Project Description
In the last decades, there has been a steep increase in the size of Norwegian ministries’ political staff and communication units. This project will study effects of these changes on horizontal and vertical coordination in the Norwegian government.
The project is a collaboration between a research group covering three academic institutions (ISF, UiO, HiOA) and the Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (Difi).
The project is partly comparative through studies on Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Main Project Goal
The project will consider concrete proposals to improve the coordination capability of the Norwegian government using three groups of measures: procedural changes; structural changes and formalization of informal norms and rules.
Research Questions
The project will address three main research questions:
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How is the vertical and horizontal coordination in the government apparatus influenced by the increase in the size of the political staff and communication units?
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Has the increase in the size of the political staff/leadership led to a stronger integration between politics and the civil service?
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How does the increase in the size of the political leadership and the communication departments influence the relationship between the government and Parliament?
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