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Private Influence Preceding Public Involvement: Strategies for Legitimizing Preliminary Partnership Arrangements in Urban Housing Planning in Norway and Finland

Neoliberal ideas have inspired new forms of public–private partnerships in urban development. Early preliminary agreement on planning goals and related investments change the possibilities for public participation while offering a privileged position for developers. The aim of the article is to investigate the way power is used in these processes and how such power is legitimized. A new framework for empirical analysis is developed applying theoretical categorizations of power and democratic legitimacy. Housing planning in Norway and Finland is studied and compared. Lukes's three dimensions of power allows the structural power relations embedded within habitual planning practices and legal frameworks to be identified, while authority and manipulation are observable empirically in case studies involving conflicts. As the study reveals, output legitimacy is emphasized, and discussion of procedural aspects of the cases is avoided.