| 1. |
- Askim, Jostein, et al.
(författare)
-
Between lockdown and calm down. Comparing the COVID-19 responses of Norway and Sweden
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 48:2, s. 291-311
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article studies the difference in the government response to COVID-19 in Norway and Sweden drawing upon theories of agenda setting, crisis management and multi-level governance. Despite having virtually identical systems of government and, initially, facing similar infection threats, Sweden opted for far less strict countermeasures than Norway. While Norway’s government response was similar to that of many European countries, Sweden received international attention for choosing befuddlingly soft measures, mostly recommendations and guidelines. This divergence is discussed vis-à-vis the multiple streams lens of agenda setting theory, highlighting differences in institutional and organisational legacies (e.g., the autonomy of government agencies) and intergovernmental relations (e.g., whether infectious disease expertise and authority is located at the local level).
|
|
| 2. |
- Baltz, André, 1986-
(författare)
-
Disseminating and collecting information : municipalities’ communicative practices and deliberative capacities
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Routledge. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 48:1, s. 48-67
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper aims to critically explore how citizen dialogues are perceived by the municipalities and public servants who implement them. The question is answered using a multi-method approach: a content analysis of 213 self-reports on citizen dialogues from Swedish municipalities and 11 in-depth interviews with public servants working with citizen dialogues in a Swedish municipality. The findings show that citizen dialogues were thought of along three main narratives: information gathering, informing, and inclusion. Together, these narratives indicated a will to enhance informed decision-making. However, combining informed decision-making is with broad participation poses challenges; the authority had to delimit participation, establish structures, educate, define citizens and adapt existing working methods to external stakeholders. The three narratives address this adaptation.
|
|
| 3. |
- Bendz, Anna, 1967, et al.
(författare)
-
Indispensable, yet Invisible: Drinking water management as a local political issue in Swedish municipalities
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 46:5, s. 800-819
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Local policy-makers' incentives to address an issue is conditioned by how they perceive public attention. Our study focuses on drinking water management at the municipal level in Sweden. Provisioning and management of drinking water is a responsibility of the local governments. Interviews with local politicians and public administrators in seven municipalities reveal that local policy-makers think that citizens view provisioning of drinking water as a taken for granted service, and also lack knowledge of and interest in drinking water issues. Public attention is further seen as a double-edged sword since engagement in water issues often is a result of problems with water provision. The findings are discussed from a theoretical perspective of the role of agenda-setting in public policy. It is argued that the view of policy-makers of citizens as unengaged negatively affects the incentives to bring drinking water to a prominent place on the local policy agenda.
|
|
| 4. |
- Bergh, Andreas, et al.
(författare)
-
What happens when municipalities run corporations? Empirical evidence from 290 Swedish municipalities
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 48:4, s. 704-727
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Local governments are increasingly relying on municipally owned corporations (MOCs) to provide public services. Some describe this development as a rational response to austerity challenges and emphasise the cost-efficiency of MOCs (‘the optimistic view’). Others identify complications and associate MOCs with weak supervision, lack of accountability, and corruption risks (‘the sceptical view’). Hitherto, no studies have analysed these opposing claims on MOCs in the one and same inquiry. We address this gap by focusing on Sweden, which has experienced a dramatic growth in the number of MOCs. We examine the association between the number of MOCs, the business climate, satisfaction with local government, local tax rates, and a corruption index for all 290 Swedish municipalities. Putting the ‘optimistic view’ into doubt, results indicate that municipalities relying heavily on MOCs are associated with more perceived corruption and higher taxes but do not have more satisfied citizens nor a better business climate.
|
|
| 5. |
- Donatella, Pierre, et al.
(författare)
-
Local politicians’ perceptions of financial conditions – do they align with financial indicators?
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 50:1, s. 28-47
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Throughout history, critics of democracy have doubted people’s ability to govern themselves. For example, are local politicians – who often lack any formal training in accounting or economics – really able to comprehend complex financial information? Previous studies addressing this issue are in short supply, and their results are generally pessimistic. The aim of this paper is to test which – if any – financial indicators are related to local politicians’ perceptions of financial conditions in the setting of Swedish municipalities, thus extending earlier studies to a European context. Our analysis shows strong and significant correlations between most of the financial indicators tested and politicians’ perception of their municipality’s financial condition, including financial indicators capturing the levels of net income, equity ratio and tax rates. These findings provide optimism and strengthen arguments for the defenders of democratic government.
|
|
| 6. |
- Fred, Mats
(författare)
-
Local government projectification in practice : a multiple institutional logic perspective
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Routledge. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 46:3, s. 351-370
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the last couple of decades, we have witnessed a proliferation of the project as an organizational solution in sectors as diverse as IT, housing, social services, education and culture. Despite a growing interest in the phenomenon, we know surprisingly little of how processes of public sector projectification unfold in practice, especially at local government level. This article uses an institutional logic perspective to illustrate and argue that public sector projectification can be understood and conceptualized as the enactment of multiple, co-existing institutional logics, but where one particular logic is of growing importance – the project logic. It is argued that even though the project form is often perceived as more flexible than that of the bureaucracy, the practical outcome seldom represents a radical break with traditional, bureaucratic management models. Rather, it appears to aid a rediscovery and reuse of central bureaucratic practices and procedures such as reporting, documentation and standardization.
|
|
| 7. |
- Karv, Thomas, PD, 1988-, et al.
(författare)
-
Consultative referendums and democracy - assessing the short-term effects on political support of a referendum on a municipal merger
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 49:1, s. 151-180
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Local consultative referendums are a widely used democratic innovation. Nevertheless, there is still limited knowledge about the local effects following a referendum, especially in terms of how the public reactions varies given if a citizen has been on the winning or on the losing side of the referendum. The purpose with this study is therefore to add to this line of research by assessing how a local referendum about a municipal merger affects external political efficacy and political trust within a local community. By analysing two cross-sectional datasets collected in a bilingual Finnish municipality before a merger referendum, in 2018 (N = 6,686), and after the referendum, in 2020 (N = 3,133), as a pseudo-experiment of effects of a municipal merger, we show that the aggregated levels of external political efficacy and political trust have increased and vary based on being on the winning or losing side of the referendum.
|
|
| 8. |
- Källström, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
-
The governance games of citizens and stakeholders' engagement : longitudinal narratives
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper focuses on a process of citizens and stakeholders' engagement promoted by a local authority to co-design the city vision with multiple actors (politicians, public managers, consultants, citizens and other external stakeholders). The setting for this research is provided by a municipality in Sweden and our theoretical perspective is the decentred theory of governance. A multi-actor, longitudinal and qualitative analysis has been carried out by triangulating interviews with key stakeholders, non-participant observations, and documental analysis, and by collecting the empirical material at two points of time (2014-2018). Our findings present several narratives and show that four main governance games were played (political; reputational and professional; spectacle; and social games). We discuss how these games interplay may change the perception of actors about the process of citizens and stakeholders' engagement.
|
|
| 9. |
- Källström, Lisa, et al.
(författare)
-
The governance games of citizens and stakeholders' engagement : longitudinal narratives
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Routledge. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 47:5, s. 859-885
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper focuses on a process of citizens and stakeholders' engagement promoted by a local authority to co-design the city vision with multiple actors (politicians, public managers, consultants, citizens and other external stakeholders). The setting for this research is provided by a municipality in Sweden and our theoretical perspective is the decentred theory of governance. A multi-actor, longitudinal and qualitative analysis has been carried out by triangulating interviews with key stakeholders, non-participant observations, and documental analysis, and by collecting the empirical material at two points of time (2014-2018). Our findings present several narratives and show that four main governance games were played (political; reputational and professional; spectacle; and social games). We discuss how these games interplay may change the perception of actors about the process of citizens and stakeholders' engagement.
|
|
| 10. |
- Larsson Taghizadeh, Jonas, 1986-
(författare)
-
Are more affluent parents treated more favourably by elementary school principals? : Socioeconomic discrimination among local Swedish public officials
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Routledge. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 49:3, s. 590-622
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article argues that previous public administration and political science research might have missed important class-based inequalities by primarily focusing on ethnic discrimination among public officials and ignoring discrimination based on socioeconomic status (SES). A large-scale field experiment on the presence of SES discrimination among local Swedish public officials is presented. A total of 3430 Swedish elementary school principals were randomly contacted by parents with low- or high-SES professions and with Arabic- or Swedish-sounding names. The fictional parents were considering moving to the municipality and were interested in placing their children at the school. The results show clear signs of SES discrimination, particularly in regard to the more qualitative aspects of the replies. The findings also show interactions between SES and ethnicity, in which primarily the more formal aspects of the replies suggested that SES discrimination could be more prevalent against ethnic minority aliases than against other aliases.
|
|
