Från hälsovård till miljöskydd : en historisk institutionell analys av kommunal ansvarsutveckling

Sammanfattning: Modern central-local relations are in general characterised by decentralisation in nearly all policy fields, with growing demands for local adjustment and direct democracy. At the same time, the political parties are criticised of trying to implement environmental politics in the municipalities, which are strongly characterised by national goals and strategies. The aim of this study is to describe and analyse changes in the responsibility distribution between the state and the municipalities in a historical perspective with a focus on two environmentally oriented policy areas - health protection and environmental protection , and seek to understand and explain why these changes occur.The fundamental explanatory approach of the thesis is historical institutionalism, a combined actor-structure approach which presumes that institutions and ideas are expected to institutionalise certain central-local relations over time. The study is based upon the assumption that changes in municipal responsibility are presumed to happen slowly, but at certain formative moments, actors carry through fundamental changes. The study shows that health protection, from the end of the 19th century, has had a tradition of local responsibility. When environmental politics appeared on the political agenda during the 1960ies the political debate resulted in a centralised organisation, which however changed and the municipalities were gradually given a more active and important role. It is shown that general state and municipal ideas, as well as policy specific ideas and the already established responsibility distribution between the state and the municipalities have institutionalised the municipal responsibility development in certain ways. The formative moments do not crystallise automatically, but depend on what approach we adopt, and what we characterise as fundamental and incrementalistic changes.