Urban Political Decentralisation: Six Scandinavian Cities

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Intra-municipal decentralisation in Scandinavian cities is unique with regard to the volume of services devolved to urban districts. The book investigates the democratic and efficiency effects of decentralisation reforms in six major Scandinavian cities. Special attention is given to consequences of different institutional arrangements as well as to providing an understanding of reform processes. Data for the descriptions and analyses are provided by a number of sources: Surveys with district politicians and samples of citizens, published evaluation reports and interview data from three case studies especially done for this study. Institutional arrangements differ between Copenhagen with relatively autonomous districts and Swedish and Norwegian cities whose districts are more closely integrated with the centre. These differences do matter, both with regard to reform effects and the trajectories of reform processes. Institutionalisation, adaptation and power seeking behaviour of political parties are important factors for understanding the reform processes.