There is a democratic ideal that politicians are the decision- and policymakers while the public servants should serve as their policy executers. However, this ideal could be questioned as the public servants also have the capacity to make decisions that concerns the citizens. This thesis answers the questions whether there are differences and similarities of power held by the public servants in one larger and one smaller Swedish municipality, and if there is a larger extent to power for the public servants in the smaller municipality. By analysing and comparing interviews and control documents this study shows that the public servants in the larger municipality may have less power because of a different structure of the organisation and more political frameworks that regulate the administration. The public servants in the smaller municipality have more power in contributing ideas and knowledge for decision-making and implementation. It’s easier for the executive manager in the smaller municipality to influence in evaluations and the agenda setting.

Since the millennium shift the Swedish public administration has, in a successive and significant way, been moving towards an electronic government. By analyzing policy goals formulated by the Swedish government, this essay aims to describe e-government as an administration model and subsequently answer the question if e-government challenges the traditional Swedish public administration. Based on three different ideal types; The bureaucratic model, The user-oriented model and New Public Management, this essay also aims to relate the policy goals of e-government to the ideal types. The analysis shows that the Swedish e-government is based on ideas which can be related to all three ideal types. While the analysis is not able to unequivocally answer the question if e-government challenges the traditional Swedish public administration, it yet indicates that, reversibly, the traditional Swedish public administration challenges e-government.

<p>The values politicians relate with public administration are likely to affect the way that they want the public administration to be organised. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine which values Swedish parliamentary parties relate with public administration and more particularly how they emphasise these values.</p><p>The study is conducted as an analysis of theoretically relevant bills that the government party and the parliamentary parties have introduced to the Riksdag, and reports and statements of opinion from the parliamentary committees. The documents are from the Riksdag´s sessions from 2000/01 to 2005/06. After examining the documents the conclusion can be drawn that the value that is most emphasised during the period is legal security. This might mean that legal security will have more influence on the decisions taken about the organisation of Swedish public administration.</p>

The values politicians relate with public administration are likely to affect the way that they want the public administration to be organised. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine which values Swedish parliamentary parties relate with public administration and more particularly how they emphasise these values. The study is conducted as an analysis of theoretically relevant bills that the government party and the parliamentary parties have introduced to the Riksdag, and reports and statements of opinion from the parliamentary committees. The documents are from the Riksdag´s sessions from 2000/01 to 2005/06. After examining the documents the conclusion can be drawn that the value that is most emphasised during the period is legal security. This might mean that legal security will have more influence on the decisions taken about the organisation of Swedish public administration.

How does public authority maintain their legitimacy in society? According to theory of institutional adjustment they maintain their authority by adapting to different criteria and modern trends society. One most famous social trend in Sweden has for the last decades been NPM, which shortly means adjusting the organization by making it more like the private sectors companies. This could mean adjusting the entire organization or just taking small influences. Large institutions in the public sector are by mostly related to something rigid and unchanging, but the research declares that even large institutions adapt their structure to maintain legitimacy. This means they only partly change the formal administration to be presented to the public but remain the same in informal structures. Research also tells that some administrations partly change by adjusting the trends to their specific purpose and profession. Riksdagsförvaltningen is the public administration of the Swedish Parliament and is one of the largest institutions in Swedish public sector. The question of this thesis is how does Riksdagsförvaltningen as an institution with such closeness to the political structure of parliament adapt to modern trends or why not? Could the institutional adjustment be affected by its purpose and profession? In this thesis managers in Riksdagsförvaltningen have been interviewed for investigating this question in a qualitative content analysis. The conclusion is that Riksdagsförvaltningen may adjust their formal administration while the mentality and organizational culture of the institution remain the same. It also adapts specific trends to fit its purpose by remaining as a traditional bureaucracy and bringing in ideals from NPM. The closeness to the parliament creates a complicated situation to both pleasure the members of parliament and maintain the values of the administration.