Modern Municipalities: The Changing Role of Local Government and Local Democracy in Sweden

In this paper we describe the development of Swedish municipalities through four different theoretical lenses: (1), The municipality as a common focuses on common interests and challenges in the local social and political order. (2), The state integrated municipality focuses on national welfare functions, the role of the municipality and the steering and control efforts of the nation-state. (3), The market oriented municipality focuses freedom of choice reforms and reliance on the market based on the belief that competition facilitates efficiency. (4), The coordinating and facilitating municipality focuses on mobilization and integration of different types of resources between public and private institutions. Experiences from reforms, which are related to these ideas, are presented. The paper concludes by pointing out some important challenges and potential pathways for future development of local democracy in Sweden.