Suchergebnisse

Since 1990, profound structural changes in the organization of local government have taken place in Denmark: Changes in the political structure (with the consolidation of political committees), in the administration (with the consolidation of departments and internal decentralization), and at the level of institutions (with decentralization from the administrative unit to the institutions). At the center of the changes are despecialization and decentralization. The longterm goal is to improve service, increase efficiency, share responsability, create a more holistic orientation, as well as to increase the public's influence. A research project has been started to document effects of these changes and to find explanations for them. The research project is still in progress, but initial results show that effects of the structural changes can already be seen in some instances and that it is possible to discern patterns in the relationship between specific structural changes and the changed attitude of local government. However, the research also shows that the goals have not yet been completely reached. One explanation for this may be that different cultures, norms, and values are slowing down the implementation of the changes. To reach the stated goal, it appears necessary to change the perspective of the actors in the organization (i.e., the employees). In Denmark, most of the employees in local government are "professionals," as the term is defined by social science. One way of dealing with cultures, norms, and values is to view professions as the creator of these cultures. Norms and values of professionals are mostly formed outside the organization, but expressed through structures and cultures within the organization. This provides an opportunity to combine structural and cultural approaches to the analysis of organizational development. One of our main theses in the project is that changes in the organization of local government require changes in the professionals' way of thinking and acting. The discussion of the relationship between professions and organizational development will be used to improve the models for change in the reorganization of Danish local government.

Currently, we are witnessing a comprehensive change in the theoretical understandings of how coordination is provided in the pursuit of public governance. Traditional strands of theory took their departure from the presumption that coordination is the outcome of processes within coherent institutionally or functionally demarcated units that follows a specific pregiven rational logic of consequentiality. This view is apparent in public administration theory, organization theory, and planning theory. In recent years, this unitary, rationalist understanding of coordination has been challenged by a more pluricentric understanding of coordination in public governance. Coordination is viewed as a messy and floating process that revolves around interactive arenas that promote communication between a plurality of interpretive logics and situated practises. Although the traditional theories of coordination tended to view vertical and horizontal forms of coordination as radically different modes of coordination, the new theories question the analytical value of this distinction by pointing to the relational, interpretive, interdependent, and interactive aspects of all coordination processes including processes in which public authorities seek to govern their subjects. In the new theories, one of the main questions is how to get a better hold of this new understanding of coordination in processes of public governance. The article aims to do so by bringing together insights from three theoretical strands: public administration theory, organizational theory, and planning theory to show how each of them are currently contributing to the development of what we define as a theory of pluricentric coordination in public governance.

What does it mean to be a politician or an administrator in contemporary Denmark? The conditions under which these two central categories of actors operate within the political system have changed considerably in recent years. Hence, processes of societal governance can less be characterized as hierarchical, centralized, top-down government, and more as horizontal network governance. The working paper presents the outline of a research project which aims to contribute to the accumulation of knowledge concerning the means by which administrators and politicians handle the conflicts that emerge as a result of the modification of these otherwise traditional roles.