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Abstract.  In Norway, as in the other Nordic countries, sector‐based policy making in local government is considered a problem as it is alleged to take place at the expense of a more integrated approach. Inspired by American rational choice theories on committee power, this article first sets out to establish whether the distributive rationale of the present committee system actually does promote sector‐orientation among local politicians. This approach is challenged by alternative theories on committee power, focusing on the informational rationale in specialisation and the relevance of partisanship. The findings suggest that all the three theories explain in part committee member' preferences, but partisanship is most important for explaining both spending preferences and preferences on organisational forms. The article goes on to explore whether recent local council reforms, intended to replace the sector‐oriented system with strong committees by a new de‐specialised system with weaker committees, are likely to curb the effect of sector on committee members' preferences. The conclusion here is not easy to draw, but it is clear that sector‐orientation is not encouraged by the reforms; in fact, the opposite seems to be the case. What local councils may have overlooked, however, is the influence of the informational rationale on committees and their members. The analyses are based on data obtained from a random sample of 119 of Norway's 435 municipalities.

Inspired by the concept of New Public Management, recent organisational alterations in Norwegian local councils have aimed to change the role of local politicians from a traditional to a strategic political one. Traditionally, local politicians have been involved in the day‐to‐day activities of the council, and have tended to address single issues and details. Strategic leadership implies, however, a withdrawal from close contact with the service departments and a primary focus on (preferably pivotal) issues of a general and/or principle nature, such as budgeting, goal setting, and planning. In addition, establishment of stronger coordinating bodies is emphasised. Drawing on evidence from a large body of research, it is concluded that so far, for the ordinary local politician, the new role is rather puzzling, that is, confusing and perplexing, thus creating a certain sense of uneasiness. Two theoretical reasons for this state of affairs are presented. First, it is demonstrated that some of the chosen organisational solutions simply cannot be assumed to work as intended. Second, it is argued that the concept of strategic political leadership represents such a challenge to the local politicians' traditional behaviour that a certain amount of reluctance and prevarication is to be expected. The article concludes with a discussion of why the changes have taken place in several municipalities, despite the demonstrable weaknesses in the basic idea. One suggested reason is the improvements to the working conditions of the political and administrative elite as a result of the changes.

"The premise of Elected Officials and Political Leaders is that every elected politician is a political leader. This anthology looks at political leadership in Norwegian local governments and explores how to understand this form of leadership. Passing resolutions is an important part of an elected official's job, and public discourse can suggest that such work is itself the essence of political leadership. This is a central concern in the book, which argues that political leadership also consists of grasping and understanding issues, setting agendas, proposing solutions and mobilizing support for them.

With this broad view of political leadership, the book is organized around four paradoxes associated with the political-administrative system in Norwegian municipal government: the conflict paradox, the administration paradox, the transparency paradox and the democracy paradox. The chapters describe and discuss these paradoxes, the tensions they are based on and how opposing interests can be balanced in a constructive way, both for the local public sector as a whole as well as the individual councils and councilors.

The book provides examples of how elected leaders can strengthen their political leadership, not least through a systematic comparison with Danish municipal governments. Important points in each chapter are also emphasized in interviews with political and administrative leaders who share their experiences with the authors. The book concludes with a discussion of how political leadership can be further developed and strengthened, both through changes in the institutional framework for Norwegian local governments and through dialogue and reflection within the individual municipal councils." - "Folkevalgt og politisk leder tar utgangspunkt i at enhver folkevalgt politiker er en politisk leder. Boken handler om politisk lederskap i norske kommuner, og den diskuterer hvordan vi kan forstå denne formen for lederskap. Å fatte beslutninger er en viktig del av folkevalgtes hverdag, og den offentlige debatten kan gi inntrykk av at dette er selve essensen i det politiske lederskapet. Boken problematiserer dette, og den argumenterer for at politisk lederskap også handler om å fange opp og forstå problemer, sette dagsorden, foreslå løsninger og skape oppslutning om disse.

Med dette brede perspektivet på politisk lederskap er boken organisert rundt fire paradokser knyttet til det politisk-administrative systemet i norske kommuner: konfliktparadokset, administrasjonsparadokset, åpenhetsparadokset og demokratiparadokset. I bokens kapitler diskuteres innholdet i disse paradoksene, hvilke spenninger som ligger til grunn for dem, og hvordan motstridende hensyn kan balanseres på en konstruktiv måte, både for norsk kommunesektor som helhet, for det enkelte kommunestyret og for den enkelte folkevalgte.

Boken gir eksempler på hvordan folkevalgte kan styrke sitt politiske lederskap, ikke minst basert på bokens systematiske sammenlikninger med danske kommuner. Viktige poeng i hvert kapittel blir også understreket i intervjuer med en kommunepolitiker eller en kommunedirektør som deler sine erfaringer med oss. Boken avsluttes med en diskusjon av hvordan det politiske lederskapet kan utvikles og styrkes, både gjennom endringer i rammebetingelsene for norske kommuner og gjennom diskusjoner og refleksjoner i det enkelte kommunestyret."

AbstractParticipatory 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.

AbstractIn 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.

Public innovation is high on the agenda in many Western liberal democracies. While a first wave of interest in public innovation research mainly focused on service innovation, a second wave is interested in innovations in the political realm that represent innovations in democratic institutions and processes and in policy content. Although there are many studies of democratic reform and experimentation in local government, they rarely examine these changes from an innovation perspective. This article develops a theoretical framework for studying democratic innovation and uses it to identify cutting-edge tendencies in democratic innovation in local government and to develop several propositions for further research. We do so by drawing on new developments in democratic theory and governance research and the study of current developments in local democracy in seven European countries—Denmark, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia and Switzerland—in this and a following special issue.

Increasing specialisation and demands to decrease the length of hospital stays have important consequences for the integration of specialised health and local care services. Based on case studies of care agreements in Denmark and Norway, this article compares subnational governance strategies for coordinating care services for older people discharged from hospitals. The question is how, and to what degree, national government regulations have an impact on local service coordination strategies. The analysis reveals that the numerous subnational procedures for coordination are somewhat more itemised in Denmark, and that regional variation in care agreements is greater in Norway. The identified differences can partly be accounted for by national differences in regulation, which is tighter in Denmark than in Norway. The study suggests that despite decentralisation of responsibility, subnational procedures to facilitate coordination are heavily influenced by national government policy.