Political Organization and Multi Level Governance

New forms of governance and organization challenge established institutions. This group's research is comparatively oriented and focuses on the relations between the European level, the state level, regions and the municipal level, and on the new ways of cooperation between the public and the private sphere. Among other themes, we are concerned with how ways of governance and organization emerge and evolve through organizational innovations in the intersection between democratic governance, administration and market. 

A central theme is the terms of action for active administration politics, with emphasis on the interaction between concious governance and adjustment to international doctrines and established administration culture and tradition. Furthermore, we focus on political decision-making processes and how reform design and implementation on one level affect other levels in the system of administration. This implies both increased EU integration and the interaction between national, regional and local organs of administration. 

"New Public Management" oriented administration reforms, often called post-NPM or "whole-of-government" reforms holds a special focus. We study new policies in regulation and supervision, new reforms in control and revision, the emergence of information and communication technology, changes in trust and responsibility, changes in ways of coordination and specialisation, and the tension between political governance and professional autonomy in organs of administration. Another important research subject is the organization for "wicked issues" characterized by complexity and uncertainty. These are areas of politics where the problem structure exceeds policy area and level of administration, as for example societal security, climate, immigration and integration, and crime prevention. 

The research group also focus on European integration processes and the effects they have on political governance, public officials' control and accountability. In Europe, changes in local, national and transnational governance is rooted in the EU, which is both affected by the member states and in turn affects them. Increased European integration has comprehensive implications for the democracy at state level and the international level. Norwegian administration is also affected by the EU through the EEA. European integration entails a complex interaction between specialized professional boards, politics and law. One of our main focuses is to map such processes of change in various areas of politics and levels of governance. European cooperation, Europeanization, constitutionalism, international integration, regimes of regulation, juridification and institution building are themes in which this research groups work on. 

Theoretically, the group is rooted in a broad institutional approach which combines instrumental models, cultural perspectives and environmental adaption. A organizational theoretical approach to how formal organizations work, literature on multi-level governance, implementation og transformative approaches are central.