Confidence Building in Local Planning and Development. Some Experience from Norway

Abstract

Can local con dence building and cooperation strengthen local communities and have a positive in uence on local development? This is the main question in this article. In the rst part of the article the conditions for con dence building, mobilization, self-development and self-con dence in local planning are presented. A planning process called strategic and mobilizing planning which is built on these conditions is described. This planning or development process is drawn as an in nite spiral with an increasing 'radius'. As examples of such local con dence building and mobilization processes the cases of 'Nordvest Forum' and 'Cooperation in Haram commune' are presented and discussed. Nordvest Forum is a collaborative activity owned by competing companies in the region, which have recognized that they have a common problem related to recruitment and training of leaders. This has lead to new activities and new cooperation especially related to management training and cooperation. The collaboration between private and public institutions in Haram is an example where common challenges for companies and community were recognized. This process started as a concrete activity regarding recruitment of skilled workers with participation from a few but nevertheless important persons in the private and public sectors. The learning and con dence developed as a result of this cooperation lead to new and broader activities concerning the future of the community with many more participants. In the conclusion some practical advice is given for community planning and con dence building, informed by the theoretical discussion and the empirical examples in the article.

Adaptation to Change and Re-designing of Governance Systems: Cases from Small-Scale Rural Forestry

“…This change brings an inversion towards an inward spiral (envelopment, closed system, spiral of control, as expressed by Amdam (2000), creating a double spiral (Kouplevatskaya-Yunusova and Buttoud 2006). The stronger actors, those, who are quicker to understand the process dynamics, try to take control over the process, looking for a stability of their proper system.…”

“…A first spiral, with an outward direction (the spiral of development, open system and spiral of learning), corresponds to the preliminary stages in a policy-reform process (Amdam 2000). Adapted to the local scale, it corresponds to the perception of the national policy, where a general demand is expressed and the main actors start to seek coalitions to reinforce chances for promoting this demand ( Fig.…”

Exclusion: the necessary difference between ideal and practical consensus

“…This is likely to be exacerbated by the widespread lack of trust of state institutions and the associated sense that participation is unlikely to affect policy, shared by individuals and groups from the voluntary and community sector (Macnaghten et al, 1995;Wilson & Charlton, 1997;Duncan & Thomas, 2000). The question then becomes whether consensus building processes can be part of (re)building that trust and sense of agency, implying in turn that processes need to be consciously designed with long-term goals of building social capital (Macnaghten et al, 1995;Amdam, 2000).…”

“…• Building social capital, on the assumption that the process itself develops relations of trust and new linkages between participants (Amdam, 2000).…”

Etikk i planlegging- og i planpraksis

“…Dette er også en innfallsvinkel til å diskutere profesjons-etikk her i landet, selv om det ikke diskuteres som et etisk spørsmål (se f.eks Amdam 2000)…”