term
Resilience, Reinvention and Transition during and after Quarantine
Quarantine measures and the crises triggering them are never neutral in the sense that a return to the past is impossible. These measures are also a signal of other things like systemic risks and weaknesses. A period of quarantine is also a thing in and by itself. What happens after quarantine is thus shaped both by the state of the social-ecological system preceding quarantine and by what happened during quarantine. The selectivities introduced …
Rhetorics and realities of participation
We present a context-sensitive perspective on participation in rural development, revolving around the reconstruction of unique sets of differences between rhetorics and realities. Using a theoretical frame inspired by the Evolutionary Governance Theory, we identify mechanisms of reinterpretation and delimitation of participation in the context of evolving rural governance. Through a detailed case study of the Ethiopian agricultural extension sys…
Silent places, silent plans
In this paper, we explore the importance of silence in planning, an endeavor we deem relevant in an era where communication and planning are seen as nearly equivalent. We investigate the meanings and functions of silence in the interpretation of plans, planned space and the planning process. We distinguish silence in the literal sense, as absence of sound, and metaphorical silence, representing other forms of absence: of other voices, of oppresse…
The Limits of Planning
In this article, we argue that Niklas Luhmann has a lot to offer present-day planning theory. Until now, planning theory has been engaged with Luhmann's work only minimally. Convinced of its potential, we want to show how Luhmann's systems theory offers fresh insight into both limits and possibilities of planning in contemporary society. We argue that Luhmann's understanding of society as functionally differentiated into self-referentially closed…
Forgetting and remembering in the margins
This article investigates the process of social forgetting by relating it to the disintegration of social and spatial networks. Looking at the case of Sulina, a small town on the eastern edge of the Romanian Danube Delta, we analyze how the unraveling of networks caused a process of social forgetting with margin-specific features, a fundamental restructuring of social memory and social identities. An important focus of our investigation is the co…
Silent places, silent plans
In this paper, we explore the importance of silence in planning, an endeavor we deem relevant in an era where communication and planning are seen as nearly equivalent. We investigate the meanings and functions of silence in the interpretation of plans, planned space and the planning process. We distinguish silence in the literal sense, as absence of sound, and metaphorical silence, representing other forms of absence: of other voices, of oppresse…
Performing Success and Failure in Governance
We present an analytical framework for analyzing the functions of failure and success ascriptions in public administration. The framework incorporates concepts and insights from Michel Foucault, Mieke Bal, and other discourse theorists, enriched with notions derived from Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems. The Dutch system of spatial planning serves as a context to investigate the rhetorical functions, performance, discursive configuration…
Co-evolutions of planning and design
We develop an evolutionary perspective on spatial planning to investigate the potential contributions of design approaches to the coordination of spatial organization. After a re-articulation of the concepts of planning and design in this perspective, we distinguish six essential features of the planning/design dialectics in a community. These aspects ought to be understood when evaluating the risks and benefits of design perspectives in a planni…
Farm Restructuring and Land Consolidation in Uzbekistan
In this article we investigate the potential for and limitations of land consolidation as a tool for rural development in transitional environments, focusing on the Khorezm region in Uzbekistan, Central Asia. We frame our analysis in a broader evaluation of land consolidation as a tool for economic development based on European experiences. It is argued that both the European tradition and the Uzbek case indicate that land consolidation as an iso…
Malta’s Unintentional Consequences
We argue that the apparently successful implementation of the European Malta Convention (1992) in the Netherlands resulted in a relatively closed archaeological policy system, which separates ordinary people from experts. As a result, citizens were increasingly excluded from the archaeological process. The process of closure and exclusion is made visible by investigating Dutch amateur archaeologists and their changing roles within Dutch archaeolo…
Understanding contracts in evolving agro-economies
Making things irreversible. Object stabilization in urban planning and design
Water Governance in Central Asia
We develop a social systems theory perspective on Central Asian post-Socialist transition, placing particular emphasis on the coordination problems in transboundary water governance. The extensive Soviet water-energy infrastructure around the Amudarya and Syrdarya rivers required coordination, but this could no longer be politically secured after the 1991 Soviet disintegration. According to the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, coordinatio…
Governing for resilience
Witchcraft, oracle, and magic in the kingdom of planning
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
A coevolutionary perspective on the adoption of sustainable land use practices
Rhetorics and realities of participation
We present a context-sensitive perspective on participation in rural development, revolving around the reconstruction of unique sets of differences between rhetorics and realities. Using a theoretical frame inspired by the Evolutionary Governance Theory, we identify mechanisms of reinterpretation and delimitation of participation in the context of evolving rural governance. Through a detailed case study of the Ethiopian agricultural extension sys…
The social, the ecological, and the adaptive. Von Bertalanffy's general systems theory and the adaptive governance of social‐ecological systems
Based on biological insights, Ludwig von Bertalanffy coined general systems theory (GST) and later expanded his perspective, exploring what GST could mean for other disciplines and other types of systems. We make a case for the relevance, or rather, the importance, of GST for coming to a new understanding of the resilience of social‐ecological systems and the possible forms of adaptive governance that might increase such resilience. After analyzi…
Comparative Planning Research, Learning, and Governance
In this article, the authors develop a perspective on the value of, and methodologies for, comparative planning research. Through comparative research, similarities and differences between planning cases and experiences can be disentangled. This opens up possibilities for learning across planning systems, and possibly even the transfer of best planning and policy practices across systems, places, or countries. Learning in governance systems is al…
Learning from Other Places and Their Plans
In this thematic issue we pursue the idea that comparative studies of planning systems are utterly useful for gaining a deeper understanding of learning processes and learning capacity in spatial planning systems. In contemporary planning systems the pressures towards learning and continuous self-transformation are high. On the one hand more and more planning is needed in terms of integration of expertise, policy, local knowledge, and response to…
Rethinking Planning Systems
The authors reflect on recent experiences at UN-Habitat and other international organizations to rethink the roles of planning towards larger development goals and to reform planning systems in places most in need of them. They consider the difficulties but ultimate necessity to learn from a variety of contexts and experiences to articulate general orientations for planning and planning reform which can partly transcend context. Within the variet…
Ecosystem accounting's potential to support coastal and marine governance
The paper presents an exploratory assessment of ecosystem accounting's potential to support marine and coastal governance. Norwegian kelp forest management and restoration, and a series of nested case studies are used as examples. By analysing a series of institutional experiments where ecosystem accounting (EA) can potentially be applied, and by including the theoretical lens of evolutionary governance, EA is found potentially valuable. It can e…
From coal not to ashes but to what? As Pontes, social memory and the concentration problem
Resilience, Reinvention and Transition during and after Quarantine
Quarantine measures and the crises triggering them are never neutral in the sense that a return to the past is impossible. These measures are also a signal of other things like systemic risks and weaknesses. A period of quarantine is also a thing in and by itself. What happens after quarantine is thus shaped both by the state of the social-ecological system preceding quarantine and by what happened during quarantine. The selectivities introduced …
Reimagining craft for community development
In this paper we link contemporary thinking on craft and craftsmanship to concepts in community development. Craft is contrasted with popular development dogmas such as innovation, planning and the knowledge economy. Our aim is to reimagine craft as a form of production linked to traditions of trade-craft and blue-collar work, yet open to blending with the creative economy and innovation agendas. While emphasising tradition, craft can be forward-…
Evolution of place-based governance in the management of development dilemmas
In this paper, we reflect on the evolution of place-based governance from a long-term (15 year) study of rural development initiatives undertaken in a region of Poland as part of its accession to the European Union. We decompose the recursive process of institutional learning arising from initiatives for heritage preservation and rural economic development. In our analysis, we elaborate a typology of unavoidable development dilemmas that must be …
Steering as Path Creation
We develop a perspective on steering in governance which understands steering as intended path creation. Inspired by evolutionary governance theory, critical management studies and social systems theory, we argue that steering is shaped and limited by co-evolutions, disallowing for any formulaic approach. In order to illuminate the space for steering in governance, we analyze the interplay between different dependencies. Those dependencies are no…
Steering in Governance
Steering has negative connotations nowadays in many discussions on governance, policy, politics and planning. The associations with the modernist state project linger on. At the same time, a rethinking of what is possible by means of policy and planning, what is possible through governance, which forms of change and which pursuits of common goods still make sense, in an era of cynicism about steering yet also high steering expectations, seems emi…
Sociology (30 works) · Political science (25 works) · Economics (24 works) · Computer Science (22 works) · Corporate governance (18 works) · Business (16 works) · Management (15 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (14 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · Engineering (12 works)