Size and Democracy Revisited. A Critical Discussion of the Claimed Trade-off between Problem-Solving Capacity and Citizen Participation

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Ledelse, styring og verdier

Ledere som i praksis står overfor valget mellom styring og ledelse som virkemidler for koordinering i konkrete saker, vil i prinsippet først og fremst vurdere det økonomisk rasjonelle i dette valget. Men i praksis reises mange verdispørsmål. Vi diskuterer hvordan verdivurderinger blir aktuelle når ledelse og styring er i bruk som virkemidler, og om det er noen forskjell mellom de to virkemidlene når det gjelder hvordan de i praksis bidrar til bruk og videreutvikling av organisatoriske verdier. Styring defineres som formålsfokusert i utgangspunktet, som et spørsmål om å velge et standardisert system. Ledelse handler om å etablere formål og mer personorientert tilrettelegging for måloppnåelse - og åpner dermed mer for verdimessige vurderinger. Med utgangspunkt i tre empiriske eksempler illustrerer vi at innføring av et hvilket som helst styringssystem gir signaler om visse verdier - det vil si at noe er viktigere enn noe annet, og at det vil styre atferd og dermed bidra til å endre normer og kultur i en organisasjon. Eksemplene illustrerer også at det typisk er styring som etterspørres når noe skal kritiseres, selv om det ut fra våre definisjoner av ledelse og styring ville vært nærliggende å etterspørre ledelse. Når det i praksis snakkes om ledelse, snakkes det ofte om det som mangler i økonomisk rasjonell forstand. Mens det som etterlyses, kanskje er verdibaserte diskusjoner og valg, ser vi ut til å være lite villige til å sette merkelappen «ledelse» på dette

How well do participatory governance arrangements serve political leadership?

Participatory governance arrangements are assumed to strengthen elected representatives' capacity for political leadership. This study argues that the relationship between participatory arrangements and perceived political leadership depends on the design of the participatory arrangements. Drawing on a survey to local councilors in Norway, we found that sharing power with citizens through interactive governance arrangements was associated with lower perceived capacity for political leadership than giving power away through distributive arrangements. Case studies exploring how politicians experienced interactive and distributive participatory arrangements showed that politicians were especially ambivalent about interactive arrangements that were perceived to disrupt their traditional ways of doing political leadership. Notably, interactive arrangements were believed to decrease leadership capacity because politicians remained responsible for matters over which they no longer had full control, challenging their ability to stay accountable to the voters.How well do participatory governance arrangements serve political leadership?publishedVersio

A framework for analyzing organizational culture among politicians: Exploring implications for participatory governance schemes

In this article, we develop a theoretical framework for investigating how organizational culture relates to the roles of elected representatives. Based on Douglas's grid and group logic, our framework evaluates two cultural dimensions, negotiability and conflictuality, upon which these roles depend. The negotiability dimension describes elected representatives' roles from a strictly hierarchical and bounded notion of how politics should be handled to a horizontal and inclusive notion. The conflictuality dimension considers politics as confrontation versus a deliberative consensus-oriented way of handling political issues. By investigating a participatory governance measure called “task committees”, we examine how the framework functions empirically. Our analysis shows how different aspects of organizational culture are reflected in councilors' interpretations of and practices related to this interactive participatory governance scheme and illuminates the implications of organizational culture for the use of such schemes.A framework for analyzing organizational culture among politicians: Exploring implications for participatory governance schemespublishedVersio

Why such a different choice of tools? Analysing recent local government reforms in Denmark and Norway

Local government amalgamation reforms are politically demanding ventures because potential benefits are often diffuse and long term, while costs are concentrated and immediate. We investigate the role of national political actors in forming alliances and choosing policy tools in such demanding reform contexts. Empirically, we compare the Danish amalgamation reform, characterised by the use of authoritative government tools and a nationally directed amalgamation process, and the Norwegian reform, which primarily used softer tools that involved substantial autonomy at the local level. Our analysis is built on a rich set of qualitative data. We show that differences in the pro-reform alliances established by the two national governments help explain the different choices of government tools for carrying out the local government reforms. A strong pro-reform alliance, as was the case in Denmark, lent legitimacy to the use of authoritative tools.publishedVersio

Competing perspectives on participatory arrangements: Explaining the attitudes of elected representatives

In this article, we investigate elected representatives’ attitudes to citizen participation and the design of participatory arrangements. We distinguish between citizenship-oriented and governance-oriented attitudes. Whereas citizenship-oriented attitudes imply designing participatory arrangements to safeguard the democratic values of equality, transparency and inclusion, governance-oriented attitudes imply designing participatory arrangements to support elected representatives in their roles. Based on unique data from a web-based survey sent to all local councillors in Norway, we found that although Norwegian local councillors tend towards citizenship-oriented rather than governance-oriented attitudes to citizen participation, there is great variation between councillors in this respect. Analysing strategic and ideological explanations, we found that right-wing politicians tend to hold more governance-oriented attitudes than left-wing politicians do. Strategic considerations seem to have no effect on councillors in power in this regard.Competing perspectives on participatory arrangements: Explaining the attitudes of elected representativespublishedVersio

Demokrati og deltakelse i urbane policynettverk - erfaringer fra Norge

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Folkevalgt og politisk leder

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"Profesjonelle" sykehusstyrer i Oslo : en effektstudie

"PROFESJONELLE" SUKEHUSSTYRER I OSLO - EN EFFEKTSTUDIE Problemstilling: Har de profesjonelle styrene bidradd til å bedre den politiske styringa av sykehusene, eller har de bidradd til å hemme slik styring? Empiri/data: Analysen bygger på intervju med styremedlemmer i Aker- og Ullevål-styret, representanter fra sykehusledelsen ved de to sykehusene og sentrale aktører i Byrådsavdelingen for helse og eldre i Oslo kommune. I tillegg har jeg gjort bruk av styremøte-referater, kommunale dokumenter og avisartikler. Teori: I studien benyttes organisasjonsteori, herunder det såkalla organisasjonsperspektivet. Avhengig variabel: Atferden i styrene, kategorisert som styrende/kontrollerende eller interessehevdende. Uavhengige variabler: Utvalgte trekk ved formell normativ struktur og demografiske kjennetegn. Styremodellen har fungert noe ulikt på Aker og Ullevål sykehus styret på Ullevål har i større grad opptrådt styrende og kontrollerende enn styrene på Aker. Likevel har styret på begge sykehusene i noen grad fungert interessehevdende. Svar på problemstillinga: De profesjonelle styrene har kun i noen grad fremma politiske signalers gjennomslag i sykehusene, og de må i noen grad sies å ha hemma politisk styring av sykehusene