<p>Active environmental activity?– a comparative study of the municipalities environmental activity</p><p>Thesis in Political Science D-Level at Karlstad University by</p><p>Jenny Ljung Spring 2008</p><p>Tutor: Michelle Michelleti</p><p>The threat against our climate is one of our biggest challenges today. The awareness of the problem has grown rapidly for the last years in governments on international, national and regional level. The Swedish government is recognized as one of the leading countries in the climate and environmental work internationally. The Swedish municipalities play a big role in this successful work. The Swedish non-governmental organisation Naturskyddsföreningen has done a project called Klimatindex 2007, where they examine the work for the environment in all of Sweden’s municipalities. In their survey the municipalities has been asked to answer questions about transports, purchases, climate goals, information to the citizens etc. This has than been compiled and given scores on how well they been doing. Out of all Sweden’s municipalities I have chosen six that is of the size categorised as “bigger cities” that I will examine in this thesis. These are Trollhättan, Karlstad, Södertälje, Norrköping, Luleå and Halmstad. Trollhättan was classified as the best one and Halmstad was the worst one in Naturskyddsföreningens klimatindex 2007.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine the importance of factors as political composition, administration, public media, non governmental organisations and geographic situation in regard to the the municipalities activity in the policy area. The activity is based on the results from Naturskyddsföreningens klimatindex 2007.</p><p>The main research question that I intend to answer is:</p><p>• Have the factors been important for how active the municipalities have been in the environmental policy?</p><p>To be able to answer the main question I also have six precise research questions that I intend to answer.</p><p>The material that I have chosen to study is documents about the political composition, interviews with civil servants about the administration regarding the climate and environment, local newspapers, NGO:s local work and membership statistics and SOU:s report about the affects of the climate change in Sweden.</p><p>After analyzing the material I present an answer to my main research question: I have found that all the factors except the factor geographic situation are important for the activity.</p>

Active environmental activity?– a comparative study of the municipalities environmental activity Thesis in Political Science D-Level at Karlstad University by Jenny Ljung Spring 2008 Tutor: Michelle Michelleti The threat against our climate is one of our biggest challenges today. The awareness of the problem has grown rapidly for the last years in governments on international, national and regional level. The Swedish government is recognized as one of the leading countries in the climate and environmental work internationally. The Swedish municipalities play a big role in this successful work. The Swedish non-governmental organisation Naturskyddsföreningen has done a project called Klimatindex 2007, where they examine the work for the environment in all of Sweden’s municipalities. In their survey the municipalities has been asked to answer questions about transports, purchases, climate goals, information to the citizens etc. This has than been compiled and given scores on how well they been doing. Out of all Sweden’s municipalities I have chosen six that is of the size categorised as “bigger cities” that I will examine in this thesis. These are Trollhättan, Karlstad, Södertälje, Norrköping, Luleå and Halmstad. Trollhättan was classified as the best one and Halmstad was the worst one in Naturskyddsföreningens klimatindex 2007. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the importance of factors as political composition, administration, public media, non governmental organisations and geographic situation in regard to the the municipalities activity in the policy area. The activity is based on the results from Naturskyddsföreningens klimatindex 2007. The main research question that I intend to answer is: • Have the factors been important for how active the municipalities have been in the environmental policy? To be able to answer the main question I also have six precise research questions that I intend to answer. The material that I have chosen to study is documents about the political composition, interviews with civil servants about the administration regarding the climate and environment, local newspapers, NGO:s local work and membership statistics and SOU:s report about the affects of the climate change in Sweden. After analyzing the material I present an answer to my main research question: I have found that all the factors except the factor geographic situation are important for the activity.

Swedish local governments participate in different forms of intermunicipal cooperation in particular policy fields to achieve benefits of scale. This is often thought to improve efficiency and/or facilitate recruitment of experts and other competent personnel, aspects which are considered deficient in many municipalities as a consequence of demographical changes. Intermunicipal cooperation has become a widely used measure to face these challenges.However, there is little empirical evidence supporting that benefits of scale are realized – and the many forms of cooperation municipalities participate in is considered to affect local governments’ democratic anchorage negatively due to the principal-agent problem that arises. In this essay the effects of intermunicipal cooperation have been studied in an explorative way, with both quantitative and qualitative methods. Firstly, the effects on efficiency and need of additional personnel are examined with descriptive statistics from local government environmental inspection (food safety). Secondly, interviews have been conducted with local politicians and local government head officials exploring how the democratic deficit arising from intermunicipal cooperation is perceived from a transaction cost perspective. The interviewees represent a total of four municipalities (medium or small sized), two of which engage in a joint committee in local government environmental authority (which includes food control), the other two engage in a joint administration in the same policy field.The findings from the descriptive statistical analysis does not give solid evidence of improved efficiency or improved organizational competencies. However, the interviewees percieve these aspects as improved by intermunicipal cooperation. The findings from the qualitative approach is that the democratic deficit is perceived as problematic by the local politicians, but that several circumstances influence how problematic it really is. If the municipality needs cooperation to function, and the cooperation delivers satisfactory service, the principal-agent problem is more likely to be tolerated by the principal i.e. the citizens. Other factors seem to matter as well, factors such as: which policy field the cooperation is conducted, if the service is kept in the municipality’s vicinity, and if there is trust between the cooperating municipalities.