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In many countries, cities are expected to stimulate compact city development by the government, while at the same time develop healthier and more social sustainable cities. In Norway, national policy and planning regulation aim at stimulating a development that ensures active urban childhoods. In order to ensure this, the Planning and Building Act ensure particular participation rights for children and youth in the planning process. In this article, we will present how these rights are understood and implemented in practice. Then we will discuss how local government can enable children to participate in a meaningful way and where their input actually contributes to the plans and urban design being developed. This last discussion will be elaborated by studying a case about the Children Track Methodology. ; This study has been conducted in a research project evaluating the Norwegian Planning and Building Act, financed by the DEMOSREG-programme in the Norwegian Research Council. In addition, it has been financed by an extra funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernization. ; publishedVersion

This article examines challenges related to the political steering of New Public Management‐inspired planning practices in Norway and asks if local politicians have sufficient and adequate instruments to hand, and if they are willing and have the knowledge to use them. The discussion is based upon a broad survey of the 145 largest municipalities and qualitative interviews in the three largest cities. It is found that local politicians do not lack steering instruments, as the different managerial practices represent a spectrum of suitable tools for giving direction to urban development. However, the data indicate that local politicians do not utilise the full steering potential of the instruments due to lack of knowledge and will. These findings contribute to the discussion of the strategic steering role of local politicians.

In order to meet the challenges of an increasingly fragmented public sector and severe wicked problems, network structures have become an important part of contemporary public administration. Thus, managing networks is a central concern for public managers. The article focuses on networks being established in Norway in accordance with the EU Water Framework Directive. The mandatory networks consist of actors representing different levels of government and several policy sectors, having highly asymmetric interests, interdependencies, and power relations. Based on comprehensive survey material, the article illuminates how the important role of network management on multi-level coordination is conditioned by complexity. Rather surprisingly, the more complex networks score better on coordination, and the most promising management strategy seems to depend upon institutional complexity. Direct and connecting strategies seem to be required in the most complex settings, while in less complex settings, indirect facilitative strategies are more effective to achieve coordination. ; This is the accepted version of the following article: Hovik, S. & Hanssen, G. S. (2015). The impact of network management and complexity on multi-level coordination. Public Administration, 93(2), 506-523., which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/padm.12135.

This paper examines participation in water management, more specifically in implementing the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Norway. Attainment of the goals of the WFD depends on new ways of coordinating the activities, knowledge and resources of many sectors and levels of government, including the private sector. The WFD explicitly emphasizes broad stakeholder involvement and public participation. The new network arena of River Basin District Water Boards at the regional level and Sub-District Boards at the sub-regional level, cut across existing municipal, regional and national borders. In each River Basin District, broad reference groups are established. Through surveys and qualitative case studies, we examine how this norm of participation is operationalized in the River Basin Districts, and how different actors evaluate it. We find that the reference grou ps have mobilized many actors from civil society and the private sector, but they do not report having influe nce. The role of the reference group is unclear. ; Artikkelen er skrevet i forskningsprosjektet «Water Pollution Abatement in a System of Multi-level Governance: A study of Norway's implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WAPABAT), finansiert av MILJØ2015-programmet i Norges forskningsråd.

To handle the challenge of complex cross-sector and multilevel coordination in the implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive, Norway has established multilevel governance networks. Observers have pointed to a risk of such governance arrangements being dominated by experts. This article studies the highly complex multilevel governance networks of water management in Norway, and unveils the importance of political anchorage of such governance networks at local and regional levels. The study finds evidence that political anchorage matters for further network achievements. Because the water governance networks are subordinated to the hierarchy of government, they need to 'talk to' the system of hierarchical government in order to be effective. In this regard, it seems crucial that networks are politically anchored. Furthermore, the study unveils the important role of political leadership and network managers in ensuring political anchorage. ; This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Hovik, S., & Hanssen, G. S. (2016). Implementing the EU Water Framework Directive in Norway: Bridging the Gap Between Water Management Networks and Elected Councils?. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 1-21. [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1523908X.2016.1149049.

How does the increasingly pluricentric character of regional governance in Denmark, Sweden and Norway condition the political leadership of politicians elected at regional levels of government? In regional governance, politicians elected at different levels of governance compete for political leadership, and this competition is particularly intense in pluricentric regional governance arenas with a weak division of political power. In such cases, the political leadership capacity of elected politicians at regional levels of governance depends on their ability to attract regional followers and to mobilise the support and resources of strong, influential regional stakeholders. From an analysis of recent institutional reforms in the three Scandinavian countries and a literature review of the role played by politicians in regional governance in the wake of these reforms, the article concludes that Scandinavian regional governance is strongly pluricentric (with some variation), and that recent reforms have contributed to making it even more pluricentric in character.v ; publishedVersion

How does the increasingly pluricentric character of regional governance in Denmark, Sweden and Norway condition the political leadership of politicians elected at regional levels of government? In regional governance, politicians elected at different levels of governance compete for political leadership, and this competition is particularly intense in pluricentric regional governance arenas with a weak division of political power. In such cases, the political leadership capacity of elected politicians at regional levels of governance depends on their ability to attract regional followers and to mobilise the support and resources of strong, influential regional stakeholders. From an analysis of recent institutional reforms in the three Scandinavian countries and a literature review of the role played by politicians in regional governance in the wake of these reforms, the article concludes that Scandinavian regional governance is strongly pluricentric (with some variation), and that recent reforms have contributed to making it even more pluricentric in character.

Artikel 6How does the increasingly pluricentric character of regional governance in Denmark, Sweden and Norway condition the political leadership of politicians elected at regional levels of government? In regional governance, politicians elected at different levels of governance compete for political leadership, and this competition is particularly intense in pluricentric regional governance arenas with a weak division of political power. In such cases, the political leadership capacity of elected politicians at regional levels of governance depends on their ability to attract regional followers and to mobilise the support and resources of strong, influential regional stakeholders. From an analysis of recent institutional reforms in the three Scandinavian countries and a literature review of the role played by politicians in regional governance in the wake of these reforms, the article concludes that Scandinavian regional governance is strongly pluricentric (with some variation), and that recent reforms have contributed to making it even more pluricentric in character.

Urban issues such as poverty or marginality and disadvantage, unrest, crime, housing, segregation and social cohesion are on the political and academic agenda in Europe and in the US (Andersen, 2002; Atkinson, 2019; Galster, 1990; Gerell & Kronkvist, 2017; Mayer, Thörn, & Thörn, 2016; Uslaner, 2012; Wacquant, 2008). As indicated, policymakers devise strategies to address such problems (Andersson, Wimark, & Malmberg, 2020; Damm, Nielsen, Mattana, & Rouland, 2020; Davis, 2019; George & Patrick, 2017; van Gent et al., 2018; van Gent & Musterd, 2013). This also holds true for Norway (e.g. Andersen & Brattbakk, 2020). In Norway, the Government or a specific ministry may appoint a committee to report on an issue of relevance. The results are published as an Official Norwegian Report – Norges offentlige utredninger (NOU) in Norwegian. While it can be argued that urban issues are not a political priority in Norway, the current conservative Government – led by prime minister Erna Solberg – did appoint a committee to examine living conditions in Norwegian cities. The Norwegian Commission for City and Living Conditions presented its NOU on 16 December 2020 (NOU 2020:16). The report is important as it summarizes the latest knowledge on the topic and provides recommendations for future Norwegian urban policies. Hence, it is worth a thorough and critical review.

The article studies differences in political leadership in local government in Norway and in Poland and how they might contribute to differences in local climate policy – adaptation as well as mitigation. Based on the literature of different political leadership models in Europe, we ask how the different political leadership traditions affect active leadership in policies related to climate change. This is answered by analyzing nation-wide surveys to municipalities in Norway and Poland. The results confi rm our basic assumption about the differences in leadership between Norway and Poland as being related to differing political models on the local level. Although other factors also explain variations, the fi ndings illustrate the potential of the models in explaining the role of leadership in new policy fi elds – as with climate-change policies. ; The paper has been prepared within the POLCITCLIM (Organizing for resilience. A comparative study on institutional capacity, governance, and climate change adaptation in Poland and Norway) project funded from Norway grants in the Polish–Norwegian Research Programme operated by the National Centre for Research and Development. The Norwegian survey was co-funded by the GOVRISK-project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. ; publishedVersion