Understanding the historical institutional context by using content analysis of local policy and planning documents: Assessing the interactions between tourism and landscape on the Island of Terschelling in the Wadden Sea Region

Content analysis is a valuable tool to identify changes in policy. By analysing historical documents, policymakers and planners can improve their understanding of the institutional context in which decisions were made. Using the Island of Terschelling in the UNESCO World Heritage Wadden region of the northern Netherlands as our example, we show how content analysis can be used to understand the historical institutional context. We analysed policy and planning documents from 1945 to 2015, which was supported by semi-structured interviews with local key informants. We specifically considered tourism-landscape interactions. Although there were fluctuations between socio-economic development and nature protection over time, we found that there has been an increasing awareness of synergy. Synergies are crucial to balance nature protection with socio-economic development and to increase the social-ecological resilience of regions. We conclude that, by using content analysis, local documents can be used as a proxy for the institutional context.