Suchergebnisse

This paper examines participation in water management, more specifically in implementing the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Norway. Attainment of the goals of the WFD depends on new ways of coordinating the activities, knowledge and resources of many sectors and levels of government, including the private sector. The WFD explicitly emphasizes broad stakeholder involvement and public participation. The new network arena of River Basin District Water Boards at the regional level and Sub-District Boards at the sub-regional level, cut across existing municipal, regional and national borders. In each River Basin District, broad reference groups are established. Through surveys and qualitative case studies, we examine how this norm of participation is operationalized in the River Basin Districts, and how different actors evaluate it. We find that the reference grou ps have mobilized many actors from civil society and the private sector, but they do not report having influe nce. The role of the reference group is unclear. ; Artikkelen er skrevet i forskningsprosjektet «Water Pollution Abatement in a System of Multi-level Governance: A study of Norway's implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WAPABAT), finansiert av MILJØ2015-programmet i Norges forskningsråd.

Master i styring og ledelse ; 2017, the city council of Oslo decided that trust-based governance and management should be its guiding principle in the governance of the city. The purpose of this assignment is to provide a better understanding of the model of trust and how the boroughs in the city of Oslo have put this into practice. We have explored how trust-based governance and management is perceived by Oslo's district directors. The key issue we are addressing is: How has the idea of trust-based governance and management changed the governance practices in the management of Oslo's city districts? The study has a qualitative approach and we conducted a total of five in-depth interviews with district directors. Their subjective reflections and thoughts about trust-based governance and management provide information about how this has changed governance practices across city districts. We have looked at the instrumental and cultural perspective, as well as the theory of trust, governance and leadership and implementation. Furthermore, the City Council case from 2017 on trust-based governance and management is central. The study shows that trust-based management has no clear, standardized practice in the districts. The study also reveals that there have been few major changes related to governance and management since the introduction, but that the districts are constantly changing. By contrast, the trust model has contributed to increased awareness of the concept of trust, goal and performance management and empowerment of employees. In addition, there is a shift towards seeing things from the perspective of the user, rather than simply keeping the user in mind, in the effort to improve services across city districts. ; publishedVersion

This master's thesis seeks to map the discourse on trust-based management and leadership (TBML) in some of the largest Norwegian newspapers. Namely to assess 1) the Norwegian discourse compared to tendencies otherwise in Scandinavia, 2) which actors are most active within the discourse, 3) the terminology used to frame TBML, as well as aspects of the newspapers, 4) attitudes towards TBML and their development, and 5) the development in the spread (mention) of TBML over time. Over 180 newspaper articles have been selected, covering a period of eleven years (2010-2020). They are registered and analyzed by utilizing a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Concepts from discourse analysis are drawn upon throughout. The results are viewed and discussed within the frame of the initial five-part division of focal areas and discussed in light of relevant theory on the fields of trust, discourse, and the spread of management and leadership ideas. The findings indicate that the Norwegian discourse gains momentum simultaneously as the rest of Scandinavia, though with a few more odd peaks in mention, related to specific, highly politicized and debated topics. By sector, political representation and attitudes, the actors that are most active within the discourse are political, social-democratic and positive towards TBML. The most positive actors towards TBML, by level of position, are political and public leaders. I tie these individual groupings of actors to different theoretical contributions on the spread of management ideas, hereunder diffusion theory, the translation of ideas, the life-cycle perspective, and the analogy of resistance. Pronounced negative mention of TBML does not occur, however, TBML is often problematized by individual actors through a line of thought that sees "trust" as a phenomenon that cannot be united with a professional reality that calls for control. The problematization of TBML is also more frequent in regional newspapers and by actors on employee level. The findings also indicate that the shift in conceptual focus from "leadership" exclusively, to "management (steering) and leadership" over the last three years, results from a process of learning. "Steering" as a counter-concept, paradoxically becomes more common at the same time. This is tied to the leader-employee division and its impact on the spread, reception and implementation of ideas. To the degree the spread of TBML can be mapped by article frequency over time, it seems to follow an S-shaped diffusion line. However, other important aspects than the visual development in article frequency are in line with different approaches to the spread of management ideas, as highlighted throughout the analysis. ; publishedVersion

In this thesis, we compare two organizational reforms within one policy area. How the "Modernization reform for development management" from 2002/03 and the "Reform for the organization of grant management" from 2018/19, affected the relationship between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norad - the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. Central is the political choice of the overall organizational model in the reforms, with two main alternatives: an integrated model in which the directorate becomes part of the ministry, and a delegated model that assigns the directorate additional tasks (enhanced vertical autonomy). In the thesis, we examine what led to the reform in 2003, and whether the newer reform can be regarded as a continuation of the 2003 reform. We have chosen to base our analysis on the theoretical framework for reforms by Pollitt and Bouckaert. The thesis is a comparative case study, and the analysis is based on three types of data sources: semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and media coverage. In the thesis, we find that several driving forces contributed to the initiation of reform in 2002/03, but that the Minister of Development's political ambitions must be regarded as a main reason to reform. The result of the reform was a mixed model, which can best be explained by the interaction - or tug-of-war - between two ministers, between foreign policy and development policy and the meeting between political desires and what was administratively feasible. Unresolved issues in the 2003 reform led to constant attempts to find an administrative balance in the years between the two reforms. In 2019, driving forces within the political system, especially party politics, became decisive for the choice of model, after the political party KrF (the Christian Democrats) entered the government. By studying the two reforms over time, we show in the thesis that ongoing discussions about the interface between politics and administration, as well as tensions between foreign policy and development policy interests, were central to the reform processes. This may help explain why reforms are repeated. The thesis is a contribution to understanding reforms in a context that also includes the time perspective. ; publishedVersion

Master's thesis Innovative governance and public management ME523 - University of Agder 2019 ; Developing schoolsexualityeducation policies is a complex matterdue to the controversial and politicized nature of sexuality. This thesisaims at understanding the development of institutional change in the presence of complex policy systems that involvemultiple actors in the policy process. To achieve this aim, itanalyses the actionsof an advocacy coalition that works to change sexuality education policies in Norway.The study adopts the Advocacy CoalitionFramework (ACF)for understanding the interconnections among the macro-level of the political and historicalcontext, the micro-level of the actor's motivationsand the meso-level ofcoalition's goals and strategies. Moreover, it supports the ACF with the Historical Institutionalism (HI) approach toexplain the struggle between the actors' effortsto achieve policy change and the persistence of cultural and political institutions.Through the conduction of interviews and the analysis of relevant policy documents, this study identified aclose interaction and co-dependence among differentelements of the political system. In implementing its strategy, the coalition encountered facilitating and hindering factors that determined the achievement of aslow incremental change. The advocacy coalition started and continuouslyinfluenced the change process through a strategy of knowledge production and sharingthat contributed inchangingattitudes and perception of policy participantson sexuality education.The active agency of the coalition's actors in creating arenas and channels of sharing and coordination facilitated the learning process. Nonetheless, fixed institutions and conflictsof interests hindered the achievement of a major policy change.Therefore, this thesis identifiesthe policy process as a complex interaction among different factors and elements that generate reciprocal influence and jointly determine the process' outcomes. Hence, the study concluded that the institutional setting is essential in determining rules and constraints for the actors.However,the active agency of policy participantscan strategically exploit the historicaland institutional setting for achieving the actors' goals.Keywords: Sexuality education, Norway, advocacy coalitions, institutional change, policy-learning, historical institutionalism