SEA IN THE CONTEXT OF LANDTUSE PLANNING

cleavages in society, and the specific features of society (Faludi 1970). Sager (2001) addressesthe issue of context in the discussion of planning from an institutional perspective with theaim of contributing to ‘institutionally enriched planning theory’, e.g. by examining howplanning processes, implementation, and success are influenced by agency organisation andregulatory style. However, he stresses that factors other than those related to institutionalsettings can influence planning styles, e.g. pressure groups and strong stakeholders that affectthe process, as well as political pressure directed to the planners themselves. According toSager (2001) an increasing body of recent work studies planning from an institutionalperspective, e.g. examining, how, in practice, planning processes, implementation, and successare influenced by agency organisation and regulatory style. It is stressed however that factorsother than institutional settings can influence planning styles, planning is not carried out in aninstitutional vacuum but is essentially a political activity where pressure groups and strongstakeholders can influence the outcome as well as political pressure on the plannersthemselves. Further analysis focusing on an institutional analysis of planning practice ispresented in Healey et al (1997), including the role of planning in the national institutionalcontext, the interrelation between agency and context and the tools available to evaluate anddevelop planning practice. The context of EIA application in the Nordic countries has beenstudied by Emmelin (1998a, 1998b). On the basis of an empirical study of environmentaladministrations in the Nordic countries, the importance of including the issue of context, anunderstanding of the professional and organisational cultures, as well as the implementationstructures, is highlighted.The relation between the different tools for environmental integration and the contextof tool use is among the main areas researched as a part of the MiSt-programme as isdepicted in figure 3.2. The presupposition of the MiSt-programmes is that tools have abackground of “implicit factors” as well as a context of use. The context in which tools havedeveloped and the context in which they are used in practice may be in dissonance and theadaptation of tools to the appropriate context and to choice of appropriate tools in a givencontext is an important but often neglected problem. The ‘SEA-directive’ is a case in pointfor MiSt, where a tool is regulated by international directives and agreements but is supposedto be implemented in very different systems. The underlying rationality of the differentplanning systems as well as the susceptibility to environmental integration is of majorrelevance here. In a paper by Hilding-Rydevik and Bjarnadóttir (2007) it is claimed that theelements of the specific context in which SEA is introduced have an impact on the chosenapproach to SEA and the outcomes of SEA and those specific elements of context in relationto SEA implementation need to be addressed in relation to answering the larger question.38