Planning Control on the Northern European Periphery

Abstract

From different pasts and currently different connections to EU, Latvia and Norway in the last few years have created new legal frameworks for their national planning systems and hence for planning control. This paper explores similarities and differences between these two planning control systems and related tendencies in the revision of planning legislation adopted in recent times. Methodologically, the study makes a distinction between acting organizational subjects and the rules of the game that affect their performance. Together with the planning organization, such formal institutional factors indicate modes of planning control as well as possibilities for creating coherence across planning hierarchies. The conclusion indicates similarities between the two systems, but also differences. These apply to some extent to organization, responsibilities and contents of planning control on regional and national levels and especially to their respective institutional approaches for creating consistency and symmetry in planning across local, regional and national levels. The recent legal revisions do not indicate any kind of tendency for convergence between these planning control systems. On the contrary, some of these changes reveal different approaches to modes of planning control.