Spotlight on the Critical Pragmatism of John Forester Hendrik Wagenaar is an associate profes- sor of public policy at the Department of Public Administration at Leiden University. He is also research director of the Centre for Governance Studies-Urban at The Hague campus of Leiden University. He publishes in the areas of urban governance, citizen participation, prostitution policy, administrative practice, complexity theory, and interpretive policy analysis. His recent publications include: Deliberative Policy Analysis. Understanding Governance in the Network Society (Cambridge University Press, 2003) (with Maarten Hajer). His new book, Meaning in Action: Interpretation and Dialogue in Policy Analysis, will be published by M. E. Sharpe. E-mail: hendrik.wagenaar@gmail.com The Critical Pragmatism of John Forester 293 Hendrik Wagenaar Leiden University “A Beckon to the Makings, Workings and Doings of Human Beings”: he Critical Pragmatism of John Forester John Forester’s important research project of developing a critical pragmatist approach to planning and policy analysis now spans two decades. Common themes that give direction and coherence to his project are, first, a new view of public planning as the restructuring of communication between stakeholders with divergent and conflicting interests and large inequalities in power and influence; second, a redefinition of the role of the planner away from a handmaiden of power to a hands-on professional who fosters inclusive, participatory forms of collective action; and, finally, a deliberate concern with the micropolitics of planning that enables participants to broaden their full potential for democratic transformation within the context of strong, enduring inequalities in agenda-setting and decision- making power. his review traces the roots of Forester’s project in pragmatist thought and in particular themes from Emersonian moral philosophy, adding a notion of “critical” to Forester’s radical pluralist stance. Forester subscribes to John Dewey’s argument for democracy, which inherently requires diversity to arrive at warranted truth. For Forester, the core task of a planner is to safeguard the participation of those normally excluded from decision making by institutionalized inequalities. W ith Dealing with Differences (Forester 2009), John Forester has made another contribution to his now more than two- decades-long project of developing a critical pragma- tist approach to planning and public policy. Forester’s unique and important venture more or less began with Planning in the Face of Power (1989), was followed by Critical heory, Public Policy, and Planning Practice: Toward a Critical Pragmatism (1993) and he Delib- erative Practitioner (1999), and includes countless papers, book chapters, and collections of profiles of professionals. he common theme that gives direction and coherence to this rich and varied output is a view of planning as the restructuring of communication between stakeholders with divergent and conflicting interests and large inequalities in power and influence. A second theme is his effort to redefine the role of the planner away from a handmaiden to instrumentalist, rational decision makers to a hands-on professional who fosters inclusive, participatory forms of collective action. And third, Forester exhibits a concern with the micropolitics of planning to enable participants to assert their full potential of democratic transforma- tion in the face of strong and enduring inequalities in agenda-setting and decision-making power. I take Forester’s project to be of great significance to public administration (both with and without capi- tals). Recently, some important attempts have been made to sketch the contribution that pragmatism can make to Public Administration (Harmon 2006; Miller 2004; Shields 2003, 2004), but it would be a serious overstatement to assert that pragmatism has become part of the self-image of Public Administra- tion, or that a pragmatist restructuring of the profes- sion and the discipline is imminent (Harmon 2006). Moreover, most of the pragmatist writings in Public Administration have a decidedly theoretical slant and miss the consistent focus on practice that characterizes Forester’s work. herefore, I consider Forester’s critical pragmatism as a model for Public Administration and policy analysis. his review has three aims: to assess the two elements of Forester’s approach, “pragma- tism” and “critical”; to situate his larger project in the overarching tradition of American pragmatism; and to discuss the contribution that Dealing with Differences has made to critical pragmatism. Forester’s most explicit statement of critical pragma- tism is Critical heory, Public Policy, and Planning Prac- tice, particularly its first chapter, “Toward a Critical Pragmatism.” Forester’s British colleague Patsy Healey notices that both her own “collaborative planning” (Healy 1997) and Forester’s critical pragmatism have been deeply influenced by Richard Bernstein. Particu- larly in his influential Beyond Objectivism and Relativ- ism (1983), Bernstein moves toward a communicative, dialogical understanding of social theory and collective action. Not rational-instrumental analysis, but the practical judgment and communication between