Koalitioner - ett kostsamt fenomen? : En studie koncentrerad till Sveriges kommuner

Abstract Since the 2006 election the country of Sweden is governed by four Liberal and Conservative parties. Parties that by cooperating maintain power in office and forms a so called coalition. A coalition that not only can be seen at the national but also at the local level. According to pervious research coalitions that holds control of the seats in the government at the national level tends to increase the total expenditures compared to other types of government formations. Can a similar connection be seen at the local level? This the fundamental issue of this essay. The study is a multiple case study of the Swedish local governments and their expenditures. The purpose of the study is to examine if Swedish local governments governed by a coalition of parties tend to spend more money than other types of local government formations. The hypothesis is that coalitions tend to increase the local expenditures compared to other government formations in the local governments due to the result of previous research at the national level. The empiric investigation examine the Swedish local governments after the 1994 and 2006 elections. The government formations are then compared with different types of measures of local expenditure. The investigation shows that local governments governed by a coalition of parties not tend to have increased expenditures compared to local governments governed by other types of government formations