Regional planning strategies: understanding the implementation of a new strategic tool in Norwegian planning law

This article analyzes the implementation of a novel concept in Norwegian planning and building law (PBA), the Regional Planning Strategy (RPS), which was introduced before the 2011-2015 electoral period. How the RPS was understood and implemented is the focus of this analysis. This article presents new knowledge of how new strategic elements unfold within a country’s legal framework through its implementation in practice. We add to the planning-theory dialogue by discussing translation by regional re-contextualization in the implementation of a new element in regional strategic planning (Røvik 1998, 2002). A study of the implementation of the RPS over three ‘generations’ (2011-2022) reveals interesting and surprising differences. Drawing on translation theory, we find that the translation, contextualization, and re-contextualization of the PBA with respect to the implementation of RPSs were diverse in 2011/12, that there was a convergence in the second generation, and that diversity reappears in new ways in the third generation. This article confirms how a new idea like RPS develops in regional planning processes is dependent on the central government’s need and ability to manage the counties’ RPS work, as well as the counties’ need and ability to make regional adjustments and to set their own political priorities.