To fish or not to fish: Small-scale fishing and changing regulations of the cod fishery in northern Norway

Quotas and access limitations were introduced to Norway in 1990 to secure f uture cod fisheries. Comparison of small-scale fishers' practices before an d after 1990 pose interesting questions concerning the models for resource management on which these regulations are based. Prior to the regulations, exploitation and expansion inherent in the small-scale production were curt ailed informally. Instead of limiting economic expansion, the introduction of formal bureaucratic regulations provided fishers' incentives to expand. I explain the unforeseen outcomes of the new fisheries policy by reference to small-scale productive capacity in prevailing resource-management theori es and practices. In the case of Norwegian small-boat fisheries, defining c apacity by technical measures alone overlooks two important factors: I) var iation within that technological category of fisheries; and 2) social incen tives and constraints on technology in use. Focusing on small-boat fishing productive logic, the article addresses the need to integrate a more qualit atively oriented concept like "capacity in use," which relates actual fishi ng behavior to resource-management theories and practices.