Confidence Building in Local Planning and Development. Some Experience from Norway

Can local confidence building and cooperation strengthen local communities and have a positive influence on local development? This is the main question in this article. In the first part of the article the conditions for confidence building, mobilization, self-development and self-confidence in local planning are presented. A planning process called strategic and mobilizing planning which is built on these conditions is described. This planning or development process is drawn as an infinite spiral with an increasing 'radius'. As examples of such local confidence building and mobilization processes the cases of 'Nordvest Forum' and 'Cooperation in Haram commune' are presented and discussed. Nordvest Forum is a collaborative activity owned by competing companies in the region, which have recognized that they have a common problem related to recruitment and training of leaders. This has lead to new activities and new cooperation especially related to management training and cooperation. The collaboration between private and public institutions in Haram is an example where common challenges for companies and community were recognized. This process started as a concrete activity regarding recruitment of skilled workers with participation from a few but nevertheless important persons in the private and public sectors. The learning and confidence developed as a result of this cooperation lead to new and broader activities concerning the future of the community with many more participants. In the conclusion some practical advice is given for community planning and confidence building, informed by the theoretical discussion and the empirical examples in the article.     

Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe

This study presents the results of a series of wool measurements from Bronze Age and Iron Age skins and textiles from Hallstatt, and Bronze Age textiles from Scandinavia and the Balkans. A new method of classification that was set up and applied on mostly mineralised Iron Age material has now been applied to a large body of non-mineralised material from the Bronze and Iron Ages. Three types of microscopes were used and their advantages and disadvantages assessed. The results of the investigation cast new light on sheep breeding and fibre processing in prehistoric Europe, and suggest that different sheep breeds existed in Bronze Age Europe.     

Planning Analysis and Political Steering with New Public Management

Interviews with members of the Norwegian national assembly's Standing Committee for Transport and Communications were conducted in 1995, 1997, 2001 and 2004. The politicians were asked about the usefulness of analytic input that planners contribute to national plans, first the Norwegian Road and Road Traffic Plan and later the National Transport Plan. Questions related to steering, coordination, delegation and the inclusiveness of the planning process were also posed. Changes in the politicians' attitudes to types of analytic planning input are outlined. Furthermore, the last round of interviews sheds light on the apparent paradox that parliamentarians accept delegation of highway investment decisions despite their profound scepticism regarding the cost–benefit analyses and impact calculations that are essential to management by objectives and results (MBOR), which was to give them continued political control despite delegation. Another conundrum is the parliamentarians' willingness to renounce the right to decide over most highway projects, even if these were seen as politically important, in order to obtain a strategic overview which they have been unable to use for changing the priorities set by the Government. The political concentration on strategic steering, the concomitant delegation, and MBOR are central components of New Public Management.     

Sailing Rock Art Boats

Amongst the thousands of Bronze Age rock art images that are found along the paleogeographic coast lines of southern Scandinavia the most ubiquitous is the boat. A few are furnished with what look like a mast or sail. These attributes have largely been ignored or explained away as features or objects other than rig because it is widely accepted that the sail was not used in Scandinavia until the 8th century AD. But what if after all they really are depictions of rig? Might this suggest that the sail was not only known but perhaps used here over a 1,000 years earlier than previously accepted? Starting from the bases of the images and the environment in which they are found, this paper asks whether vessels of the types we believe belonged to the Scandinavian Bronze Age could have been sailed? These evaluations led to a series of sail trials in a canoe undertaken in the archipelago of the Swedish west coast in the late summer and autumn of 2005. The successful results of these trials were later transferred to the Tilia, a full-scale reconstruction of the Hjortspring boat, a vessel dated to 350 BC but believed to belong to a long-established boatbuilding tradition stretching back into the Bronze Age. This is the report of the hypothesis behind these trials as well as their planning, execution and immediate results.     

‘Good order and the police’

The emergence of police ordinances and police authorities in the early modern period has traditionally been seen as a way to discipline society in order to increase the power of the absolutist state. However, recent investigations of early modern policing in German and French regions show that ‘good order and police’ was in demand by the subjects and also adapted to local needs. Inspired by this research this article investigates the enforcement of police ordinances in the Danish market towns of Aalborg and Sæby and the country district of Børglum-Jerslev. The results show that policing remained focused on local needs even after the creation of a royal police office in 1682. Policing mainly concerned the welfare and privileges of burghers in market towns until the introduction of a country police in 1791, when agrarian reforms began to erode the patriarchal order in the countryside. As a new way of governing, ‘police’ was a way both to govern free burghers and preserve traditional order.     

Marine Mammal Train Oil Production Methods: Experimental Reconstructions of Norwegian Iron Age Slab-Lined Pits

Seal hunting and whaling have played an important part of people’s livelihoods throughout prehistory as evidenced by rock carvings, remains of bones, artifacts from aquatic animals and hunting tools. This paper focuses on one of the more elusive resources relating to such activities: marine mammal blubber. Although marine blubber easily decomposes, the organic material has been documented from the Mesolithic Period onwards. Of particular interest in this article are the many structures in Northern Norway from the Iron Age and in Finland on Kökar, Åland, from both the Bronze and Early Iron Ages in which these periods exhibited traits interpreted as being related to oil rendering from marine mammal blubber. The article discusses methods used in this oil production activity based on historical sources, archaeological investigations and experimental reconstruction of Iron Age slab-lined pits from Northern Norway.     

‘…to exercise in all loyalty,discretion and conscience’: on insider research and the World Heritage Convention

While research on the World Heritage Convention has expanded tremendously in the last decade, little attention has been directed towards the research published by a handful of what can be characterised as insider researchers. Within this context, ‘insider researchers’ refers to individuals working at or on behalf of the core international institutions implementing the World Heritage Convention, such as the World Heritage Centre, and thus conduct research on a system they are part of. Coding articles published in international peer-reviewed journals, this article explores the themes and topics tackled in these articles and addresses the strengths and weaknesses of insider research within the World Heritage context.     

The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor as Royal Self-Expression1

In the Old Testament, shepherd is a common metaphor of kingship, and this metaphor is sometimes also used to denote the Israelite god as a ruler (See for instance HALOT entry ??? ). In Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek works this metaphor is remarkably more common in pre-exilic literature than in the later Greek and Roman literature, where it is almost absent. In this article I argue that shepherding was central to Assyrian and Babylonian ruling class identity, while absent as royal self-expression in the Persian, Achaemenid Empire. The imageries of these empires were influential as models for court life throughout the Ancient Near East, and beyond.