Democracy and Teleology: Control of Planned Change in Faith-Based Organizations

The polycentric approach to governance in many industrialized nations highlights the growing importance of private, non-governmental organizations in community planning and decision-making. As the public sector yields authority to multiple centers of power, a pluralist premise suggests that the prospect of democratic participation will increase. Competition among interests, however, may actually limit participation in ways that only certain data or alternatives are considered. This study examines the community planning process employed by a significant non-governmental regional actor (the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis). Due to its historical and cultural significance, the Archdiocese’s efforts to reconfigure the network of parishes in its Northern Deanery clearly have the potential to impact neighborhoods and their future development. Governments in urban areas and inner-ring suburbs, particularly those experiencing economic decline or resurgence, are limited in their ability to convince such players to consider the larger social implications of their actions. The analysis of planning process discourse reflects conflicting themes of community commitment and institutional pressures for survival. Assessing the use of information sources, professional expertise and planned change methodology underscores the limits of analytic planning approaches. The paper contributes to knowledge of the interpretive processes of private, non-governmental organizations involved in community planning.