Elite discourses of regional identity in a new regionalism developmentscheme: The case of the 'Mountain Region' in Norway

摘要

Norway's regional structure is under debate as questions about territorial boundaries, scale, scope of tasks and responsibilities, anddecision-making structures have become an issue in Norwegian politics. This tendency of changing the scale of public action withregard to governmental structures, economic politics, welfare, and civic society has been termed 'new regionalism'. New regionalismoften comes under criticism of being too neo-liberalistic or too economically orientated, leaving in its wake debates of democraticaccountability and the neglect of 'soft factors' (i.e. socio-culture, identity, consciousness, and participation). In this article theauthors investigate whether new democratic or semi-democratic regional organisations as advocated by new regionalist schemesrequire identification amongst the local population in order to be successful and enduring governmental structures. Further, it isshown how too simplistic understandings of the social processes, and their inherent power aspects, involved in the implementationof the new regionalist development scheme 'Mountain Region' distort the undertaking. The authors find that a more complexrelational and contextual understanding is in demand, one in which regionalisation is not only recognised as a process whichdiffuses across time-space, but also takes an asymmetrical place across society's social fabric, and one where 'soft factors' such as'regional identity' are not sidestepped.