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The search for the optimal size of political systems is one of the most enduring in political thought. Given the validity of arguments for and against small units, one might expect variation in rearrangements of unit sizes. However, the reform trend is uniform: units, often at the local level, are amalgamated to harvest scale effects. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the argument on economies of scale in the economic costs of running political systems. Our testing ground is a recent Danish reform. It allows us to avoid endogeneity problems often facing researchers of size reforms. The reform was directed by the central government and constitutes an exogenous shock to 239 municipalities, whereas 32 municipalities were left untouched. We thus have a quasi-experiment with pre- and posttreatment observations for both an experiment and a control group. Our findings show that scale effects, measured as administrative costs per inhabitant, are considerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reforming the public sector often means imposing immediate costs on well-organised interests in return for longer-term, diffuse benefits to voters and taxpayers. Nonetheless, reforms sometimes are carried through. Investigations of this puzzle have followed two approaches: The first is structural and explains reforms as a consequence of the institutional setting in which policymakers operate. The second focuses on human agency. It investigates how reformers search for ways to overcome structural obstacles. This approach has lived a quiet life in recent decades. In this paper, we investigate recent attempts to reform the regional government level in Norway and Denmark. Despite very similar structural settings and political preferences, the reforms failed in Norway, but were successful in Denmark; failure and success being defined by the two governments' intensions. We argue that the explanation lies in the different reform strategies pursued by the central governments in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is widely assumed that policy considerations are important when parties form government coalitions. But if this is so, and if coalitions are negotiated in multi-dimensional policy spaces with no majority parties, then a rapid turn-over of coalitions should be observed, cf. the chaos theorem. However, we rarely witness this. Here we analyse two of the most prominent theories that address this puzzle: Laver and Shepsle's portfolio allocation model; and Warwick's policy horizon hypothesis. We do not analyse the 'usual suspects' (i.e. national government formations in Europe), but present a new empirical testing ground: Danish local governments. We rely on Laver and Shepsle's Winset programme to identify 'strong parties' in the portfolio allocation model but develop a new measure of Warwick's policy horizons that better deals with problems of multi-dimensionality. In a conditional logit analysis of survey data from 3000 local councillors, we find support for the policy horizons model, but not for the portfolio allocation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amalgamating municipalities carries risks in terms of public expenditure control. The tax base of the new amalgamated municipality represents a common pool resource. The incentive is to exploit it – that is, to spend before closing time. This article investigates last-minute spending by Danish municipalities before the local government reform in 2007 in which 271 municipalities were reduced to 98. It shows that local councillors exploited this situation to finance local projects before closing time. The article thus demonstrates the occurrence of common pool problems in amalgamation situations. However, it also shows that it is the availability of a common pool that matters, not its size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government coalitions should be minimal winning. However, it is an empirical fact that oversized coalitions exist. Several theories have been offered to explain this phenomenon, but they are seldom put to a systematic empirical test. When empirical tests are performed, they are typically based on data on national government formations in post-war Europe. Since these are the data that gave rise to the theories in the first place, there is a risk of post hoc hypothesis reformulation. The purpose of this paper is to test explanations of oversized coalitions systematically in a new empirical setting and thus avoid this circularity problem. We focus on local governments in Denmark and have collected data by a survey sent to almost 3,000 local councillors. We draw hypotheses from three broad theoretical perspectives on oversized coalitions and test them in a logit regression analysis. The analysis shows that oversized coalitions cannot be explained by traditional coalition theories. Our results question the minimalist behavioural logic inherent in most coalition theories and suggest that parties may be motivated by norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of coalition formation represent a diverse set of arguments about why some government coalitions form while others do not. In this article, the authors present a systematic empirical test of the relative importance of the various arguments. The test is designed to avoid a circularity problem present in many coalition studies – namely that the theories are tested on data of national government coalitions in postwar Europe: the very data that gave rise to the theories in the first place. Instead, the authors focus on government coalitions at the municipal level. They base their analysis on an expert survey of almost 3,000 local councillors from all municipalities in Denmark. They use conditional logit analysis to model government formation as a discrete choice between all potential governments. The analysis confirms some, but far from all, traditional explanations such as those based on office and policy motives. At the same time, the analysis raises the question of whether actors really seek minimal coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The partnership principle in EU cohesion policy was introduced in order to involve subnational authorities and interest organizations in policy formulation and implementation. In this article we examine how the member states have reacted to this call for a new way of making public policy. We argue that the multi-level governance literature and the critics of the multi-level governance framework have not examined implementation structures properly, but have focused on regional influence. We conduct a comparative analysis of the Dutch and Danish implementations of the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund. Our findings show that when examining implementation structures it becomes clear that member states are in full control of the re-allocation of EU funds. They show that Denmark and The Netherlands have been able to absorb EU cohesion policy within already existing national implementation structures of labour market policies and regional development. One central theoretical implication of our study is that the focus of studies of any fundamental re-allocation of power resources in cohesion studies should comprise the entire network of implementation rather than the strategies of its individual component actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the economic potential of private delivery of public services in Denmark. Focus on the maintenance of public roads in Danish municipalities; Confirmation of the cost savings in the public sector due to involvement of the private sector; Suitability of the system in Scandinavian countries.

This paper analyzes procedural influences on budgetary outcomes in Danish local government. By analyzing local governments the study can remedy two shortcomings of most procedural budget studies. The first is that most studies analyze national budget procedures, which means that only a limited and quite heterogeneous number of cases can be analyzed. The second and more fundamental shortcoming in most studies is the lack of a distinction between political institutions and budget institutions. Although this distinction is difficult to establish for empirical analysis at the national level, it is immediately clear when dealing with local governments. The paper tests a number of hypotheses on procedural influences. It finds that budget institutions have no certain effects on budget outcomes in the preparatory phase. However, in the implementation phase budget institutions seem to matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the fiscal manipulation of a decentralized public sector in Denmark. Relationship between decentralization in government and macroeconomic performance; Role of the central government in pursuing a manipulative strategy in economic policy; System of the central-local government agreements concerning the decentralized public budget.

It has proven difficult to determine the direction in which corporatism is moving. This discussion is marred by two shortcomings: A bias towards the macro-level and the lack of a clear distinction between the stages of the policy process. Trying to remedy these shortcomings, this paper follows the development of corporatism over the twenty years since 1980 and uses this material to illuminate the causes of the development of corporatism. The analysis consists of a comparative study of seven Danish policy areas. By focusing on the meso-level within one country we gain the methodological advantage of being able to hold constant a number of variables at the macro-level which are difficult to control for in cross-national analyses. We are thus in a position to illuminate the explanatory value of a number of commonly advanced explanations of corporatism: partisan influences; state traditions; and policy specific factors. These explanations are all found wanting. The paper concludes by suggesting an alternative explanation more consistent with the Danish data, namely that corporatism be studied from a perspective placing politicians and agency at center stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy networks is a powerful analytical concept. However, it must be combined with a model of the actor if the analyst is to move beyond description and into the more interesting field of policy explanation. This article argues that this may be done by the use of 'new institutionalism'. It first demonstrates that policy networks may be understood as institutions, i.e. as rules constraining the actions of the participating actors. It then outlines the contribution which institutional theory may make to policy network analysis. This is done by giving an institutional answer to three questions which the policy network literature has not successfully addressed. Why do networks come into existence? Why do networks change? Why are networks so persistent? The institutional logic is illustrated in a case study of a Danish intergovernmental policy network: the annual budget negotiations between the state and local authorities. The main lesson to draw from this exercise is that when the insights from policy network analysis are combined with the theoretical insights from 'new institutionalism', it is indeed possible to start providing explanations of policy networks and their impact on policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]