Party Politics and the Common Good in Swedish Local Government

Local government in Sweden is usually classified as the northwest European type of local government, together with the local government systems of the other Nordic countries and Britain. In the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Swedish local government has been especially susceptible to the ideas of 'new public management' (NPM). At the same time there has been a long-ongoing trend of increasing party-politicisation of local councils. In this paper a selection of five local authorities are examined in order to see how party politics and party-politicisation are confronted by the new organisational doctrines. It is concluded that in this respect the doctrines guiding local government organisation can be characterised by three common traits: the legitimacy of particular interests is denied in favour of the common good of the locality; it is denied that conflict and competition between political parties perform any democratic function; finally, when it comes to the relation between politics and administration there is a common confession of the management-by-objectives doctrine. Somewhat surprisingly, these three principles guide organisation and politics not only in those authorities most enthusiastically adopting NPM but also in the authorities implementing organisational reforms based on more communitarian principles and even organisationally conservative municipalities not even considering any organisational change. One interpretation of this contradictory observation may be that NPM concepts and ideas have also found their way into local doctrines that are based on quite different principles. Another interpretation is that there is a consensus tradition in Swedish political culture that can also account for similar results in municipalities not explicitly introducing an apolitical organisation doctrine.     

Sustaining Labor‐Environmental Coalitions: Banana Allies in Costa Rica

What is required for sustaining an alliance between union and environmental activists? Applying grounded theory to a case study in the Costa Rican banana sector, this article reveals five historical phases. First, unions and environmentalists identify common opportunity structures for joint action. Second, a preexisting network becomes a resource for mobilization. Third, the new coalition engages in communicative action that leads to shared identity and cultural framing and a foundation for handling exogenous global forces. Market policy changes in the fourth phase stimulate a transnational activist network and framing linkages. Dramatic supply disruptions in the fifth precipitate autonomous organizational approaches that require reframing, identity extension, and flexibility. This study argues that the Costa Rican case can be generalized to other labor‐environmental coalitions if such alliances create simple, open structures that agilely adapt to external opportunity structures and expand frames that encourage collaborative autonomy and dualistic collective definitions.     

Worker Democracy and Worker Productivity

A major source of oppression in industrial and post-industrial society is the restrictive and highly authoritarian nature of the workplace. One response is to democratize the workplace by increasing the participation of workers in making decisions and in choosing and evaluating managers as well as sharing in the ownership of the firm. These are not new ideas, and there are many examples of organizations pursuing various forms of democratic practices. However, a major objection is that such participation would compromise economic and other types of organizational productivity. This article examines the empirical support for that argument over a wide range of types of organizations in which workers participate in important decisions affecting their welfare. The overall results of this survey across many different forms of work organization suggest that the evidence supports the opposite conclusion, that worker participation increases productivity, particularly when workers share the benefits of higher productivity. The challenge is to ascertain ways of spreading these practices more widely.     

Local Authorities and Non–elected Agencies: Strategic Responses and Organizational Networks

This article deals with developing relationships between local authorities and local non–elected public service agencies in England and Wales. It classifies local authority responses to the growth of the non–elected state. Account is taken of varying agency characteristics and the constraints and dilemmas they face. From the local authority vantage point what is at stake is organizational (re)positioning in a changing institutional environment. Insights derived from strategic management are therefore utilized. But resource dependencies and exchanges also manifest themselves in these emerging relationships. Moreover, account must be taken of the scope for local authorities to be 'network managers' given the structural reconfiguration of the local state. The analysis therefore takes on board organizational networking theoretical frameworks. Although central government remains best placed to manipulate the 'rules of the [new and uncertain] game', interesting possibilities present themselves if local authorities can show more strategic skill than in the recent past.