Torill Nyseth

Network Governance in Contested Urban Landscapes

Urban planning is one of the policy fields where new forms of governance are developing. The article focuses on governance networks as one emergent form of governance in urban planning. In governance literature, discourse networks are seen as a threat to representative democracy. This article argues that the consequences for democracy depend on the type of network that develops and its performance in relation to democratic norms. Governance networks are discussed through the lens of democratic network governance, the utility of which is explored as an analytical tool in a case study of urban planning in Norway. In this context a governance network was constructed as a response to market-orientated planning practice in order to enhance citizen participation and public debate. The aim of this article is to discuss the relevance of the theory of network governance relating it to new forms of participation in public planning processes. The study shows that governance networks could strengthen democracy, though important questions about meta-governance, however, remain unsolved. The article also shows that networks operating in an institutional vacuum tend to fail in institutional capacity building.

Planning beyond the horizon: The Tromsø experiment

Through a case study of urban planning in Tromsø, Norway, Jean Hillier’s idea of a multi-planar theory of planning is discussed. Hillier’s theory explores the potential of the concept of becoming as creative experimentation. Our aim with this article is to explore the concept of planning as experimentation. The case study is a democratic experiment with planning as a more open, transparent and inclusive process, and it represented a break with institutionalized practices. The article analyses this experiment through a post-structural approach and how it relates to planning practice.

Two networks, one city: Democracy and governance networks in urban transformation

Governance networks are increasingly important in urban planning, in policy implementation and in service provision, and are often organized to improve efficiency and innovation in the pursuit of some public purpose. We argue that their democratic merits, in addition to their efficiency and output aspects, must be taken into consideration if they are to be understood as legitimate problem solvers on behalf of a local democratic authority. Here we draw on entrepreneurial and deliberative perspectives on urban governance, and work out criteria for assessing network performance. The insights of both perspectives are needed, we argue, to study legitimacy in contemporary urban policies, and we ask whether it is possible to strike a balance between democratic procedural standards and producing the desired outcomes. Empirically we compare the performance of a network with a strong entrepreneurial orientation with that of a network with a deliberative orientation, both located in the same city and operating within the same time frame.

Municipal Response to Local Diversity: Flexibility in Community Governance

Abstract The Scandinavian countries have a long tradition for networked or partnership-based policy making at the local level. The tradition involves co-operation between local authorities and market actors as well as actors representing civil society. Despite this long-standing tradition, the emerging diversity and complexity of the co-operative relationships challenge the established systems and structures in these countries as well as in countries where such traditions are less developed. The municipalities have been used to the role as the authority in these relations, an authority that is now destabilised and which led to a situation that calls for flexibility. This paper discusses whether the municipalities possess the flexibility that is often an implicit expectation when entering co-operative relations with the multitude of organisational structures represented in the diversity of Norwegian community councils.

Fluid Planning: A Meaningless Concept or a Rational Response to Uncertainty in Urban Planning?

Many contemporary writers have developed and elaborated upon various fluid metaphors to capture aspects of contemporary social life (Urry, 2000). Flows and fluidity are some of the catchwords in social, cultural, and urban thinking that is used as building blocks in theorizing contemporary trends with a focus on process, connectivity, and mobility at the expense of the previous focus on boundedness, hierarchy, and form (Simonsen, 2004: 1333). Fluidity and flows could even be seen as a whole new paradigm (Shield,1997). In the social science literature these consepts are primarily used as metaphors to describe turbulence and instability. Also in the planning field, fluidity is a concept that first of all is used as a metaphor to describe conditions of uncertainty. Today’s turbulent conditions represent particular challenges for planning and policy making, including new spaces of politics, radical uncertainty, awareness of interdependence, the importance of “difference,” and dynamics of trust and identity (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003). Strategic spatial planners are faced with a world of potentialities, possibilities and uncertainties that are mostly beyond their control (Hillier et al., 2011). Traditional strategic spatial planning practices are failing to cope with contingency and uncertainty. In the planning literature, fluidity is however, more than a metaphor. The conditions of radical uncertainty also call for new forms of planning that in a sense are fluid too. Situations of uncertainty require a form of planning that is more exploratory and open to change; planning could be more equivalent to a “voyage of discovery” rather than a “road map” (Balducci, 2011: 2).

Innovations in Ethnic Landscapes: A Study of Innovations in Three Municipalities in Northern Norway

Abstract Are people in the extreme periphery able to innovate? This study covers three multi-ethnic municipalities in Northern Norway, and the research question is to what extent local institutions are linked to innovative processes. Two dominant institutions are addressed: The local government institution, and the ethnic traditions (a mix of Sami, Kven, Norwegian) of the municipalities in question. The research uncovered a substantial number (42) of innovative processes in these municipalities, and seven of these have been selected for a followup study. The selection is based on an assessment of the transformative character of the innovation, and the researchers have tried to cover a broad innovation field, including also public sector and civil society innovative processes, in addition to commercial innovations. It turned out that most of the selected innovations had strong links to the specific ethnic contexts of these municipalities, and that the municipal institution also played a significantrole in their implementation. Further, Kåfjord, the most deprived of these three municipalities—the one suffering a severe population loss 1980–2000—turned out to be the one with the largest number of innovations reported, and also showing innovations profiting from a interlinking of technology, tourism, identity politics and networking with the outside world. In sum, the study points to the potentials also of very small and remote communities in the future, to the extent that they are able to combine traditional elements—in the case of Kåfjord an ethnic revival as Coast Sami people—with commercial, political and technological elements.

Urban Sámi Identities in Scandinavia: Hybridities, Ambivalences and Cultural Innovation

Abstract One of the most significant social and cultural changes in the northern part of Scandinavia, as in other parts of the world, is urbanization. All over the northern region, towns and cities are growing, and a large portion of the indigenous population now lives in urban areas throughout all Scandinavian countries. Within these multicultural cities, urban Sámi communities are emerging and making claims to the cities. From a situation where migration from a Sámi core area to a city was associated with assimilation, an urban Sámi identity is now in the making. In this article, we discuss what seems to be the emergence of an urban Sámi culture. The article builds on findings from a study of urban Sámi and their expression of identity in three cities with the largest and fastest-growing Sámi populations in the region: Tromsø (Norway), Umeå (Sweden) and Rovaniemi (Finland). A main finding is the increasing recognition of their status as indigenous people and the growth in Sámi institutions in the cities. Another finding is an urban Sámi culture in the making, where new expressions of Sámi identity are given room to grow, but where we also find ambivalences and strong links and identifications to places in the Sámi core districts outside of the cities.

Communities of practice in the management of an Arctic environment: monitoring knowledge as complementary to scientific knowledge and the precautionary principle?

This is accepted manuscript version. Published version available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S003224741500039X

Evaluating performance in urban development networks – the Nordic context

This article examines the performance of three urban development networks typical of the Nordic countries. While such networks generally are believed to produce effective solutions to the complex problems they are established to solve, not all networks perform well. In the three illustrative cases discussed in the article the stakeholders themselves, despite obvious lack of immediate results, seem to evaluate the networks in rather positive terms. Positioned in the literature on evaluation and network performance we discuss whether there are instrumental reasons to believe in this self-evaluation. This article discusses four criteria: goal attainment, well-informed and joint understanding, participation/representativeness and favourable conditions for future collaboration.