From guided democracy to multi-level governance:: Trends in central-local relations in the Nordic countries

The Nordic model of governance has contradictory features as it is driven both by a passion for equality and a desire to enhance local self-government. Local governments account for around two-thirds of all public spending. Traditionally, a hierarchical, prefectural model of supervision has served to integrate the local and national levels of the Nordic polities. The hierarchical features of integration have been reduced and new instruments of fuzzy co-ordination developed. In response to fiscal crises and EU membership more contractual central-local relations are emerging. Relations are changing less in Norway than in Finland and Sweden, due to an economic boom and the 'no' to EU membership. Central-local relations are not only increasingly of a multi-level governance character, they are also multi-layered in nature: traditional styles and methods persist alongside new approaches, making central-local relations more complex despite efforts to simplify governance. This is above all true for Norway.