Inger-Lise Saglie

Between Input Legitimacy and Output Efficiency: Defensive Routines and Agonistic Reflectivity in Nordic Land-Use Planning

The article describes tensions generated in land-use planning practices in Norway, Finland and Sweden, due to the shift towards New Public Management in actual governance practices, while the ideals of deliberative democracy in planning discourses and legislation have been retained. These tensions are studied empirically by making comparative observations of planning systems and practices in each country. The theoretical approach is developed by combining democracy and legitimacy theories with double bind theory and organizational learning theory. Based on this theoretical work, the article offers insights for reflectivity on the tensions. The Nordic ideal of deliberative democracy, expressed in the primary aims of our planning laws, may prohibit open acknowledgement of the uneasiness which follows from the fact that liberal democratic values (rights of landownership, free enterprise, etc.) are also secured. Thereby planners act and speak in terms of mixed messages, potentially habituated into defensive routines that may prohibit metacommunication on the basic tensions. The idea of agonistic reflectivity is offered as an approach to planning, which would acknowledge the tension between input legitimacy and output efficiency as a legitimate condition in itself, requiring ongoing political debate where the tension has to be continually discussed without actually ever being resolved.

Private Influence Preceding Public Involvement: Strategies for Legitimizing Preliminary Partnership Arrangements in Urban Housing Planning in Norway and Finland

Neoliberal ideas have inspired new forms of public–private partnerships in urban development. Early preliminary agreement on planning goals and related investments change the possibilities for public participation while offering a privileged position for developers. The aim of the article is to investigate the way power is used in these processes and how such power is legitimized. A new framework for empirical analysis is developed applying theoretical categorizations of power and democratic legitimacy. Housing planning in Norway and Finland is studied and compared. Lukess three dimensions of power allows the structural power relations embedded within habitual planning practices and legal frameworks to be identified, while authority and manipulation are observable empirically in case studies involving conflicts. As the study reveals, output legitimacy is emphasized, and discussion of procedural aspects of the cases is avoided.

Legitimacy building in weak institutional settings: climate change adaptation at local level in Denmark and Norway

Local strategies for adaptation to climate change in Denmark and Norway are discussed. In both countries, the national impetus for local adaptation is weak; it is largely left to local actors to take the initiative. The dynamics of the different approaches to climate-change adaptation at the local level are illuminated. Using decision-making and learning theory, we present an analytical framework to examine four cases, two in Norway and two in Denmark, which represent two different responses, i.e. anticipatory actions and obligatory actions. We find that, by bringing in knowledge and resources and engaging in persuasive communication across sectors, the presence of institutional entrepreneurs in the adaptation process plays a key role in building legitimacy for anticipatory action in the municipal organisation.

Surviving Between the Trenches: Planning Research, Methodology and Theory of Science

Planning research-understood as research aiming to improve the body of knowledge on which spatial planning is based-includes issues rooted both in the social sciences, natural science and the humanities. Spatial planners need knowledge about the likely consequences of different alternatives of action, as well as understanding of the role of plans and planning processes in the development of society. This is reflected in the two-fold focus of planning research on both substantive and procedural issues. Whereas research on the role of plans and planning processes takes place mainly within a non-positivist social science paradigm, the research aiming to provide planners with the knowledge needed in order to make good plans is often situated in the battlefield between opposing positions within theory of science. Because planning research has both society and the physical as its subject of inquiry, a reflective opinion about the interaction between the physical environment and human actions is crucial. Traditionally, many spatial planners have conceived of this in a quite näive way, assuming that human behaviour can to a high extent be shaped or controlled by manipulating the physical environment. During recent decades, this view has been sharply criticized by anti-positivist scholars, and some theorists point out the great uncertainty, close to impossibility, in predicting human actions, even at an aggregate scale. The latter position has dramatic implications to spatial planning, as it would then be impossible to assess whether a certain physical solution is likely to have positive or negative social and related environmental consequences, e.g. in terms of travelling distances and modal split. Our own position is that the physical environment, along with a number of individual and non-physical structural factors, influences human activities and quality of life. To some extent, this influence can be predicted at an aggregate scale, but not for a particular individual (except those actions rendered impossible by the laws of physics). How strong influence the physical environment exerts, is a question requiring empirical research in order to be answered.

Legitimacy of Informal Strategic Urban Planning-Observations from Finland, Sweden and Norway

Abstract In Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian cities and urban regions, strategic approaches in urban planning have been developed by introducing different kinds of informal strategic plans. The means of improving the strategic quality of urban and regional planning have thus been searched from outside the statutory land use planning system, determined by the national planning laws. Similar development has also taken place elsewhere. When strategic plans are prepared outside the statutory planning system, these processes also lack the legal guarantee for openness, fairness and accountability. This is a serious legitimacy problem. In this article, the problem is examined theoretically and conceptually by combining democracy- and governance-theoretical perspectives. With this framework, four different approaches to legitimacy are derived: accountability, inclusiveness, liberty and fairness. The article concludes that strategic urban planning must find a balance between the four approaches to legitimacy. Concerning political processes, this requires agonistic acknowledgement of different democracy models, excluding neither deliberative nor liberalist arguments. Concerning administrative processes, it requires acknowledgement of the interdependence of statutory and informal planning instruments and the necessity of developing planning methods for their mutual complementarity—thus avoiding the detachment of informal strategic planning into a parallel planning “system”.

Democracy or efficiency: contradictory national guidelines in urban planning in Norway

Planning and building legislation is often divided between two institutional systems and mutually contradictory discourses. While the discourse related to building legislation focuses on efficiency, the planning discourse focuses on democracy. The two discourses are institutionally divided with two national governance systems in Norway. These governance systems meet in local development plans where planning and building are often fully integrated. How do these two discourses affect the development of national legislation and local planning? We find both the planning and building systems increasingly framed by the discourse related to efficiency.

Urban expansion in Norway ‐ development by plan?

It has been a commonly held assumption that Norwegian municipal land use planning has given few results. Case studies of two Norwegian settlements show, however, that present day urban pattern is a planned development after the introduction of master planning as a planning tool after 19701. In the two municipalities, respectively 96 and 98 per cent of urban expansion after 1970 is in accordance with municipal master plans. Important reasons for this unexpected success of planning is that planning had a strong legitimacy base among local politicians. Planning was introduced because of clearly visible and perceptible problems with uncontrolled urban growth such as encroachment on farmland and recreational areas, and pollution of rivers and fjords from untreated sewage. In addition, to build co‐ordinated and predictable was necessary in order to achieve an efficient and economical infrastructure. Both municipalities were active in implementing the plans through acquisition of land and development of infrastr...

Environmental Considerations in Physical Planning under Different Conditions: a Comparison of a Polish and a Norwegian Municipality

An investigation of the environmental content in land use planning in the Norwegian municipality of Sandefjord and the Polish municipality of Myslenice shows a surprisingly high degree of similarity. In both cases, the protection of farmland and scarce biotopes as well as sewage management has been emphasised in the plans. Cultural heritage and cultural landscapes have been a strong concern in Myslenice, while Sandefjord has paid more attention to natural areas for outdoor recreation. In both cases there has been little focus on energy conservation, and the concept of sustainable development has hardly been discussed. The content of the plans has been considerably influenced by national environmental policies. The type of political system (capitalism vs. state socialism) has indirectly influenced the amount of construction and hence the pace of conversion of undeveloped land, but does not appear to have had much influence on the environmental content of the plans apart from this. The emphasis laid on vari...

Serviced flats—An alternative to institutions in the care of the elderly

Serviced flats, the alternative to both institutional and homebased care for the elderly has been introduced all over Norway in the last decade. The intention is that the serviced flats should both provide easier access to help for the frail elderly, and a setting suitable for social interaction between the residents.. At the same time the serviced flats should maintain the privacy and independence of living at home, all at a lower cost than institutions. This new concept includes a new material structure or architecture as well as a new social organization of the staff. The physical surroundings and the social organization is closely woven together to create new solutions in housing the elderly. In this article we discuss how the models of serviced flats found in Norway have emerged and to what extent the chosen models fulfill the planners expectations.