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.
facilitates ease of contacts and transactions even further. Thus, electronic manage- ment of all personal codes is an essential component of e-government in Sweden.
The National Labour Market Board (Arbetsmarknadsstyrelsen, AMS) seeks to facilitate full employment among the Swedish population. Prior to the mid-1990s, when the work within all national agencies became computerized, the services of the AMS required the exchange of significant amounts of paperwork between employers and the agency. In addition, through most of the 1990s, job seekers were required to appear physically at a local AMS office to speak with an administrator and fill out application forms to receive services. Among the unemployed and in the Swedish media, critical voices could be heard saying that the AMS process was too cumbersome and time-consuming and the service was too impersonal.
In response to these problems, the AMS introduced a computerized system called Virtual Employment Services, which increases efficiency and personalizes the service. According to the government Web site, the electronic job vacancy ser- vice had more than 500,000 users already in the year 2000, enjoying possibilities to answer immediately the calls of potential employers with personalized e-mails and ready-made application forms attached.37 Links to and information about job mar- kets in other countries, mainly in Europe and North America, are also available on the Virtual Employment Services Web site. Furthermore, advertising for employers is free, as is adding whichever logo, Web address, or other information they see fit.
There is also the additional possibility for employers to follow up on the popularity of their respective online advertisement or job posting by checking on the number of hits, for example, and making any required adjustments. Employers can also find a search profile service, called the AMS Job Profile Matching System, which is based on the electronically submitted CVs or résumés of job seekers, sometimes with personal letters attached to the profiles. According to the government Web site, in the year 2000, more than 23,000 Swedish enterprises were registered users of the profile-matching system, which contained in excess of 50,000 individual CVs at that time.
The services of the Swedish National Road Administration (Vägverket) provide another example of technology-based reform held out by the Swedish government.38 Introducing both a push-button telephone system and an online system for vehicle registration and digitization of all of its records in 1995, the Swedish National Road Administration was able to eventually reduce the number of regional offices down from 24 to 1 while cutting the number of staff involved in customer services by half. The ability to simply dial the telephone or access a computer and then enter the code on the registration certificate to comply with the legal requirement of vehicle registration has eliminated many of the frustrations associated with the pre- vious, more labor-intensive, time-consuming, and less-efficient process experienced by the majority of Swedish citizens who own motor vehicles.
In 1998, a computerized telephone system and an online service were intro- duced to make the Swedish National Road Administration available to citizens on a 24-hour basis. The menu of electronic services offered has been expanded since
that time such that providing the registration number of any motor vehicle in the country now allows one to obtain the name of its current owner, its annual vehicle tax, and its number of previous owners and to find out whether it has been reported stolen or is banned from traffic.
Unfortunately for some Swedes, there is a tradition of relative openness within the culture of administrative agencies across the country. The personal codes are easily accessible, and access to one’s code provides access to all manner of personal information regarding employment, income, taxes, vehicle ownership, marital sta- tus, children, health, education, and the like. In an age where electronic identity theft has become a growing concern around the world, it is perhaps odd that the digital transformation in government has not attracted more attention and discus- sion within Sweden. Moreover, the nature and amount of information collected by the Swedish government about its citizens and the access afforded various authori- ties to such personal information goes beyond the norms of most other advanced democratic societies. However, it is as yet only possible to speculate about how fur- ther use of technology will inform the nature and scope of administrative practice in the future.
4.2 Economism
As previously noted, economic considerations came to the fore in Sweden during the financial crisis in the 1980s. In response, local government became a testing ground for market-based practices in the form of local enterprises and public–pri- vate partnerships. During the 1990s, market-oriented reforms spread across the country, strengthening the role of private sources of funding and entrepreneurship.
Local tax in Sweden still remains at approximately 30 percent of wages earned, and local government is responsible for the core functions of the welfare state (i.e., education, child and elder care, sick care, social support, and cultural activities).
In 2002, the average part of the total budget expended for the areas of child care, care of the elderly, and education was 78 percent among Swedish municipalities. It is thus unlikely that subnational government in Sweden can escape their primary role as carriers of welfare state functions unless there is a political sea change in national politics.39
Swedish local government since the 1980s has experimented with different forms of financing and providing public services. A high degree of variation exists in how financing and service provision programs have been implemented across the country, however. In an effort to generalize, it can be said that local citizens in Sweden today face an array of service producers and are increasingly exposed to local differences.40 The Swedish welfare state made an about-face concerning privatization and deregulation in the 1990s. As a consequence, as long as Swedish municipalities maintain certain standards in their provision of state-regulated ser- vices, they are free to choose in what form these services should be produced and
delivered. Nongovernmental production and delivery of services can be performed by nonprofit organizations, cooperatives set up by users, by employees in a specific area, or by private enterprise. It is also possible for the state or municipal govern- ment to issue vouchers for specific services so that citizens may choose their service provider directly.41 This variant of NPM has been a reality within the Swedish welfare state for more than a decade.
Today, local services are increasingly produced according to the rules of mar- kets, which has led to growing concern about the unequal effects of market-driven reform strategies across different parts of the country. Because important differ- ences in the quality of service received in such core areas as education, child care, and health care have been readily observed, it is unlikely that this concern and related discussions will abate in the near future, because territorial equality is as important for the legitimacy of the welfare state as it is for the self-image of Swedes in general.42
4.3 Europeanization
When Sweden joined the EU in January 1995, the mentality of the country’s deci- sion makers and administrators was generally self-confident and opportunistic. At the time, Sweden was just rebounding from its most serious state financial crisis in modern times, which had done little or nothing to subdue the feeling of national confidence (and perhaps superiority) among public administrators. A survey of state officials in 1991, in the middle of national crisis, showed for example that EU membership was commonly seen as an opportunity for Swedish administra- tors to help other national governments in Europe understand and appreciate the Swedish way of doing things.43 Subsequently, as Sweden recovered economically through the 1990s, the sense of otherness displayed by public administrators vis-à- vis Europe received an echo among the Swedish people at large. The referendum on EU membership in 1994 was a close 51 percent win for the promembership side. In 2003, a referendum to replace the Swedish krona with the euro ended in a resound- ing rejection. As a consequence, analysts have described Sweden as something of an outsider in Europe.44 Some have even gone so far as to say that it was the state that formally joined the EU in 1995, dragging an essentially skeptical Swedish nation kicking and screaming out of its collective sense of splendid political and admin- istrative otherness.45 Little has changed in the past decade, and a deep and heavy silence has fallen over the issue of European integration in Sweden.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly which administrative changes emanate from the EU, as opposed to being nationally determined, in a complex system of trans- national governance. Both state and local structures in Sweden have had to allocate additional resources into coordination and communication since Sweden became a member of the EU, but on neither level are there any clear signs of an immedi- ate institutional pressure for change.46 Nonetheless, as a result of EU membership,
Swedish administrators tasked with addressing international issues and EU-related affairs are forming enclaves within the central government,47 which will surely affect the strategic and ethical thinking of Swedish public administrators as they learn from new internal networks, new processes, and their administrative coun- terparts in other countries.48, 49 It is here that duality plays such an important role, because civil servants in the Government Offices, at least in part because of their close proximity and relationship to the ministries, are more likely to follow and mirror the strategic and ethical preferences of politicians than are civil servants in administrative agencies. The latter tend to see themselves in the roles of watchdogs and whistle-blowers in the old Swedish tradition of public administration, thereby giving priority to national Swedish law50 and a traditional public service ethos.
Perhaps the most obvious sign of Europeanization in the form of administrative adaptation is the work done by an SOU, the Committee on Public Sector Respon- sibilities, which was tasked by the government in 2003 to review the functions and division of labor between central, local, and regional government in Sweden.
“Never previously in modern times had one single parliamentary committee been issued with making such a comprehensive review of the system of public admin- istration in Sweden.”51 As the work of the committee progressed, the government made its directive even more precise in 2004. The mandate was to review com- pletely the structure of local government and its territorial divisions, the structure of regional government including state structures and activities, and alternatives for central government control of public administration in Sweden.
In 2007, the SOU presented its suggestions. Perhaps the most interesting and widely discussed among their ideas for a complete overhaul of the administrative system in Sweden amounted to the creation of a new territorial level of govern- ment. Six to nine directly elected regional authorities were to replace all current regional and county council offices. The 290 municipalities were to be left as they are, but the thrust of the reform was to do away with the regional level of adminis- tration, which, by and large, has been the same since the 1600s. Interestingly, the main arguments for this reform were to increase the efficiency and equality of the welfare state. Most important, although the regional reform would create Swed- ish regions that have better fit with EU classifications, structures, and programs, this was not among the arguments for the suggested reform. To the contrary, the most notable arguments in favor of the reform were its top-down character, policy rationality, lack of negative effects on local self-government, and ability to deliver equality across the territory of the Swedish nation.52 Thus, although joining the EU provided the opportunity for self-reflection and analysis with regard to governance and governance reform, it does not yet appear that EU membership has produced significant or tangible results in terms of administrative reform in Sweden.