Local Government and Public Procurement: Organizational Trends and the Rise of New Bureaucrats in Sweden

•  Swedish local government play a central role in welfare production and in handling environmental issues at large. In addition, they also plan the physical use of land and water areas within its territory. Accordingly, Swedish local government are crucial actors in driving sustainable development. During the last decades reform of local government has been taking place under the umbrella of New Public Management (NPM) following a pattern seen in most parts of the world entailing market inspired logics and values that subsumes political and democratic ambitions and tasks. The political rationalities underpinning NPM continues to exist and are well researched. There are, however, significant gaps. In particular, of studies concerning the politics of public procurement. In this paper we present an analysis where public procurement is understood more broadly, as a governmental technology, an instrument of governing associated with the rationalities of marketization and competition that continues to be more or less unquestioned as virtues in contemporary society. We assume that as such a technology it is not a neutral tool, but rather designed to realize particular understandings of how to govern and with what effects. The case we present is based on interviews with civil servants, consultants and politicians working with public procurement in Swedish local government. With the perceptions of our respondents as a base, we construct a narrative where three themes emerge as important: public procurement expansion; organizational change and centralization, and: the procurer as bureaucrat. We conclude that the importance and scope of public procurement within the larger local government organization has rapidly expanded, public procurement has been centralized and, perhaps most importantly, we witness the emergence of a new bureaucrat representing values not compatible with traditional Weberian understandings.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

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

Nyckelord

Statsvetenskap

Political Science

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)