development initiatives are examples of areas in which county councils may use discretion because of fewer regulatory controls.27
It would be inconsequential to refer to subnational government, because of its self-government status, as a path dependency in Swedish administration. At the same time, it is impossible to disregard the vertical dimension of administrative duality in the country. The municipal and county council governments are directly elected bodies with the constitutionally guaranteed right to levy taxes on their con- stituents. These elected officials and their administrative personnel have developed strong professional and political competencies demonstrated through accountabil- ity-based performance before the local electorate. As a consequence, they have wide discretion in allocating tax receipts not controlled by the state.
Comparing employment numbers at the national and subnational levels of government adds further clarity to the significance of local government in Swe- den. In 1999 the total number of employed persons in the country amounted to 4.2 million. Of these, 63 percent worked in the private sector. The public sector, including state and local government, employed 37 percent, with less than 9 per- cent employed in state government and the remaining 28 percent employed at the local level. Thus, in 1999 more than one quarter of total employment throughout Sweden was provided by local governments and their related institutions.28 Local government is therefore an influential force in governance by virtue of its sheer size combined with its perceived competence in administering a wide range of social policies and programs. It is the significance of local government that constitutes the vertical dimension of administrative dualism and the fourth sphere of influence in Swedish administrative reform.
The trajectory of national administrative reform since the 1970s can be sum- marized with a set of key words for each decade with regard to perceptions of the functioning of the Swedish state.32 As summarized by Professor Stig Montin, these catchphrases are representative of the need for administrative change and the goals for implementation in the Swedish system over the past four decades. Beginning with the 1970s, Swedish governance can be summarized as too little democracy and steering too weak. During this decade, the welfare state was in its heyday, and the overarching goal was to build up the administrative capacity for an encompassing modernizing system that would produce equal territorial distribution effects. Piv- otal to this development was a reduction in the number of municipal and regional units of the country (a topic that will return in the following section). It is also in the 1970s that immigration began to have significant impacts on Swedish society through increased multicultural diversity and on public administration in terms of systemic capacity to serve an increasingly diverse population with comprehensive social welfare programs, concerns that remain today. The thrust of reform dur- ing this decade was thus centered on enhancing the primary school system, social service functions, physical planning, and the labor market. With rational plan- ning and social engineering still high on the agenda, the Swedish state coordi- nated all major plans and activities among national agencies and municipalities.
Intergovernmental thinking dominated government policy, which expanded the role and importance of professionalization in the public service. On the whole, administrative reform in the 1970s strengthened and empowered bureaucrats and professional planners in Sweden, which led in the last years of that decade to an upsurge in the debate over how democratic control of the political policy-making process could also be strengthened. However, as the welfare state grew, the scope and diversity of programs became too complex to be centrally managed. Solutions to this and related problems were believed to be found in further reform, this time aimed at decentralization, a revitalization of party politics, and the importing of democratic principles to workplaces.
The 1980s came with a new catchphrase on cue from the previous decade: too little efficiency and too much steering in detail. Decentralization was perceived as the fundamental key to successful reform, but in the 1980s the emphasis shifted from an enhancement of democratic values and processes to administrative efficiency and effective management. With emphasis placed on the need to identify new principles and practices for public management, the Swedish public sector began to emulate models from the private sector, gradually focusing on administrative flexibility and reducing costs. Steering by objective as a political and legal principle of the state swept the policy-making and administrative offices of the country, influencing the way national laws and government instructions were formulated and carried out.
By the end of the 1980s, the “charismatic leader” had become the symbol of the loyal and efficient public administrator in Sweden, one who was able to preserve the perception of direct influence and involvement of citizens and coworkers while keeping or indeed cutting the budget.33 Steering by objective and the focus on
managerialism, however, eventually found the state mired in details, sometimes at the expense of more strategic aims in the latter part of this decade.
Toward the end of the fast-moving 1980s, the catchphrase for reform had grad- ually shifted. With economic crisis looming and several structural problems still to overcome, reformers in Sweden began to chime in with the international chorus of the time by saying too much politics and the public sector is too big. In response, the Swedish state began cutting back on welfare expenses while increasingly deregulat- ing the public sector. The principle of steering by objective was thus strengthened in concert with the processes of decentralization. The free choice of citizens was increasingly emphasized as regards public services, and user evaluations and orga- nizational principles based on New Public Management (NPM) were introduced, particularly at the local level. Public administrators increasingly found themselves working in organizations divided into results-oriented units organized according to purchaser–provider arrangements. Thus, the decade ended with administrative reform continuing, more or less, in a climate of competition with emphasis placed on economic results.
The 1990s continued along the trajectory set in the previous decade, with its emphasis on securing the quality of services, coordination, leadership, and the role of civil society. The period began with a major state financial crisis, which forced a response from the central government. Continuing along the trajectory of decen- tralization and economic efficiency, the state decided to shift the financial and political responsibilities for social welfare functions primarily to municipalities.
For example, in one major reform effort, the whole Swedish system of primary and secondary schools was decentralized in 1991. In one fell swoop, the Swedish state shifted the responsibility for basic education to the municipalities. The municipali- ties were by that time already experienced with new forms of management, private and semiprivate ownership, and new forms of partnership with social actors. As a result of increased decentralization of social welfare, Sweden realized a radical increase in economic and social inequalities in the 1990s, the likes of which had not been observed for more than 20 years. For fear that schooling in Sweden would become a local affair outright, the state also continued along the path of steering by objective by setting high goals and standards for primary and secondary educa- tion. Similar goals and objectives were set for other social welfare programs newly decentralized from the state. Far from expressing a coherent strategy, however, the state introduced a more flexible approach, continuing to deregulate in some areas while reregulating in others.
The emphasis on ensuring quality in the delivery of public services followed from the state’s philosophy of steering by objective, and national agencies were con- sequently tasked with performing evaluations of reforms implemented within the different administrative areas of government. This signifies that by the end of the 1990s, reform thinking in Sweden had made a 180-degree turn as compared with the interventionist planning and controlling strategies of the state in the 1970s. The introduction and development of administrative models inspired by the market
orientation of NPM continued, particularly in local government. Toward the end of the 1990s, and particularly against the backdrop of the mainly peaceful popular revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe, increasing emphasis on the role of civil society was also noted in Sweden. On the eve of the millennium, however, admin- istrative reform had brought the public sector to a situation signified by conflicting goals and perceptions.
In the first decade of the 21st century, administrative reform in Sweden is cur- rently riddled with a lack of clarity and coherence. Nearing the end of this decade, it is perhaps possible to characterize the state of administrative reform with the catch- phrase at a crossroad. At this point in time, the notion of civil society as an impor- tant alternative to political authority and market uncertainty appears to be growing in importance. Particularly at the municipal level, citizen groups are increasingly invited to share their views on, for example, infrastructure projects while they are still in the planning stages, and local referenda on major investment and other local economic development issues are gaining in use. Overall, however, the trajectory of administrative reform in Sweden seems to be at a crossroad. Exactly what is meant by civil society and partnership remains to be seen, and it is likely that the first decade of the 21st century, with future hindsight, will be easier to categorize.
Insofar as a long line of administrative reforms in Sweden having changed the ways in which government interfaces with citizens and intervenes in their lives, public administration at all levels of government has found new patterns of interaction and deliberation with the political and economic spheres of society. It is therefore likely that intensified discussions concerning the ideas and ideologies behind the past four decades of administrative reform will ensue and serve to inform the future of administrative reform in Sweden.
On the whole, national administration in Sweden is shrinking. The number of national agencies has been reduced over time, and as a result of decentraliza- tion and reorganization, these agencies have also become further removed from the people they serve. In 1990, the total number of administrative offices related to the government structure in Sweden was 1,394 as compared with 796 in 1995 and 643 in 2000. In 2005, the official sum of national administrative offices was 552, including national agencies.34 However, cutbacks and reorganization among government agencies have not reduced their role in supporting or blocking admin- istrative reform in Sweden.
Developments in the 20th century radically changed the Swedish nation through rapid and thorough modernization and democratization. With its roots in predemocratic Sweden, the principle of administrative dualism not only sur- vived this flurry of economic and social change but also proved to be a flexible instrument in managing the effects of change. Nevertheless, within Sweden, the flexibility of adjustment in combination with stability in the central administrative system hinges on a single pivotal factor: the ability to achieve consensus. Three of the four major spheres of influence in the Swedish system are horizontally autono- mous enough within the central government to be able to bring the Swedish system
of governance to gridlock. Why this only rarely happens is an open question. But there are more specific and steadfast observations to be made as regards the practical application and results of administrative reform strategies and tools, as addressed in the next section.