Quiet acceptance vs. the 'polder model'. Stakeholder involvement in strategic urban mobility plans: a comaprative study between Sweden and the Netherlands

Abstract

Urban mobility planning is an important policy issue for municipalities nowadays. In order to achieve a more sustainable transport system, municipalities a) need to coordinate their policies within the government system and b) involve external actors to get input and knowledge and increase public acceptability of policy measures. This thesis therefore researched the involvement of governmental and non-governmental actors in strategic urban mobility plans. This research is a comparative case-study between Malmö (Sweden) and Utrecht (the Netherlands) and uses the New Institutional Approach. Main conclusions were that governmental stakeholder involvement practices are quite similar in both countries: they both strive for policy coordination in urban mobility planning. In terms of non-governmental stakeholder involvement, Dutch municipalities involve non-governmental stakeholders more and earlier on in the process than municipalities in Sweden. Both formal institutions (i.e. laws and rules) and informal institutions (norms, values and culture) play a role in these differences.