Stakeholder participation in Norwegian coastal zone planning

This paper explores the practice of stakeholder participation in coastal zone (CZ) planning in Norway. On the basis of survey data drawn from a national sample of coastal municipalities, we first discuss how stakeholder groups take part in CZ planning and how variations in participatory forms are linked to their differential powers. Secondly, we examine to what extent formal consultation is sufficient to explain stakeholders’ relative standing in CZ planning, or if informal interaction is correlated with influence. We then turn to the question of whether participation is cumulative or not, in the sense that if stakeholders are involved in one way, they are also likely to be involved in another way. We conclude by addressing some issues of process design and the challenges of stakeholder involvement at a municipal level in Norwegian CZ planning.