Scandinavian big cities have towards the end of the 20th century decentralised their political organisation. Substantial parts of service provision, and with it also city budgets, have been devolved to Urban District Councils. This book investigates the effects on local democracy and service provision efficiency of these reforms, as well as providing an understanding of the reform processes.

Decentralisation in Scandinavian Cities

Vorwort
Decentralisation in Scandinavian Cities

Autorentext

Henry Bäck, Professor of Public Administration, Göteborg University; Gunnar Gjelstrup, Senior Lecturer, Roskilde University; Marit Helgesen, Researcher, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo; Folke Johansson, Associate Professor of Political Science, Göteborg University; Jan Erling Klausen, Researcher, Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo

Inhalt
Foreword.- 1: Metropolitan Regions and Urban District Councils.- The constitutions of the cities.- Strength of the party system.- Urban district councils.- Six urban decentralisation reforms in three countries.- The chapters to follow.- 2: The institutional structure of the Urban District Councils.- Actors and preferences.- Tasks.- Resources.- City implementation and community networking.- 3: Methodological considerations.- The survey data.- The comparability of survey questions.- How we wrote this book.- 4: Citizen participation in urban district politics.- Comments on the data.- Differences between the cities.- How can the differences between the cities be explained?.- Summary and conclusions.- 5: The politicians in the UDC.- Group representation.- Attitudes towards UDCs.- Dimensions of conflicts within UDCs.- The relationship between politicians and civil servants.- Contacts with citizens.- Contacts with voluntary organisations.- Willingness to run again.- Conclusions.- 6: District politicians on central-local relations.- The electoral dimension.- The task dimension.- Intra-party co-ordination.- Summary and conclusions.- 7: Efficiency in service provision.- A note on the concept of efficiency.- A comment on the methodology.- Size of UDCs.- UDC funding and resources.- UDC organisation.- User involvement.- Summary and conclusion.- 8: Transverse processes.- Major findings.- The role of politicians.- The role of the administration.- The role of co-workers.- The role of users.- Conclusion.- 9: Conclusions: Institutions, time and politics.- Citizen participation.- The district politician's role.- UDC members and inter-level relations.- Efficiency in service provision.- Transverse processes.- Effects of the institutional set-up.- Time.- Politics.- The self-destructivedynamic of party politics and urban decentralisation.- References.