Jan Erling Klausen

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of territorial change on the municipal level across all European countries. Taking a thematic and comparative perspective, the book builds on extensive quantitative data and a large survey of academic experts in 33 European countries. Territorial organisation of the municipal level in Europe is strongly diversified and yet far from stable. Politically speaking, territorial reforms tend to be risky and difficult, as such changes affect vital interests and identities. Despite such difficulties, the last two decades have witnessed considerable changes in territorial divisions at the municipal level across a range of European countries. In this book, the authors describe and analyse these changes comprehensively, making a vital contribution to understanding the reasons and dynamics of territorial reform processes. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in local or sub-national government, institutional design and more broadly to political science, public administration/policy, human geography, sociology and economics.

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of territorial change on the municipal level across all European countries. Taking a thematic and comparative perspective, the book builds on extensive quantitative data and a large survey of academic experts in 33 European countries. Territorial organisation of the municipal level in Europe is strongly diversified and yet far from stable. Politically speaking, territorial reforms tend to be risky and difficult, as such changes affect vital interests and identities. Despite such difficulties, the last two decades have witnessed considerable changes in territorial divisions at the municipal level across a range of European countries. In this book, the authors describe and analyse these changes comprehensively, making a vital contribution to understanding the reasons and dynamics of territorial reform processes. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in local or sub-national government, institutional design and more broadly to political science, public administration/policy, human geography, sociology and economics.

Fagfeltet offentlig politikk tar for seg hva offentlige myndigheter velger å gjøre og velger å unngå å gjøre for å løse problemer og skape verdier i samfunnet. Helsepolitikk, skolepolitikk, klima- og miljøpolitikk og skatte- og avgiftspolitikk er typiske eksempler på offentlig politikk. Denne boken er en introduksjon til fagfeltet. Den introduserer verktøy for å beskrive og forstå gjeldende politikk, analysere hvorfor politikken utformes som den gjør, og hvilke konsekvenser den har i samfunnet. Organiseringen av offentlig sektor har betydning, men i studier av offentlig politikk legges hovedvekten oftest på politiske, sosiale og økonomiske forhold. Forfatterne presenterer sentrale teoretiske bidrag og anvender disse i en norsk politisk kontekst. De ser nærmere på hvert av stegene i politikksyklusen - fra hvordan en politisk agenda etableres, til politikkutforming og samfunnsinteressenes påvirkning, utforming av virkemidler og iverksetting, og videre til evaluering og innovasjon i offentlig politikk. De diskuterer også hvordan offentlig politikk endres. Boken retter seg primært mot studenter i statsvitenskap, samfunnsfag, profesjonsstudier og administrative fag, men vil være nyttig for alle som er interessert i de politiske prosessene som ligger under utformingen og iverksettingen av offentlig politikk.

Starting in the late 1980s and accelerating around the tum of the century, Scandinavia's big cities started decentralising their political, administrative and service-provider organisations. Oslo was first out with its bydelsutvalg, but Goteborg soon followed by introducing stadsdelsniimnder. At the tum of the millennium such decentralised political bodies were in place in the six cities that we have chosen for special scrutiny in this book: Copenhagen in Denmark, Bergen and Oslo in Norway, and Goteborg, Malmo and Stockholm in Sweden. Some of us had been involved in single-city evaluation studies, and, having reported our findings, we came up with the idea that it might be worthwhile to compare our findings. Decentralised political bodies of this kind are by no means unique to Scandinavia, but it seemed as if the very high degree of decentralisation in Scandinavia was quite unique. Central city authorities and mayors had relinquished around three quarters of their budg­ of such far­ ets. Describing and communicating the Scandinavian experiences reaching decentralisation also seemed to be a good idea. With funding from the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences, we were able to start the project in 2000. The preparations for the book included an inventory of the surveys conducted in the six cities during the course of the evaluation studies. We collected all these data sets and compiled a common data set that was distrib­ uted to all members of the group.