Urban political decentralisation

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Starting in the late 1980s and accelerating around the turn of the century, major cities in Scandinavia began decentralising their political, administrative, and service-provider organisations. Oslo led the way with its bydelsutvalg, followed by Goteborg's stadsdelsnämnder. By the turn of the millennium, decentralised political bodies were established in six key cities: Copenhagen, Bergen, Oslo, Goteborg, Malmo, and Stockholm. Some researchers had previously conducted single-city evaluations and decided to compare findings across these cities. While decentralised political structures exist globally, the high degree of decentralisation in Scandinavia appeared particularly noteworthy, with central city authorities having relinquished about three-quarters of their budgets. Communicating these Scandinavian experiences in decentralisation was deemed valuable. With funding from the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences, the project commenced in 2000. Preparations included an inventory of surveys conducted in the six cities during evaluation studies, leading to the compilation of a common dataset that was shared among the group members.