Territorial Reform Strategies, Size and Local Self-Governance: The Case of Norway

Municipal territorial reform as a central political issue got renewed attention in Norway after the general election in 2013, as the new majority in the Parliament and the new government which followed supports the idea of larger municipalities. Norway is now preparing for - and is in an early phase of - a territorial reform. In this paper we address the probem of territorial municipal reform by discussing: What concept of local self-governance dominates the Norwegian preparation process - and what characterize the reform strategy chosen by the government? Our strategy studying the reform will be comparison with the lessons from other countries. In order to understand the initial phase of the Norwegian reform better, we will compare the reform with the municipal part of the Danish reform. The main data sources in our study are written materials: white papers, media debate, reports and evaluations as well as reform documents