Techniken politischer Planung: Vom Marktkalkül zum Plankalkül? Anatomie des Problems am Beispiel der Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse „Wasserstraßenanschluß für das Saarland

One of the main causes for the creation of new governmental functions are functional shortcomings of the market allocation principle visible in various parts of society. The exercising of these new governmental functions has to face a special dilemma: being essentially a reaction, it is impossible to rely on the rationale of an overall planning concept (which of course would have to be developed), while accepting the dominating rationale of the price, resp. market mechanism leads to contradictions when governmental tasks have to be performed that arise exactly from the failure of those mechanisms. This dilemma must have repercussions in the techniques of political planning. Within this context the following questions arise: 1. In which way does the theory of political planning try to solve this dilemma and how are the resulting recommendations reflected when applying policy instruments? 2. Does there exist a basic discrepancy between the, at least in theory, intended goals of these techniques (welfare optimizing formulation of governmental activities) and the real goals (support of the demands) of special-interest groups on the one side and justification of governmental behavior on the other? 3. Do the theoretical discussions and real-world application of the policy instruments yield conditions for the realisation and elements of a societal planning calculus? The authors try to get insights into these questions by analysing case-studies, namely two cost-benefit analyses of a waterway connection project in Saarland, sponsored by the federal government of the FRG on one side, and the local state governments on the other.