District Policy — Social Practice Through Internal and External Discourses: How the Implementation of a Single Regional Political Instrument Is Perceived, Understood and Communicated

This paper focuses on how the implementation of a single regional political instrument is perceived, understood and communicated. Designed as a regional political instrument, the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications started a pilot project: “Driver education as a part of upper secondary school in district Norway”. The focal point in this paper is to explore how the professional participants understand and interpret the project as a regional political instrument in order to maintain the local community, identity and local belonging. The theoretical approach is based on Giddens’s actor/structure theory, while the analysis based on discourse analysis. In the analysis we separated the arguments used in the professional discourse. We detected different categories of argument in the discourses among the professionals. In addition to the professional discourse, we became aware of a personal discourse. In both discourses the political instrument was perceived to be important in order to maintain the local community, create equality and maintain local identity and a sense of belonging.