Public communication and strategic planning

The article explores how strategic planning is employed to address the governance context of public communication by considering the case of the EU’s Cohesion Policy. We distinguish formal strategic planning (steps and procedures for developing a top-down strategy) from deliberative practices of strategic planning (strategy-as-practice), which enable stakeholder participation in Cohesion Policy governance. It is argued that both approaches should form part of the governance toolkit for public communication to support democratic outcomes. Drawing primarily on qualitative data exploring two regional operational programmes in Slovenia and Ireland, we find mixed results concerning how formal and deliberative planning are integrated into Cohesion Policy communication, in turn affecting its democratic potential. An integrated approach appears easier to implement in decentralised systems like Ireland’s than in centralised ones like in Slovenia. However, stakeholder commitment to deliberative planning does not fully reflect an integrated approach in either country – especially regarding a shared understanding of a communication’s purpose on the EU level.