Coastal planning on the Atlantic fringe, north Norway: the power game

The article describes an on-going struggle between local planning authorities, regional fishery authorities and environmental authorities over the management of the Norwegian coastal zone. Particular reference is made to a recent planning project in Nordland County where 18 peripheral communes with weak planning traditions joined forces to produce structure plans for their coastal areas. Concepts of rationality and power are used as points of departure for an interpretation of the actions of the parties involved. The discursively rational nature of the planning project, embodying principles of consensus building, social integration and personal growth, is contrasted to the strictly instrumental behaviour of regional fishery and environmental authorities. The article also relates conflicts between communes and regional sector authorities to the power structure of the field of coastal management and the habitus of the different institutional actors. The actions of the fishery authorities are seen as a defence of their monopoly of the production of ideology in marine management, while the actions of the communes are interpreted as a bid by the periphery for greater control over local resources.