Abstract & Overview
Citizen participation is enshrined in the Norwegian Planning and Building Act\n(PBA) 1985 and accentuated by the 2008 revision of the PBA. In this article,\nwe ask if the research on participation in municipal planning is sufficient to\ndraw conclusions on whether the Act is effective with regard to both the\nspirit and the letter of the law. The guiding framework for the analysis is\nbased on the concepts of input and output legitimacy and the distinction\nbetween ‘tidy’ and ‘untidy’ participation. The analysis is based on scientific\npublications published after the 2008 revision of the PBA. We find that the\nmajority of the research concentrates on zoning plans and municipalityinitiated ‘tidy’ participation. As a result, there are gaps in the research with\nregard to both the planning context and the interconnectedness of different\nforms of participation. Therefore, the research reviewed can only partially\ninform the law-makers on the functioning of the Act.