Inter-municipal Cooperation as Means to Reinforce the Municipal Level in Iceland

Attempts to reinforce the local government system in Iceland have been periodically ongoing since the time of World War 2. The main characteristic of the system have been fragmentation. The proportionally high number of very small municipalities has, through the years been a problem at least when connected to the expansion of the welfare state, with increasing tasks for the public sphere. The main emphasis has been on reform through municipal amalgamations – making the municipalities bigger in order to be able to take over more tasks from the state. And Iceland has in many ways succeded not at least through two comprehensive local referendums, the first time in 185 municipalities in 1993 and the second time in 66 municipalities in 2005. So, despite the fact that municipal amalgamations are fully voluntary, the number of municipalities has reduced since 1993 by 62 percent – from 196 to 74. The spokesmen for reforms have however, pointed out that the system still needs reforming with bigger units. But in the last 10 years the main emphasis in reinforcing has been by going into imter-municipal cooperation instead of amalgamating. Research has shown that a lot of cost-efficiency and capacity can be gained by IMC. But is the reality as simple as that? Some researchers have pointed out democratic problems and concerns connected with inter-municipal cooperation. Even lack of efficiency in decision making and lack of transparency has been pointed out. In the paper I intend to discuss this side of the coin and show some analyses from survey material where elected local leaders were asked to express their views on various aspects of inter-municipal cooperation. The main task will be to try to answer which, if any, are the main shortcomings and concerns of reinforcing the local government system by cooperating instead of amalgamating.