From Projects to Strategies: A Transaction Cost Approach to Politicians' Problems with Strategic Transport Planning

Abstract

There is a strong trend in Norway towards strategic transport planning at the national level. The new type of integrated and holistic plans requires that members of the national parliament concentrate on strategic decision making and management by objectives, refraining from making decisions on single projects. Interviews with members of the national parliament's Standing Committee on Transport and Communications in 1997 and 2001 are used to study what the politicians mean by strategic transport planning and to present their expectations about its implementation and outcome. The problems experienced by elected representatives in rising above the project level and building transport policy on national strategic plans are the centre of attention. Increased efforts at the strategic planning level induce the national assembly to delegate project level decisions. The transaction cost politics approach sheds light on the question of whether or not members of parliament should delegate most project planning decisions about highways to the executive and what actions planners can take to make delegation more attractive.