Struggling, settling, solutions: A qualitative study of landscape protection in motorway planning

Landscape is an important public interest with social, cultural, ecological, and environmental dimensions. It is central to the formation of local cultures and contributes to human well-being. Some areas are protected by supranational agreements that have significant international value. The European Landscape Convention (ELC) calls for integrating landscape considerations into other policy areas such as motorway planning that may directly or indirectly impact the landscape. The key challenge is the integration of existing institutional backgrounds and governing traditions. This paper compares how two qualitative case studies managed landscape protection while planning motorways. Specifically, we examine two internationally protected areas – one in Hungary that focuses on nature and one in Sweden the focuses on culture – to consider how these areas were assessed during the planning of the new motorways. Analysing the cases through the theoretical lens of institutional interplay, we found that the main differences between the two cases can be attributed to the different governing traditions and interpretations of landscape.