Samverkan på spel : Rationalitet och frustration i nätverksstyrning och svensk stadsdelsförnyelse

Sammanfattning: Grounded in a rational choice perspective, this thesis tries to develop the study of network governance. The starting point is a puzzling pattern of local multi-organizational cooperation observed in official evaluation reports on urban neighbourhood renewal in Sweden. Although collaboration between social authorities, housing companies and tenants’ organizations repeatedly end in frustration over processes as well as outcomes, new cooperation efforts are continually implemented. That is, while the governance literature claims lack of cooperation to be the most important factor explaining policy failures and implementation deficits, Swedish urban renewal seems to be a case of repeated cooperation without progress and frustration without disintegration on the local level.Why is that? Is the phenomenon possible to explain without giving up the assumption that actors in local policy are more or less rational, given their aims and perceptions?An ideal type definition of network governance is suggested and a mechanism approach to network governance is outlined. Four cases of neighbourhood renewal over twenty years or more are analyzed from a rationalistic perspective. The first is an intensive case study based on primary data from minutes, informal meetings, in-depth interviews and official documents. This close analysis of one case is then combined with process analysis of three more cases based on secondary data.The final analysis is a rationalistic interpretation of repeated cooperation with frustration in the four cases. Although the key actors all have a preference for more cooperation, the four cases are characterized by an endless search for specific modes of cooperation. In terms of game theory this is interpreted as a problem of generosity or a “battle of the sexes” game. Hence the “negotiators dilemma” that informal networks are supposed to handle according to the theory, seems to repeat itself on the level of institutional design.