Jan Erling Klausen

• Professor (Associate) at University of Oslo

Territorial restructuring through amalgamating local authorities has figured prominently on the agendas of European governments for many decades. Precisely where and when restructuring occurs is poorly understood, although it is broadly assumed to be initiated in response to fiscal stress, urbanization, and functional decentralization. Using a larg...

Amalgamation of local governments is an incentive for pre-merger overspending as the costs are transferred to the merged unit of the future. The article updates application of the common pool theory to such opportunistic pre-merger behavior. It studies Norway’s reform of the 2010s and paints a uniquely nuanced picture of pre-merger overspending, co...

Corporatisation in Norwegian local government, although not a new phenomenon, has grown rapidly during the last 20–25 years, especially since 2003–2004. Considering its relatively small population, Norway has a high number of municipally owned companies (MOCs), compared to its Scandinavian neighbours. Despite this, measured by the number of employe...

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, tra...

Mergers incentivize local governments to ease their fiscal policies before the merger is implemented. This incentive is powerful: it is known that local governments start easing fiscal policies even before they know for sure that a merger will occur and even if merging is what they want. Based on a study of Norwegian municipalities, this article sh...

Introduction Reforming the territorial structure of local governments is a recurring item on governmental agendas in Europe and beyond (Gunlicks, 1981; Kjellberg and Dente, 1988; Meligrana, 2004). Many governments have seen merging of local governments into fewer and larger units as a way of boosting efficiency, saving costs, improving the quality...

Since 2007, both Denmark and Norway have carried out structural reforms of their local government systems. Despite many similarities between the two highly decentralized countries in the same class of local government systems, the outcome of the two reforms differed substantially. Whereas the government of Denmark achieved comprehensive structural...

This book provides a comprehensive coverage of current challenges to the very essence of local self- government. Authors from different European countries present a picture of the current situation and of the future developments laying ahead of us. Europe provides an extremely diverse ground for Local Government studies: modes of governance, the po...

The outcome of Norway’s largely voluntary 2014–2020 structural local government reform relied heavily on positive citizen’ attitudes towards merging with neighboring municipalities. In the present chapter, we investigate how citizens assessed the potential outcomes of prospective mergers, in terms of service delivery, local democracy and local iden...

Public sector reforms often take place in heterogeneous reform environments. Key political, administrative and societal actors often advocate different definitions of problems and solutions. A major leadership challenge is to choose a reform strategy that ensures the requisite level of support, even when the initial conflict structure is highly com...

Consultative referendums may provide crucial information about public opinion but have received little attention in the literature compared with their binding counterparts. In this article, we analyse 221 Norwegian local consultative referendums on municipal amalgamation using the Venice Commission’s code on referendums. Much of the referendum lite...

Transferring public service provision to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) raises concerns over accountability deficits. We argue that the governance of SOEs requires reconciliation of the accountability relations found in traditional models of public administration, and the normative structures of control and accountability developed in the world of...

Oslo is the only city in Norway where a wide range of tasks and functions are decentralized to sub-municipal units (SMUs) headed by an elected local political body. The 15 districts employ about 21,000 people and serve a key function in providing the capital’s residents with key welfare services. While Oslo’s district system has proved its viabilit...

The broad responsibilities of Nordic local governments may explain why inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is rather frequent among Nordic municipalities. This is, however, not a sufficient explanation for the variance in institutional features we find in the Nordic countries. Hence, we develop a more comprehensive model in the chapter, asking to wha...

Policy innovation in unitary states relies heavily on the proclivity of local governments to identify and respond to emerging policy challenges. The article contributes by applying a framework for policy innovation normally used in federal systems to a comparative analysis of two unitary states - Poland and Norway. The analysis serves to highlight...

Local government systems change at varying speeds. While some countries have dramatically reduced the number of local governments during a short period of time, other countries have seen only incremental change or relative inertia. A number of explanations for structural change have been put forward in the comparative local government literature, b...

The chapter develops a theoretical model consisting of factors that exert pressure to undertake amalgamation reforms (fiscal stress, urbanization, decentralization, reform history), and factors that mediate the causal relationship between pressure to reform and decisions to implement amalgamation reform (e.g., political system characteristics). The...

NIBR-rapport. Rapporten beskriver og vurderer det statlige tilsynets virkninger på kommunene og det lokale selvstyret. Disse virkningene vurderes i lys av regionale tilsynsmyndigheters praksis, styringen av tilsynet fra sentrale statlige sektormyndigheter og gjennom lovgivningen og forskriftsverket. Det gis anbefalinger om endringer av dagens ordni...

Located at the West coast of Norway, the city of Bergen is already habituated to a rough climate with wind, rain and flooding at high tide. Downscaled climate change scenarios predict that the city will be heavily exposed to the effects of climate change and consequently will experience an even rougher climate and more extreme climate events in the...

This book presents a new perspective on adaptation to climate change. It considers climate change as more than a problem that can be addressed solely through technical expertise. Instead, it approaches climate change as an adaptive challenge that is fundamentally linked to beliefs, values and worldviews, as well as to power, politics, identities an...

This chapter focuses on climate change adaptation in Bergen and discusses whether its ambitious and far-reaching adaptation policy is coherent and comprehensive and integrated with other municipal policy fields. Participation in several climate projects and networks is an important part of the city's adaptation policy. The chapter examines these ac...

Rapporten beskriver og vurderer det statlige tilsynets virkninger på kommunene og det lokale selvstyret. Disse virkningene vurderes i lys av regionale tilsynsmyndigheters praksis, styringen av tilsynet fra sentrale statlige sektormyndigheter og gjennom lovgivningen og forskriftsverket. Det gis anbefalinger om endringer av dagens ordning

There is increasing interest in sociospatial and sociocultural developments on the fringes of cities. Some studies focus on the emergence of polycentric metropolitan areas and others on changes in existing suburbs and the development of new suburbs and exurbs. At the same time, development and regeneration of areas on the urban fringes increasingly...

Over the years, authorities in many countries have devoted considerable attention to the issue of raising the turnout in local elections. In attempts to counter receding turnout figures, elections have been carried out on the same day as national elections (Sweden) or European elections (Baden-Württemberg, Germany) or indeed on individual dates in...

The EU, through the Cardiff and the Gothenburg strategies, sought to counter what was seen as fragmented and uncoordinated environmental policy development by promoting a broad and integrated approach to sustainability. This article seeks to assess two recently implemented EU directives on environmental issues in light of this aim, namely the direc...

The article asks how political leadership and community involvement together can contribute to legitimate and effective policy making in the context of urban governance. Particularly, the question is discussed if the interplay between both increases capacities for governing localities. Conceptually, this is based on Jessop’s assumption that every m...

The aim of this article is to discuss democratic potentials and pitfalls inherent in the use of Foresight methodologies, especially on the regional level. Foresight is used on the regional level as a tool for developing common visions about the future, strengthening the cohesion between regional actors and enabling coordinated action towards common...

When the Oslo Regeneration Programme for the Inner City Districts was launched, it suggested that a significant step had been taken by Norway’s largest local government towards the often noted ‘shift to governance’. This 10 year, 122 million project was to be co-ordinated by a consortium involving three levels of government — national, municipal an...

«Frivillighetslinjen» i Stortinget og regjeringen innebærer at ingen kommuner skal slåes sammen dersom noen av kommunene går imot dette. I denne situasjonen får rådgivende lokale folkeavstemning stor betydning for kommunestrukturen. Artikkelen analyserer data om i alt 17 forslag om kommunesammenslåing omfattende 51 kommuner, som har vært aktuelle i...

Upon what objectives and ideological considerations have the Norwegian parliament developed its policies vis-à-vis local government during the second half of the twentieth century? Have the reforms and decisions made in parliament contributed to increased central control of local policy-making, or have local political authorities been given more po...