Kristoffer Kolltveit

Strengthening of the executive centre: looking beyond NPM as the explanation for change

In several countries, attempts have been made to increase the capacity to coordinate and control public policy in the executive centre. The literature on whole-of-government and joined-up government describes these changes as reassertion efforts to counter the negative effects of former New Public Management (NPM) reforms. The main research question discussed in this article is whether the strengthening of the executive centre also should be explained by broader developments in society and by features of the cabinet itself. The research question is answered by looking at changes in Norway over the last three decades. Although former NPM reforms play a part in the Norwegian case, the article finds that the efforts undertaken should also be explained by the wish to improve cabinet decision-making and to solve conflicts between parties in cabinet. Points for practitioners This article examines different explanations for change in the executive centre in Norway. Over the last three decades, the Norwegian executive centre has been strengthened by the increased number of political appointees in ministries, by the enlargement of the Prime Minister’s Office where its own coordination minister was appointed in 2009, and by the formalization of an inner cabinet. The empirical data are gathered from internal cabinet documents and semi-structured interviews with administrative and political leaders. The article finds that developments in Norway have several explanations, suggesting that changes in the executive centre are heterogeneous, and are seldom undertaken to serve only one purpose.

Serving the Media Ministers: A Mixed Methods Study on the Personalization of Ministerial Communication

The personalization of politics has received much attention in both the political science and political communication literature, but the focus has almost entirely been on party leaders and prime ministers. This study investigates the personalization of ministerial communication in Norway, a type of decentralized personalization. It combines a survey of communication workers; in-depth interviews with politicians, communication workers, political reporters, and top-level civil servants; and ethnographic observation inside a ministry. The article goes beyond media-centered perspectives and identifies several potential drivers and barriers to personalization processes. Based on our mixed methods approach, we find that ministerial communication in Norway is strongly centered on the minister in both reactive media management and the proactive promotion of the minister and new policies. This decentralized personalization is driven by both demands from the media and the strategic adaptation by political and administrative actors within ministries. Based on the rich empirically grounded insights, the article discusses how the interplay between the logic of the contemporary commercial news media, political ambitions, internal administrative ambitions, and changes in executive government shapes the personalization of ministerial communication, and illuminates how these multiple drivers of personalization are mutually reinforcing.

Concentration of Decision-Making Power: Investigating the Role of the Norwegian Cabinet Subcommittee

Abstract The empowerment of chief executives has been apparent in several parliamentary democracies in recent decades. However, few accounts have been produced of developments in recent Norwegian cabinets. The aim of this article is two-fold. First, changes regarding the concentration of decision-making power in Norwegian cabinets in the past 15 years are examined and, second, how political factors have contributed to the concentration of power is also examined. Drawing on interviews with 19 ministers from the Bondevik II and Stoltenberg II cabinets, the article finds that collegial elements of cabinets have been weakened, and there has been a centralization of power around an inner cabinet, the so-called subcommittee, consisting of the prime minister and the party leaders. The article also shows how political distances between coalition parties and the cabinet’s parliamentary basis have affected the concentration of power.