*2.2. Selection of European Countries and Content Analysis*

Due to the scope of this chapter, three European countries are examined with regard to their land management instruments and their applications in practice. The selection of the countries is based on the following criteria:


By means of the criteria, the Netherlands, Germany and France were selected for analysis of the application of land management instruments. The literature was subjected to a content analysis using theoretical coding. According to Przyborski and Wohlrab-Sahr (2014) and Flick (2016), theoretical coding is an analysis procedure for data on object-based theory. The aim of coding is to compare phenomena, cases, terms or formulations. The theory is created from a network of categories. In the process, empirical material is assigned selected terms codes, and upper categories. Axial coding was chosen for analysis.<sup>2</sup> The following categories were selected:

