Decentralization of Conservation Management in Norway and Sweden—Different Translations of an International Trend

ABSTRACT

International policy trends are always transformed and translated to fit the political and administrative systems in which they are introduced. An international trend of decentralization has resulted in conservation management systems in Sweden and Norway that differ, both in the choice of institutional solution and in the scope of change. This is surprising, as conservation management in the two countries was originally very similar. Nature conservation was managed through hierarchical systems dominated by bureaucratic experts. While Sweden has introduced co-management in a few protected areas only, Norway has devolved powers in all large conservation areas to intermunicipal management boards. Through document studies, we investigate how decentralization interacts with the broader systems of political actors and institutions of which nature conservation is a part.

KEYWORDS:

• actor mobilization
• conservation management
• decentralization
• institutions
• policy change

Acknowledgments

We thank three anonymous reviewers and participants at the panel “Partnership for rural sustainable development in the era of Anthropocene” at the Nordic Environmental Social Science Conference in Copenhagen 2013 for critical reading and useful comments.

Notes

¹The Ministry of Environment changed its name to Ministry of Climate and Environment in 2014.

²Except in reindeer husbandry.