The Future of Public Administration in Denmark - Wiley Online Library

THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN DENMARK: PROJECTIONS, PROSPECTS AND HIGH HOPES LOTTE JENSEN, ASBJØRN SONNE NØRGAARD AND EVA SØRENSEN Public Administration research in Denmark has a relatively short history. It was first initiated in the 1970s and was developed from public law. However, from an initial homogeneity it has become increasingly pluralistic in its approach due to three factors: a strong orientation towards the study of institutional reform in the public sector, inspiration from the international literature and the specific institutional set up of the academic community that divides it into separate schools. It is possible to distinguish three trends in today’s Danish Public Administration research. These trends are inspired by historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism, respectively. What is needed in the future is an increased dialogue between these trends. The purpose of the dialogue should not be to reach for a new homogeneity but to increase the critical debate among different schools in order to increase the general quality of public administration research in Denmark.

INTRODUCTION The research agenda of Danish Public Administration, (PA), is driven by three forces: First, PA research is closely related to its object of study. Changes, reforms and developments in administrative practices find their way to the research agendas. Second, PA research is influenced by international literature and collaboration, especially in the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon world. Finally, PA research is embedded in the institutional structures of the Danish academic community, which is marked by a notable division of labour in terms of research agenda and theoretical preferences. The Danish PA community is based on five departments based in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg, Odense and Roskilde, all of them integrated in political science institutes, or research milieux and teaching programmes. There are currently ten chairs of public administration spread over the five institutions. Not unlike other countries, up to the late 1970s, Denmark was characterized by a strong belief in central planning and administrative engineering. For the most part there was little focus on the possible mismatch between formal rules and administrative structures on the one hand and informal organization and practices on the other. PA thinking was often based on the Lotte Jensen is Associate Professor in Public Administration at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen. Asbjørn Sonne Nørgaard is Associate Professor in Public Administration in the Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus. Eva Sørensen is Professor of Public Administration and Democracy in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Roskilde. Public Administration Vol. 82 No. 1, 2004 (127–139) © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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implicit assumption that form follows function. In the early years of PA research this kind of administrative thinking was inspired by the system analysis and functional analysis of David Easton. In 1973, with little or no reference to comparative differences, informal organization and the intricate links between individuals, organization and environment, one of the founding fathers, the former law professor Poul Meyer, wrote a book tellingly titled Systemic Aspects of Public Administration (Meyer 1973). To some extent the legacy of system analysis was still reflected in the early works of the second generation of PA scholars, but they also found inspiration in, for example, organization theory. The trend among this generation of scholars was a move away from system and functional analysis. But there has been less agreement about where to go in terms of theory. Today the profession as a whole uses a much larger and more heterogeneous body of theoretical literature. The broad picture is one of theoretical and methodological pluralism, although different PA departments have different theoretical traditions and preferences. The emergence of a more pluralistic PA research agenda ran in parallel with radical changes in the organizational structure in the Danish political system and PA. Over the past 40 years, the administrative organization, the governing structures and the whole idea about how governance can and should be exercised have changed considerably. Decentralization to the municipal level in the 1970s was followed by a further decentralization to institutions and localities. Hierarchical command and control management was accompanied by more result- and network-based steering mechanisms. The international academic fashions and fads of New Public Management on the one hand, and network governance on the other, partially coincide with these changes in Danish PA. Both forces have influenced the research agendas. THREE CURRENT TRENDS IN DANISH PA Three distinctive perspectives have emerged on the Danish PA scene. To some extent they mirror those of the academic neo-institutionalist schools (Nørgaard 1997): (1) historical institutionalism, with its focus on how historical choices of administrative structures define future paths of institutional development; (2) sociological institutionalism, with its insistence on the role-defining and SOP-generating characteristics of institutions; and (3) rational choice neo-institutionalism, which stresses how institutions shape actor strategies by way of incentive structures, information asymmetries and patterns of sanctions and rewards. However, the real world of Danish PA is more complicated than that. The dominant perspectives in Danish PA are not merely differentiated in terms of theoretical perspective but also in terms of research issues and methodological slant. As we see it, the broad features and dividing lines look as follows: one trend highlights the historical transformation of administrative structures. The main methodological approach is detailed studies of institutional

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changes in the Danish political system and public administration (Lægreid and Pedersen 1994; Andersen 1995; Knudsen 1995; Nørgaard 1997). However, some of the studies on changes in administrative organization are also comparative and focus on cross-country or sub-national variation (Knudsen and Rothstein 1994; Blom-Hansen 1998; Ejersbo 1997; Klausen and Ståhlberg 1998; Christiansen and Rommertvedt 1999). The historical studies of change and continuity in administrative organization are theoretically eclectic. Another strand of research focuses on administrative role perceptions as well as institutionalized logics of appropriateness in network structures and administrative processes. The preferred methodological approach is contemporary qualitative case studies of one or a few policy processes or specific institutions (Jørgensen and Melander 1992; Jørgensen 1993; Jensen 1997, 2001; Greve 1999; Sørensen and Torfing 2002). Finally, a group of PA researchers study the impact that institutional changes have on policy effectiveness and governance efficiency. The preferred methodology among these researchers is comparative, large- as well as small-N, studies that are usually based on quantitative data (Mouritzen 1991; Ejersbo 1997; Blom-Hansen 1999; Christensen 2000; Christensen and Pallesen 2001). In the following section we briefly sketch the theoretical sources of inspiration and the kind of scholarly work that dominates each of these three research agendas. Needless to say, not all PA research fits neatly into one of the three trends we see as dominant. Historical studies of administrative structures In this tradition, the focus is on formal and informal administrative structures, in order to explain these in their own right. The long historical development in national public administration and in different sectors has been studied quite intensively and from a host of theoretical perspectives. The organization of the various local governments has also been studied closely, although in a somewhat shorter historical perspective. The historical institutional perspective has been employed to reveal the longue durée of administrative structures and state building, particularly at the national level. Linkages back to absolutism and the early years of constitutional democracy have been featured (Andersen 1995; Knudsen 1995, 2000; Nørgaard 1997). In general, this research has shown that the development of administrative organizations has been both pragmatic and piecemeal – very much like the development of Danish democracy. A strong legalistic approach to public administration has never been dominant in Danish public administration (cf., however, Knudsen and Rothstein 1994). Another notable characteristic is the close ties, and indeed unprincipled demarcation, between state and society (Andersen 1995; Christiansen et al. 2001). Self-organizing and proto-corporatist forms of governing have been widespread in central as well as in local government (Nørgaard 2000). There is nowhere near the same body of analysis on the long historical development of local administrative organization and governing structures.


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A solid historical study of the development of local government, which culminated in local government reform in the early 1970s, remains to be undertaken. Much more research has been done post-1970 on the variation (over time and among local governments) in local political and administrative organization and practices (Ejersbo 1996, 1997; Blom-Hansen 1998; Klausen and Ståhlberg 1998; Anderson and Pedersen 1998; Bogason 2001). Research has focused on changes in the organization of local administration and personnel recruitment as well as the interaction between local bureaucrats and elected officials, between local governments and local service-providing institutions, between local and central governments, and on local networks including several actors. A number of these studies are large-N studies and they also focus on the effect of the changes in local government organization and processes (see below). It is no exaggeration to say that Danish PA has witnessed a historical turn in recent years. A four-volume edited book Dansk Forvaltningshistorie (‘The History of Danish Public Administration’) (Jespersen et al. 2000) has been published within the last couple of years (see also Knudsen 2000; Bogason 2000). Since the historical turn involves a number of young researchers there is reason to believe that it will continue to dominate. The uniting feature of this strand of research is its focus on administrative organization as object of analysis in a longer or shorter historical perspective as well as on the determinants of administrative structures. Theoretically it does not constitute one coherent research agenda, although historical institutionalism has been a source of inspiration for some of the research (notably that of Knudsen and Rothstein 1994; Knudsen 1995; Nørgaard 1997; Blom-Hansen 1998). The historical studies of administrative structures do not offer much systematic insight on the impact of these structures on administrative behaviour. Therefore, these studies do not compete with the other two research trends on how to interpret and investigate the effects of recent changes in public administration and management systems. However, for the same reason the historical studies can be seen as complementary to both. Case studies of networks and administrative processes The radical changes in the institutions of public administration over the last decades raise questions about the impact of these changes. One of the changes in Danish PA over the last 10 to 20 years is the increasing role of networks in the governing process. Networks are stimulated by: (1) decentralization of responsibility for public services to local governments and to public institutions; (2) changes in national and local governing structures; (3) the increased significance of the EU in numerous policy areas; and (4) the decline of traditional party politics and party membership (Greve 1997; Jensen 2000; Bogason 2001; Sørensen and Torfing 2000; Pedersen 2002). The emergence of network politics has led to the involvement of a host of citizens, groups, firms and organizations directly in the policy-making



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process as well as to increasing inter-organizational interaction. In some cases this involvement is planned (as is the case with the introduction of user boards in numerous areas, sub-local government councils, popular hearings, and inter-ministerial working groups). In other cases the partial superseding of classical hierarchical steering is unplanned (as with informal networking, local organizational initiatives, strong single-issue movements, and so on). Moreover, networks may play a role both in processes of policyformulation and in implementation. One of the focal questions is what this plausible shift towards new forms of governance implies for the traditional processes of accountability and responsiveness as well as for the practices and institutionalized rationales of public administration. Several PA milieus in Denmark focus their research on issues of this kind (Klausen and Ståhlberg 1998; Andersen et al. 1999; Bang, Hansen and Hoff 2000; Berg 2000). These researchers argue that the old preoccupation with the traditional core institutions of representative democracy does not capture the important political and administrative processes of governance that takes place in a multitude of more or less formalized networks on the borderline placed between state, market and civil society. Accordingly, issues such as the distribution of influence and the promotion of administrative and political accountability can no longer, if they ever could, be described exclusively in terms of classical hierarchy or parliamentary control. Several factors determine the development of networks and the forms of accountability and administrative rationales that arise in different networks. One of the normative implications of this research is that new concepts and institutionalized practices must be developed in order to meet the challenge of network governance and to promote a democratic distribution of influence and accountability. Obviously, the themes of accountability and challenges to classical hierarchy and representative democracy have been studied from a number of perspectives (Greve 1997, 1999; Christiansen 1998; Christensen and Pallesen 2001). However, both the scholars and the milieus that have taken a strong interest in studying networks have converged in terms of theoretical perspective. Among network scholars there is a strong tendency to employ poststructuralist approaches and/or sociological institutionalism (Jensen 1998; Bogason and Sørensen 1998; Sørensen and Torfing 2000; Dyrberg et al. 2000; Bogason 2001; Andersen and Born 2002). Social constructivism, discourse analysis and narrative theory have proved fruitful both in studies of network steering and of the changing rationales of accountability. These studies emphasize the importance of relating the rationales of accountability to context and process in the analysis of social action. In terms of methodology, deeply textured case studies, including document analysis and qualitative interviews, is usually the preferred research strategy. Some social constructivists claim that the importance of context and process prevent the social sciences from producing a more generalizable knowledge. Others argue that general


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statements about human action call for exactly this kind of in-depth case studies. They are a necessary means to identify segmented universes of meaning and identity, administrative cultures and logics of appropriateness that interact with the new forms of network governance and produce new patterns of influence and accountability. Arguably, this line of research constitutes a distinct school within Danish PA. It combines different brands of constructivism with a shared concern for democratic processes as they are played out in different contexts. The network research has focused on public organizations at the local level. However, studies of national and international institutions have begun to emerge in this tradition as well (Marcussen 2002). Few comparative studies have been undertaken so far, and little systematic knowledge of the scope and universality of the ‘new’ processes of network governance has been produced. Therefore, a number of questions are left unanswered. Are network processes all that new? Is network governance found equally often at the central and local level? Is network steering equally prevalent in all sectors, and does it concern all types of decisions? What are the consequences of network governance on policy outcomes? The strength of this research agenda in Danish PA is its documentation of the qualities, ambiguities and imperfections of network governance in general and in modern steering systems in particular. In practice, numerous administrative rationales can develop within comparable administrative structures and governing systems. There is often ample room for interpretation and local determination. The price paid for insight into these concrete processes of public governance is a lack of knowledge about the generalizability of the research results. How often does this happen? What is the general relevance of the research findings? A focus of the generalizability of research findings is at the fore of the third research trend found in Danish PA. Like the case studies of networks, the comparative studies of institutional impacts on policy also treat institutions as independent variables. However, it approaches the question of what new and different organizations imply for public administration in another way. Comparative studies of the effects of administrative institutions The impact of different administrative institutions on the effectiveness and efficiency of public administration is the primary focus of most comparative PA research. The theoretical approach in comparative studies of institutional impacts is often rational choice institutionalism (Pallesen 1997; Blom-Hansen 1999; Christensen 2000; Christensen and Pallesen 2001), but a number of studies have other theoretical sources of inspiration (Mouritzen 1991; Ejersbo 1997; Greve 1997; Nørgaard and Pallesen 1999). Most of the studies focus on expenditures and efficiency and these studies use quantitative indicators.



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The comparative studies agenda is broad and includes delegation and decentralization of management prerogatives (Nørgaard and Pallesen 1999; Christensen 2000), the inclusion of user boards (Christensen and Pallesen 2001), goal and contract steering (Leth Nielsen 1999) and other new ways of organizing hierarchies (Ejersbo 1997), new budget systems (Pallesen 1997), corporatisation and other forms of privatization (Greve 1997; Christensen and Pallesen 2001), local regulatory enforcement strategies (Lehmann Nielsen 2002), and intergovernmental relations (Blom-Hansen 1999). Quite a few of these comparative studies focus on administrative institutions and management systems that may be seen as New Public Management reforms, and some of them do refer to the NPM literature. But many of the institutions that are studied, for instance decentralization or activity based budgeting, were invented years before the somewhat broad and amorphous concept of NPM gained credence in the academic community. Within this strand of research, the plausible shift towards network steering is neither appreciated nor accepted as a dominant trend (Christiansen 1998; Christensen and Pallesen 2001). If changing forms of governing are acknowledged at all they are typically not conceptualized as networks. Although empirically there is some overlap with the agenda of the former trend, the comparative studies agenda is quite different in a number of respects. The ambition in this tradition is the mainstream aspiration of middle-range generalization and different forms of systematic comparison, and the studies often involve quantitative indicators and analyses. There are a number of studies on the effects of differences in the organization of local administration and the possible impact of party politics (for example, Mouritzen 1991; Ejersbo 1997; Blom-Hansen 2002; Pallesen 2002). In a few cases, comparable innovations in management in particular sectors have been compared across countries (for example, Pallesen 1997). In other cases comparable steering systems have been compared across sectors or levels of government (for example, Christensen 2000). In yet other studies, similar policies embedded in different governing structures have been compared (for example, Nørgaard and Pallesen 1999; Jepsen et al. 2002). However, in almost all studies within this tradition the focus is the plausible systematic effect on policy outputs and outcomes. Very few of the comparative studies analyse the specific processes translating the institutional changes into outcomes (cf., however, Lehmann Nielsen 2002). In general, processes are theorized rather than analysed. Theoretically, the comparative studies often use actor-centred approaches, in particular, but not exclusively, rational institutionalism, in order to develop theses on patterns of policy outcomes that are then tested (more or less) systematically. Does decentralization of budget responsibility produce the expected efficiency gains in service delivery that they are supposed to (Pallesen 1997)? Do party politics matter for local policy priorities (Mouritzen 1991)? Are agents who are subject to contract steering capable of disguising costs, contesting measurement and boosting reported activities (Leth Nielsen


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1999)? Does decentralization of policy responsibility to the localities produce regulatory discrimination (Lehmann Nielsen 2002)? What are the consequences of outsourcing (Blom-Hansen 2002)? Questions of this kind – general in scope and outcome oriented – are common within the comparative studies tradition. Notwithstanding the comparative aspirations, there are relatively few Danish cross-country studies in this tradition. Most studies compare sectors or local governments. One of the blind spots in the comparative outcome analyses is the lack of analysis of outcomes that are hard to quantify. For instance, the quality of services is usually assumed to be ‘constant’ in studies on efficiency (see, however, Blom-Hansen 2002). WHAT THE FUTURE MIGHT BRING Danish PA – teaching as well as research – is firmly embedded in political science milieus. The theoretical ebbs and flows in political science will continue to set its mark on Danish PA. This means that PA is regarded as inherently political and that PA research is regarded as more than a study of management techniques. It sheds light on the question of how democracy works. Little PA research in Denmark is in fact analysis for PA. It is primarily analysis of PA. PA departments have only recently begun to offer professional MPA courses – and students do not necessarily hold a BA in political science or PA. In the public sector, political science and PA departments supply an increasing proportion of both administrative staff and senior executives. It may be somewhat surprising therefore that there is little focus on public management and research for PA. But experience has shown that the general qualifications of political scientists are in great demand in central as well as local public administration. General methodological skills and a keen appreciation of the close relationship between politics and administration are probably the qualifications that public officials and the higher echelons of the administration ask for. Studies of PA therefore seem to translate well into useful skills for PA. Political science and PA candidates will probably continue to have a substantial market share of the positions in public administration, as well as in private consultancy firms and among trade- and other interest organizations. It should be added though that in Denmark career prospects in the public sector are somewhat tempered by the recent change to a liberal coalition government. Looking at the three PA trends presented above, we envisage three possible scenarios: (1) conflictual; (2) complementary; and (3) cooperative. Starting with the most gloomy perspective – the conflictual – it should be noticed that the historical turn in Danish PA does not really conflict with any of the other trends. As argued by Peter Hall and Rosemary Taylor (1997), historical institutionalism combines the rationales of the sociological and rational brands. Further, the empirical focus of the historical analyses tends to differ



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from the two other approaches. The historical approach will continue to study past and present administrative structures as dependent variables, whereas the case studies and comparative public administration agendas mainly treat administrative institutions as independent variables with a possible impact on administrative behaviour. The biggest risk seems to be lack of contact and debate between the historical and the two contemporary perspectives. If we look at the two other approaches, they are by and large separated institutionally in different PA departments. Furthermore, they employ different methods, their sources of theoretical inspiration are different, and at a deep level they also espouse different truth ideals. Most qualitative case study researchers will argue that ‘the devil is in the detail’ and that we gain little knowledge about real-world public administration by studying it at arm’s length. The case study proponents will argue that the practice and essence of new and old public administration is always locally constructed and contextually interpreted. In effect, the complexities of situational determinants of administrative practices have to be appreciated in order to identify the nature of real-world public administration such as network governance. From the perspective of the comparative studies approach such situational factors constitute ‘noise’. Instead, scholars in this tradition maintain that genuine insight into the working of public administration is gained when a narrow set of general variables are tested and proven to be so powerful that they produce the same outcomes across local settings. The aim of this approach is the exact opposite of the case studies agenda. It seeks to discover and validate general causal mechanisms of how public administration works, and in doing so it employs broad theoretical concepts and models across different, comparable contexts. There is a genuine risk that these two PA agendas will come to live separate lives and that there will be little cross-fertilization between them. The division of PA agendas across departments may fuel a situation where the two trends of research do not acknowledge each other’s academic merits. This risk will be fuelled by lack of cooperation between departments that attest to different perspectives. In contrast to this misery, the complementary scenario entails a ‘cohabitation’ of different approaches and a mutual recognition of the strength and weaknesses of each other. The agenda focusing on case studies of policy processes and specific administrative institutions will provide detailed knowledge of the complexities of political and administrative decision-making processes. Scholars in this tradition will pay close attention to the fact that central planning and steering is imperfect and that numerous actors are involved in translating central priorities into local outcomes. Similarly, the comparative studies agenda will stress that notable similarities in outcomes can be found across different local governments, policy sectors and service-providing public


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institutions. These studies will highlight the factors that produce these similarities, and they will insist that even if steering and public management is imperfect there will still be some general policy determinants and some political and administrative control over policy outcomes. Both may be right in pointing at some level of similarity as well as at notable differences. But the two research agendas may in practice focus on different aspects of the same phenomena – for example, management reforms. The case study agenda is mainly, though not exclusively, interested in local democratic processes of accountability and responsiveness. In particular, their eyes will be wide open when different discursive and situational factors produce different local identities and interpretations of some broader genus. Those espousing the comparative agenda primarily study issues pertaining to efficiency and effectiveness, which those engaging the case study agenda pay little or no attention to. Normative and theoretical preferences will guide research into the same phenomena onto different paths. Finally, following a cooperative scenario, there will be not only cohabitation and mutual recognition, but also more cooperation and collaborative projects between traditions and among departments. There are some indications of more cross-departmental cooperation. A few years ago a national academic network for all PA scholars was established and bi-annual conferences on different themes have been held. Besides this, there have been some collaborative projects among young PA scholars (for example, Blom-Hansen and Daugbjerg 1999; Bang et al. 2000). Theoretically and methodologically, further cooperation calls for some reorientation and introspection in both the qualitative case studies and the quantitative comparative camp. The comparative studies agenda would have to begin investigating more closely the relationship between administrative institutions, administrative processes and patterned outcomes rather than simply the theoretical assumption of connections and transmissions between changing institutions and outcomes. In particular it could be fruitful to model administrative processes and conceptualize outcomes in more detail. Finally, there is no inherent reason why questions of accountability and responsiveness should not be included more vigorously in the comparative studies camp. The case study agenda, on the other hand, would have to pay more attention to the policy consequences of the plausible shifts towards new forms of governance and network steering and investigate more thoroughly the connection between democratic accountability and outcome efficiency. Efficiency and effectiveness are also aspects of accountability. The case studies agenda should also find inspiration in the comparative method design and carry out more matched case comparisons. This does not necessarily imply a radical shift in the type of empirical data that is used, but it would require a partial reorientation towards questions concerning the general nature of their findings. How extensive is the shift towards new forms of governance? What are the consequences? And is governance by networks dominant only



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in some sectors, at some levels of government, regarding some issues, under certain conditions? The third scenario, the cooperative, is not immediately in sight. Like other institutions, academic milieus are path dependent. Such academics read different literatures, they have different stocks of empirical knowledge, they have developed different methodological competences, and they are engaged in partially different networks. Besides, internal recruitment and promotion of PhD students to assistant professorships within the same department is still a dominant pattern. So far, there is little mobility among PA departments and recruitment from other countries, at least at the entry level. There may be a number of upsides to this, though. Cohabitation and mutual recognition between specialized communities may fuel academic debates better than attempts to find some common denominator through intense collaboration. Our hopes, therefore, concern a continual, and preferably more open, debate across approaches and departments in order to exploit the potential of different methodologies and stocks of empirical knowledge. REFERENCES Andersen, N.Å. 1995. Selvskabt forvaltning. Forvaltningspolitikkens og centralforvaltningens udvikling i Danmark, 1900–1994. Copenhagen. Nyt fra Samfundsvidenskaberne. Andersen, N.Å. and A.W. Born. 2001. Kœrlighed og Omstilling. Italesœttelse af den offentligt ansatte. Copenhagen: Nyt fra Samfundsvidenskaberne. Andersen, J. G. et al. 1999. Den demokratiske udfordring. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Anderson, L. and M.N. Pedersen. 1998. ‘Rekrutteringen af kommunale chefer. En administrativ elite under forandring’, Politica, Vol. 30, No. 3, 298–307. Antonsen, M. and T. Beck Jørgensen. 2000. Forandringer i teori og praksis Copenhagen. Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Bang, H., A.D. Hansen and J. Hoff, (eds). 2000. Demokrati fra neden. Casestudier fra en dansk kommune. Copenhagen: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Berg, R. 2000. Den “gode” politiker. Et studie af politiske ledelsesvœrdier i kommunerne. Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag. Blom-Hansen, J. 1998. ‘Macroeconomic Control of Local Governments in Scandinavia: The Formative Years’, Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2, 129–59. Blom-Hansen, J. 1999. ‘Avoiding the “Joint-decision Trap”: Lessons from intergovernmental Relations in Scandinavia’, European Journal of Political Research, 35, 35–67. Blom-Hansen, J. 2002. ‘Hvorfor ikke bruge den private sektor til løsning af kommunale opgaver? Erfaringer fra vejområdet’, in J. Blom-Hansen, F. Bruun and T. Pallesen (eds), Kommunale patologier. Aarhus: Systime, pp. 188–206. Blom-Hansen, J. and C. Daugbjerg (eds). 1999. Magtens organisering. Aarhus: Forlaget Systime. Bogason, P. and E. Sørensen. 1998. Samfundsforskning bottom-up. Teori og metode. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur. Bogason, P. (ed.). 2000. Stat, forvaltning og samfund efter 1950. Copenhagen: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag. Bogason, P. 2001. Fragmenteret forvaltning. Demokrati og netvœrksstyring i decentraliseret lokalstyre. Viborg: Systime. Christensen, J.G. 2000. ‘The Dynamics of Decentralization and Recentralization’, Public Administration, Vol. 78, No. 2, 389–408. Christensen, J.G. and T. Pallesen. 2001. ‘Institutions, Distributional Concerns and Public Sector Reform’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 39, 179–202.


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Date received 9 April 2001. Date accepted 17 December 2002.
