Normer eller nytta? : Om de politiska drivkrafterna bakom Regeringskansliets departementsindelning

• Existing theories on administrative reorganization point in two opposite directions. Some scholars suggest that the machinery of government is altered through comprehensive planning and intentional design. Other scholars, on the other hand, interpret administrative reorganization as merely symbolic actions undertaken in accordance with norms and values within an organizational context. This dissertation confronts these two theoretical approaches in an empirical investigation of reorganization activities in the Swedish core executive during the 1990s. The central question is whether the government’s organizational behaviour is best understood as rational or normative?In an attempt to assess which logic of action provides the most accurate characterization of administrative behaviour two explanatory models are specified: a Rational Actor Model (RAM) and a Normative Organization Model (NOM). The inquiry is conducted through a process-oriented method were decision-making processes affecting the ministerial division within four different policy areas are reconstructed. The four policy areas are housing policy, agricultural policy, industrial policy and European Union policy.The results reveal that the Social Democratic government from 1994 and onwards has been committed to realizing a comprehensive organizational reform in the Swedish Government Offices. The purpose has been to strengthen the coordination between different ministries and units within ministries. This review of the machinery of government has involved among other things the creation of a “super ministry” for growth policy. The inquiry concludes that in all policy areas examined in the study the decision-makers have made primarily rational calculations of expected organizational outcomes. Administrative behaviour is predominantly a rational activity, and the Rational Actor Model does, accordingly, provide a more accurate picture of the decision-making processes. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that normative considerations were present in each of the cases. This demonstrates that the theoretical cleavage that has nourished the debate between rational choice theorists and its opponents has been exaggerated.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Political science

Administrative reorganization

Rational Actor Model

Normative Organization Model

ministerial division

ministry

Government Offices

Prime Minister

Social Democracy

Statsvetenskap

Political science

Statsvetenskap

Statskunskap

Political Science

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