Varför ökar den offentliga byråkratin i Sverige?

Abstract

A well-functioning bureaucracy is very important, but in Sweden there are clear signs that bureaucratization is taking place - that there are too many personnel who govern, administer and control operations rather than operationally carrying out them. How does that happen? In this book, political scientist Patrik Hall examines the reasons why public bureaucracy in Sweden is increasing. A fundamental reason is that the status of advanced administrative positions in public organizations has become higher than the work within the core business. These administrative positions are also not subject to the same mandatory financial management as the operational activities. More and more politically decided rules also contribute to bureaucratization. Finally, there is a driving force to create the ""modern organization"", which leads to internal ambiguities about what the core mission actually is and how it should be carried out. A special category of staff that is studied in the book is organizational professionals – well-educated administrators with organization as the profession. These work with what Hall calls ""organizational accountability"" both externally – ​​towards politics and other demanders – and internally, towards their own organization. The strengthening of organizational accountabilities is due to an increasingly fragmented public sector. Changing the public sector takes time, but bureaucratization could be reduced by focusing on the democratic mission rather than on constructing the organization. Thus there are measures that the public organizations can take themselves to reduce bureaucracy. The book is based on descriptive statistics, interviews, focus groups and case studies of the Police, the Swedish Transport Administration and Swedish universities. It is written within the project ""Bureaucratization of public organizations? A comparative study of organizational professionals in Sweden and New Zealand"".