Abstract
This chapter explores the role of the Norwegian County Governor in light of the current political and administrative context. In Norway, the state-municipality relationship is of a rather integrated character. In this relationship, the County Governor is located as a node between the local and central levels of government, advising municipalities in their implementation of national policies and conducts legal supervision of the same tasks. Applying principal-agent conceptualization, in which the County Governor is the agent operating on behalf of its principal, the state, we depart from the observation that the County Governor increasingly has to relate to multiple principals. The chapter argues that increased fragmentation at the central level has put the role of the County Governor under pressure, making it appear more of a servant of competing state objectives and to a lesser extent as a coordinator of the state’s policies at the local level.
Keywords
- Principal-agent theory
- County governors
- Vertical coordination
- State-municipal relationship
- Multilevel governance
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Notes
- 1.
The terms ‘County Governor’ and ‘county governor’ may be confusing. The County Governor (capital letters) is the name of the institution, while the ‘county governors’ are the heads of the 10 current branch offices.
- 2.
Royal resolution 07.08.1981, altered by Royal resolution 10.11.1988 and 06.07.1999, hereafter referred to as ‘the Instruction’.
- 3.
Ministries of Labour, Children, Equality and Social Inclusion, Health and Care Services, Local Government and Regional Development, Culture, Education and Research, Agriculture and Food, Environment, Transport and Communications, Foreign Affairs, Justice and the Police.
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Indset, M., Tjerbo, T., Hansen, T. (2021). The Role of the Norwegian County Governor: Agent with a Wide Scope or Servant of the State Authorities?. In: Tanguy, G., Eymeri-Douzans, JM. (eds) Prefects, Governors and Commissioners. Governance and Public Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59396-4_13
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