Svenskt utvecklingssamarbete på lokal nivå - En studie om decentralisering och kommunala partnerskap.

Abstract

Decentralization and support to local democracy are keystones in Sweden's development cooperation. This cooperation is channelled through local partnerships in order to create fora for exchange of experiences of local self-governance and to strengthen democratic institutions on a sub-national level. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of, and to future research on, decentralization from a development perspective. It also seeks to constructively examine how to design local partnerships, in consideration of the Swedish government's overall priorities for development cooperation with different categories of countries. Beside an empirical overview of a number of countries' systems of local government, the study contains an analysis based on decentralization and governance theories, combined with the normative implications expressed in the Swedish government's strategies and priorities. One important finding is that decentralization tends to be used as an instrument to reach a wide range of greatly differing goals. National contexts is of course one important factor affecting the decentralization processes, but also the aims and motives of actors or group of stakeholders. The local level provides although a framework within which democratic governance, and other desirable goals, can be realized. Local partnerships can also be an instrument for cooperation, sharing of experiences and support for participation and democratic development, especially within closed and centralized political systems.

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