| Summary: | It has been noted that in general, formal objectives for fisheries management policies, as expressed in sector legislation, are multiple and inconsistent and that as such they are poor guides for deciding and evaluating management interventions. While we acknowledge that the explicit value statements in legal texts may be unclear and symbolic, it underestimates the possibility of reading out, from legal prescripts and the institutionalised practices they support, the values and concerns a society holds the fisheries sector accountable for. In this study, we examine trends and changes in the value that fisheries hold to Nordic welfare societies. With the concept of ‘social contract in fisheries’ as a frame drawing on examples from Norway, Iceland and Greenland to examine how the societal value of fisheries is reflected in existing prescripts and practices, how these are currently being contested, and whether the social contract is undergoing change along the way. Nordic fisheries policy; Sustainability; Social contract; ITQ; Commons; Societal value;
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