Policy communities,public housing and area improvement in Sweden

Taking recent research on central and local government relations as its point of departure, the article sets out to demonstrate the analytical applicability of the concept of a policy community. R. A.W. Rhodes's four-dimensional definition of the concept provides a framework for an analysis of policy communities for public-housing area improvement in Sweden. Using a central government program as an example, the analysis is carried out on two levels, relating policy to program, and program to local projects. Finally, the article discusses the question of whether there are policy relevant lessons to be learned from the implementation of the area improvement program under study. Although it is problematic to transplant experiences from one more or less unique context to another, it is still argued that the policy community approach might have some policy relevance, even in a cross-national perspective, although it would require a separate study to demonstrate this point.