The primary focus of this thesis is a state-owned enterprise, its basic characteristics, the State-Owned Enterprise Act as its principal source of legislation and its status given by some other laws. The state-owned enterprise is a state organization and a specific organizational legal form of business through which the state carries out management of its property, carries on a business and thereby fulfills the purpose for which state-owned enterprise was founded. Specificity is manifested mainly by its property itself, the relationship to that property, the way of establishment and by performance of quasi-shareholders' rights. The main attribute of state-owned enterprises and state organizations in general is incapacity of possession of property rights. Inability of ownership does not only contrast with the ability to bind, but also raises questions concerning the legal personality. The relationship to the property has been expressed by rather vague "right to manage", which has not been used yet. The state-owned enterprise is regulated mainly by the State-Owned Enterprise Act. This regulation, though very brief in scope, has the ambition to be comprehensive legislation for state-owned enterprises. Nevertheless it is not sufficient for the treatment of all possible legal relations arising from the...

<p>This dissertation examines the last thirty years of internal reforms in the Swedish Government Offices. Analysis of the evolution of personnel politics, the formation of one agency and the attempts to introduce a collective activity planning model, show that the immediate problems of the early 1970’s – an over dimensioned staff, territory battles and unclear division of responsibility for personnel and organisation – remains to this day, notwithstanding the many reforms to approach them. One principal explanation behind this is that the key players for successful reorganisations – the politicians – do hardly ever partake. Instead, and on the basis of the perspective of bureaucratic politics, this dissertation demonstrates that the internal development of the Government Offices should be explained as the result of struggles between different bureaucratic actors, with diverse views on problems and their solutions, and with various prospects and strengths to affect the outcome. Due to the choice of politicians to leave this policy field open to bureaucratic politics, the policy is essentially shaped and decided within a bureaucratic context. The dissertation ends in a conclusion that there is an almost constant bureaucratic battle behind internal organisation of the Government Offices, a conflict where tradition, values and strong bureaucratic actors play an important part, and where institutional change is exceptional, since the preserving powers in these processes have the upper hand. But politicians can change – in spite of these traditions, values and bureaucratic agents – if they have the determination. The theoretical aim of this dissertation, through a critical assessment of the bureaucratic politics perspective – an evaluation motivated by the empirical data and inspired by two challenging and related theoretic models; sociological and historical institutionalism – is to display the qualities and shortcomings of the bureaucratic politics model, to develop and improve the original model of bureaucratic politics, and making it more expedient for future studies of institutional change in central political organisations.</p>

This dissertation examines the last thirty years of internal reforms in the Swedish Government Offices. Analysis of the evolution of personnel politics, the formation of one agency and the attempts to introduce a collective activity planning model, show that the immediate problems of the early 1970’s – an over dimensioned staff, territory battles and unclear division of responsibility for personnel and organisation – remains to this day, notwithstanding the many reforms to approach them. One principal explanation behind this is that the key players for successful reorganisations – the politicians – do hardly ever partake. Instead, and on the basis of the perspective of bureaucratic politics, this dissertation demonstrates that the internal development of the Government Offices should be explained as the result of struggles between different bureaucratic actors, with diverse views on problems and their solutions, and with various prospects and strengths to affect the outcome. Due to the choice of politicians to leave this policy field open to bureaucratic politics, the policy is essentially shaped and decided within a bureaucratic context. The dissertation ends in a conclusion that there is an almost constant bureaucratic battle behind internal organisation of the Government Offices, a conflict where tradition, values and strong bureaucratic actors play an important part, and where institutional change is exceptional, since the preserving powers in these processes have the upper hand. But politicians can change – in spite of these traditions, values and bureaucratic agents – if they have the determination. The theoretical aim of this dissertation, through a critical assessment of the bureaucratic politics perspective – an evaluation motivated by the empirical data and inspired by two challenging and related theoretic models; sociological and historical institutionalism – is to display the qualities and shortcomings of the bureaucratic politics model, to develop and improve the original model of bureaucratic politics, and making it more expedient for future studies of institutional change in central political organisations.

(Summary) The presented paper focuses on adjusting a state enterprise (state - owned enterprise) as a receding form of public enterprise. It sets upon itself a task of clarification, whether this legal form, which has been dominant in the past, is henceforth suitable for use in the present body of laws. Professional literature was studied to acquire relevant knowledge, legal provisions, judicial decisions, and other documents. State enterprise is a specific legal entity conducting business with national property, which has a unique public function and is supposed to generate net operating income. Its institutor can only be a state, that has a similar status as a sole partner of a business entity. Unlike other legal entities engaging in business, the state enterprise doesn't have a legal capacity to acquire assets for itself, but does acquire assets for the state. It is not liable for state obligations and state is not liable for obligations of the enterprise at the same time. This structure causes problems, because it is not consistent with a current legal rule. The paper examines general characteristics of state enterprise, historical development, effective legal enactment, property status of state enterprise, definition of sphere of authority between a founder and business bodies, and business...

The relationship between politicians and civil servants is ambiguous and potentially problematic in democratic terms. The aim of the thesis is to examine this relationship in the Swedish core executive, Regeringskansliet. More specifically, the analysis emphasises the respective role expectations of the two groups when interacting with each other. The thesis is based on two extensive qualitative interview studies with politicians and senior civil servants, one carried out in the early 1980’s and one undertaken more recently. Hence it also offers an opportunity to analyse whether these expectations have changed or remained stable during the last decades. The findings reveal that the role expectations of politicians and civil servants to a high extent correspond, and have remained relatively stable over time. The relationship between politicians and civil servants is based on norms such as (conditional) trust, delegation and yet relatively close interaction. If so, politicians are unloaded by the civil service in order to handle their external responsibilities. Although relatively informal, a passive hierarchy of roles ensures the superiority of politicians and more specifically of the minister. Civil servants adapt to roles taken by politicians, although providing guidance to the politicians on how to behave in office. The division of labour is not based on the different tasks performed in the policy-making process. Instead, politicians assume responsibility for all actions and decisions – also those undertaken by the civil servants – within the ministries, while civil servants offer politicians protection and security. Taken together these results indicate that the institutionalised norms that surround the relationship between politicians and civil servants are highly powerful. Nevertheless, the thesis also reveals tendencies towards a departure from these norms, suggesting that this relationship is to some extent fragile and exposed to various attempts at reform.