How simultaneity in time, contextual influences and constraints affect planning situations, and shape the capacity of participants to plan

During the post-war years from 1945 the Labour Party in Norway obtained a unique possibility to realise its definite vision for a planned development of Norway. The result turned out to be a distinctively Norwegian form of long-term planning that throughout successive socialist and non-socialist governments lasted right up to 2005, when the government at that time let go of the idea of a long-term programme as a conceptual tool for comprehensive governmental planning and control. This article analyses the rise and fall of the Governmental Long-Term Programme in Norway. By developing an institutional approach to the study of governmental planning, implications are drawn with regard to the role that contextual influences, time and constraints should play in contemporary theories of what gives professional experts legitimacy and power to plan in democratic societies.