To comply or not: Transformations of the social contract between the coastal cod fishermen and the State of Norway

In this paper the relations between fishermen and the state are discussed in light of the rate of breaches of fisheries regulations. Here this relation is analysed as a social contract. The regulator conveys political goals and ambitions on the subject; the regulated have distinct rights and duties as fishermen. The regulated and the regulator must both receive benefits or some sort of fulfilment in return for the behavioural constrictions imposed by the regulation; hence a contract. The core questions are how current transformations of this contract affect fishermen’s compliance, and what constitute the relations between the regime and the contract. The fisherman is still bound by a social contract, but the content of the contract may be renegotiated as the fisherman is reconstructed as an economic man with high turn over, huge costs, and prone to a year around operation. Today the fisherman’s commission is not to ensure the implementation of a detailed state fishery policy, but to optimize the economics of the vessel to sustain the fisherman’s family and satisfy the the creditors.