Makten över regionen : En idékritisk studie av svensk regiondebatt 1963–1996

Sammanfattning: Who should exercise power over the region? A governor appointed by the central state, a directly elected regional assembly or municipalities in co-operation? For almost four decades this has been a highly contested issue in Swedish decision-making bodies as well as in editorial pages. Not least in the 1990s, as Sweden has got closer to the intensified process of European integration, has the regional question been an important subject on the political agenda. The regional question touches upon one of the eternal conflicts of democratic theory: What people, demos, should be the base of democracy, the base from which democratic decisions get their legitimacy? It poses several politically sensitive and crucial questions. Will the policy of interregional economic redistribution survive a stronger regional self-rule? Will Sweden turn into a federal state if powerful regional assemblies are introduced? The author has critically examined the modern Swedish regional debate, from the time when the first parliamentary private bill on "county democracy" was made in 1963 until the parliament, in the autumn of 1996, decided to impose an increased regional self-rule on a trial basis in some specified counties. His analysis ends in a warning to political decision-makers against too rapid and too far-reaching regionalisation. He, instead, suggests a reformed model of co-operation between municipalities.