The last decades have seen the emergence of the settings approach in Health Promotion one example is the Healthy City initiative which was launched by European division of WHO in 1990. In 2003, four Swedish municipalities accordingly signed a contract on a Partnership for Sustainable Welfare Development. One of the objectives was to promote participation, influence, and health at a neighbourhood level by focusing on one housing area in each municipality. These housing areas constitute the setting of this study. The purpose is to examine the implementation structures in the municipalities, and how variations in the implementation structure affect differences in integration of community participation. A triangulation of methods was used in building up a case study database: semi-structured key informant interviews with 29 stakeholders in the municipalities; examination of solicited and unsolicited documents; and participatory observations which included repeated visits to the neighbourhoods. The results show that the greater the visibility of community participation policy is in the implementation structure the greater is the integration of community participation in the neighbourhood renewal work. Two explanatory factors have been identified. The first is that making the community participation policy visible in the implementation structure results in more appropriate strategies for mobilizing the community in the neighbourhood renewal work. The second is that the municipal governing of the neighbourhood renewal allows more space for community participation when the policy is visible in the implementation structure.
Om stadsdelen Tillberga i Västerås och den ekonomiska föreningen Tillberga GrannskapsService, som både driver delar av den kommunala servicen på entreprenad och ska verka för närdemokrati och ett aktivt medborgarskap.
Local government and climate protection policy – a case of the third generation policy fields. The aim of the overview article is to encircle a research field focusing the role of local government in the Swedish national climate protection policy. First, the policy area of climate protection is historically identified as a part of the third generation policy areas. Secondly, relating to contemporary governance literature some steering measurements are presented. There is thus an increasing steering complexity containing hierarchical, market-based and network based steering. Thirdly, the role of local government is discussed in terms of reasons for engaging or not engaging in climate protection work is discussed. Political, institutional, financial and professional aspects are considered important in order to explain variations in municipal climate protection activities. Finally some research questions are put forth, such as how municipal leaders are handling uncertainty, municipal leaders as network managers and local climate protection policy-making and implementation from perspectives of learning and democracy.