Sum – from daring to deliberating?

The daring enterprise with many unknown factors of the Swedish 3G infrastructure roll out faced some setbacks in its implementation. Regarding the lack of coverage at the end of the formal, or intended, licence period, a few remarks can be made:

- The operators did not appeal for mast permits in the sparsely populated areas as much as in the big city areas. The lack of coverage in these areas can therefore not be explained by slow permit processes.

- Some mast site conflicts renders in very long processes in a rather complex court hierarchy.

- The operators benefited from the actual postponement of the coverage demands not only but the actual extra time, but also from the fact that the population grew.

The technology optimism found prior to the 3G decision likely had a setback during roll out, and the competition benefits so eagerly stressed prior in the 3G design was in practice toned down as environmental concerns were raised during roll out. In order to facilitate the roll out legal changes were made, including stronger PTA tools for forcing mast collaboration between operators, and including 3G mast sites in the “light” version of expropriation of the utility easement, by the loss of the property owners. Participation during roll out was found in the parliamentary discussions and voted legal changes – in its representative democracy version, but perhaps more importantly in the permit processes, both under the PTA and the 12:6 consultations, of the single mast site, where the key word is “concerned party”. The environmental management and planning depends on a legal system that is complex, which is problematic both to operators, other participants, as well as governmental and municipal authorities, as well as resource consuming and therefore inefficient. The non-handling of the radiation issue was a conflict that emerged during roll out, and this non-handling is further analyzed below.

With the radiation being legally defined out of the permit system, with reference to the Swedish Radiation Protection Authorities, as well as the 12:6 consultation of the Environmental Code, and there are base stations that are not visible enough to be an object of legal interest and therefore not assessed from a radiation perspective, an interesting conflict appears from the fact that the radiation has been such a big issue for the public - both as a reason for appeal, and as a basis for debate and protest. This alerts not the least the question of public participation in the 3G infrastructure development in Sweden.

The distorted sustainable development handling in the 3G design, where the ecological dimension remained unhandled, finds some sort of balance in the implementation stages to the extent of the single mast assessments. The vertical perspective however remains distorted or un-tiered since the extreme coverage requirements and fast roll out speed has pressured the municipal handling system, and undermined the local planning monopoly. The fact remains that the comprehensive impact of the system is not assessed, and the piecemeal assessment mast by mast can not balance this loss.

The indicators of how sustainable development has been handled raise further questions, and needs to be more thoroughly analyzed. However, to do this, a theoretical foundation has to be set.

P

– T

Governance of technological development in a spatial environment cuts through the fields of both the socio-legal sciences as well as planning theory. To be able to assess the legal design of the 3G decision when handing out licences to operators but more importantly the environmental management and spatial planning as far as it concerns the 3G case a review of planning theory is necessary. This will give a theoretical basis combined with the perspective on norms of sociology of law.

The development of the theoretical basis of the thesis has become necessary for the further analysis of the 3G case of Sweden. Theory is a way of understanding the world. Theory is a framework to organize facts and experience and interpret them in a systemic way. The way to organize and systemize, as well as the way to interpret, needs to be explained, in order to raise the level of knowledge produced to become scientific, and also to allow this knowledge to be criticized from more objective grounds. The thesis has to show on what theoretical grounds it stands when reaching its conclusions.

Scientific research in or sociology of law involves more than the identification of a topic and the selection and competent use of an appropriate method. Research is inevitably framed by conceptual and theoretical considerations, of which the research and analysis of a chosen topic will benefit, or even require being possible to perform in the first hand. The following sets of theoretical framework are divided into three main categories: spatial planning, sociology of law, norm science, and points of reference between these.

Both spatial planning and sociology of law, in perhaps slightly different ways, has been relating to the discourse of sustainable development. The summary of the chapter aims at a proposal of where sustainable development, spatial planning and sociology of law may converge, or offer understanding to the other. Both spatial planning and sociology of law are of an interdisciplinary character and have traditionally been open for external influence.

Spatial planning has captivated the creativity of scholars and practitioners from different disciplines such as architecture, sociology, gender studies and political science (See for example Etzioni 1967, Huxley 2000, Falkemark 1999). Planning approaches have been inspired by theories on communicative action as well as the relations of power as presented by Foucault (Habermas 1984, 1987). Sociology of law on the other hand has a natural influence from both the legal dogmatic studies from one side and sociology and the social sciences from another.⁶² When attempting such an interdisciplinary approach as of this thesis one quite naturally begins with closing in on the identities of spatial planning and sociology of law, to depict what it is that makes a discipline to be a discipline, what it is that makes these disciplines to be these disciplines. As Kaplan puts it: “Obviously, any community, including a community of scholars, is bound by a circle of conventions” (Kaplan 1993, p 171). The philosopher Toulmin develops this further.

62 See the debate in Retfærd on Sociology of Law as ‘the stepchild’ of the two disciplines, beginning with Banakar 2001.

“…the primary thing to be learned, tested put to work, criticized, and changed – is the repertory of intellectual techniques, procedures, skills, and methods of representation, which are employed in ‘giving explanations’ of events and phenomena within the scope of the science concerned.” (Toulmin 1972, p 159)

In these sciences concerned the “mastering” of these techniques, procedures, skills and methods is essential if one wants to “attain membership in the discipline”, Kaplan comments..

Before turning to the discipline sociology of law, the thesis turns to planning theory, or the doctrine of spatial planning.