How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected decision making in a Swedish municipality? The purpose of this study is to analyse the effect of restrictions in terms of participation in the decision-making process. And how these restrictions have affected the municipalities from an instrumental perspective. The study is conducted as a case study with interviews of central sources in two Swedish local municipalities. The interviews have been structured and analysed in aspect of three themes: democratic control, legal certainty and division of roles. The result of the study shows that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a clear impact on decision making issues in the Swedish municipalities, at least from the instrumental perspective which is used for the analysis. All the three themes have been affected. Due to restrictions in meetings the decision makers have been reduced in number which has had democratic effects when some members of the local government have been staying away from meetings. Further the division of roles between politicians and officials has been affected by the pandemic, when meetings have been cancelled and the elected politicians have not been able to make decisions, nor follow up decisions earlier made. In regard of the legal certainty issue the municipalities have made a lot of progress to make certain that virtual meetings with decision making agendas can be held in a legally secure way. The local parliament is meeting relatively few times per year, whereas in my opinion the consequences of the pandemic have made a rather noticeable impact on the decision-making process in the municipalities. / <p>2022-05-25</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:miun-45703 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Wevel, Axel |
| Publisher | Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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