Reforming the Norwegian police between structure and culture: Community police or emergency police

Abstract

This article examines the reform of the police in Norway between 2012 to 2015 drawing upon central public reports and official documents leading up to the reform. These include the report from the official Inquiry Commission into the police response to the terrorist attacks in Oslo and at Utøya in July 2011, a report issued by a public commission in 2013 – established to analyze challenges within the police – and the resulting government proposal and parliamentary discussion that culminated in a decision to create a new police structure in 2015. While governance capacity and the need for a stronger emergency police were a main concern throughout the process, the importance of governance legitimacy and of maintaining a community police force became more important towards the end. The organizational thinking behind the reform is explained in terms of a structural and an institutional perspective. The analysis shows that both cultural and structural change was seen as prominent instruments for improving the police force, but they were emphasized differently at different points during the process. The analysis demonstrates that political context, agenda settings, attention shifting and situational factors as well as path dependency were important drivers of the reform.

Keywords

Crisis culture Norway police reform structure institutionalism

Introduction

Public organizations may change through continuous evolution and adjustment, as a result of deliberate actions by political-administrative leaders, in response to external shocks, or through a combination of all three. The 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway constituted such a shock and triggered a change process aimed at improving crisis management involving a broad spectrum of collaborating political and administrative bodies. The attacks also prompted an internal reform of the Norwegian police. A report (NOU 2013: 9) issued by a public commission (The Police Analysis) created in 2012 suggested changing the organizational structure of the police, mainly by strengthening the central agency and merging regional police districts and local police stations and addressed the need to strengthen the competence of the police. The decision-making process was concluded in 2015 after a broad debate in parliament and was followed by an implementation process that is still ongoing.

The decision-making process leading up to the reform was characterized by tensions between different values and goals: between centralization and decentralization, between governance capacity and legitimacy, and between the need for an emergency police force to manage major crises and a community police force tasked with crime prevention in close contact with citizens. This article analyzes the decision-making rather than the implementation process. Our in-depth qualitative analysis of the reform process and the final reform decision draws on relevant public documents and is based on two analytical perspectives; a structural/instrumental and a broad institutional perspective. The main questions are:

What characterized the reform process from 2012 to 2015? Which central actors were involved, and what was their organizational thinking?

How did the agenda concerning different values and goals change over time? To what extent are they clustered and connected?

How can we explain the participation patterns and organizational thinking behind the reform, based on structural and institutional perspectives? And what can we learn from the analysis in the way of broader theoretical insights?

In the following, we first give an outline of our theoretical perspectives. Second, we examine the background to the reform. Third, we describe the content of the Police Analysis, the subsequent government proposal to parliament, the report from the parliamentary select committee, and finally the parliamentary debate and decision. Fourth, we analyze the process based on our theoretical starting points before drawing some conclusions in the final part of the article.

Theory – Combining structural and institutional perspectives

Discussions of crisis management and societal security emphasize the importance of studying both governance capacity and legitimacy (Christensen et al., 2016a). Governance capacity in crisis management concerns formal organization, i.e. vertical or horizontal specialization and coordination, and the resources made available to help the public apparatus to cope with a crisis, but also informal arrangements such as culture and established praxis. Governance legitimacy concerns whether public leaders are able to enlist citizens’ trust in their ability to handle crises. The relationship between capacity and legitimacy may not be a straightforward one. The police engage in many tasks. They are crucial to law enforcement and tackling crime, security and safety, and should be effective in those respects — but they also respond to many other societal problems and have traditionally been close to citizens, thus helping to ensure popular trust and legitimacy.

A structural-instrumental perspective on reforms in public organizations primarily focuses on the formal structure and instrumental thinking (Christensen et al., 2007). Two aspects of decision-making processes are important: First, the decision-making structure, which frames the activation process (i.e. who participates); and second, the access structure, which frames the definition process (i.e. which problems and solutions are addressed) (March and Olsen, 1976). Political and administrative leaders play a central role in controlling decisions on and implementation of reforms. They are assumed to score high on rational calculation, meaning that they have clear goals and intentions, clear organizational thinking, and goals concerning the effects of the reforms that are mostly fulfilled (Dahl and Lindblom, 1953).

The structural perspective comes in two versions – a hierarchical one and a negotiational one (Allison, 1971; March and Olsen, 1983). The hierarchical version assumes that the top leaders, defined as a homogenous group with respect to their interests and organizational thinking, initiate and drive through reforms. Reform results should therefore be predictable and close to the original plan. The negotiation version emphasizes heterogeneity and assumes that the group of leaders has heterogeneous interests and views. Heterogeneity may also extend to other actors in the public apparatus or in the private sector. This makes organizational thinking potentially more ambiguous and the decision-making process more conflict-ridden. Reform processes that exhibit such features are more difficult to control and less predictable, but may enjoy higher legitimacy because of broader participation (Mosher, 1967).

When studying a reform process from a structural perspective, two issues are particularly important: First, is the process hierarchical, or are there elements of diversity and heterogeneity? Second, how do different actors define problems and solutions, in this case specifically in relation to how they see the role of police? Following from this: Do the main actors generally agree or not, do they form certain coalitions, and does attention and thinking change over time?

A cultural-institutional perspective is characterized by natural system processes and an emphasis on informal structures, norms and values (Scott and Davis, 2007), and it is based on a distinction between organization and institution. It also comes in two versions – a cultural version and a myth/symbolic version (Christensen et al., 2007). The cultural version takes as its point of departure the idea that an organization will add unique cultural and informal norms and values to the formal ones as part of an institutionalization process (Selznick, 1957). Through a process of socialization and path-dependency, informal norms and values dating from the time the organization was established will heavily influence the path followed later on, i.e. the cultural ‘roots’ will be overrepresented in the current organization (Krasner, 1988; March, 1994). Public leaders tend to see their role as furthering the ‘necessities of history’ rather than having strong, instrumentally based power. Processes of ‘historical inefficiency’ (March and Olsen, 1989) produce frictions in institutional design and reform. The concept of cultural compatibility (Brunsson and Olsen, 1993) and the logic of appropriateness are important for studying reform processes (March and Olsen, 1989), and when a reform is introduced, reform elements that are not compatible with the organization’s cultural roots will have less probability of being implemented.

In the following analysis from the cultural-institutional perspective, we first look at the importance of path-dependency: Do the actor patterns and the organizational thinking allude to traditional cultural norms and values? Second, do the actors’ main arguments display typical cultural elements? When balancing arguments related to the different roles of the police, how important are the cultural arguments?

According to a myth or symbolic version, institutionalization has to do with broader cultural and social processes on a macro level and concerns what is taken for granted (Christensen et al., 2007). Adaptation to the institutional environment implies that definitions of what is appropriate vary with attention shifts and agenda settings. The expectation is that the politics of attention and dynamics of agenda setting will be important aspects of the reform process (Jones and Baumgartner, 2005).

By espousing external myths and symbols in both their talk and action leaders can increase their legitimacy. Or, as Brunsson (1989) points out, there may be ‘double-talk’ or ‘hypocrisy’ going on, with a loose coupling between talk and action. This gives leaders potential flexibility, but might also increase tension and ambiguity.

Seen from a myth perspective, three aspects are important: First, are there any particular symbols used repeatedly by certain actors or in certain parts of the process revealing different politics of attention? Second, how realistic are actors’ arguments and organizational thinking, i.e. do they ‘over-sell’ the arguments, meaning that they have symbolic features? Third, do the actors use arguments that seem to be appropriate in a broader perspective, suggesting a kind of symbolic imitation?

Background and context

For a long time, the Norwegian police have been a unitary, decentralized and unarmed community police focusing on law and order, investigation and prosecution. In contrast to many other countries, citizens’ trust in the police has been high (Bradford et al., 2009; Christensen and Lægreid, 2015). This is generally related to a high level of trust in government and a state-friendly attitude among citizens (Fimreite et al., 2013). Police matters have been handled by the Ministry of Justice and Police (now the Ministry of Justice and Public Security) since 1818, but not until 1937 did the police become completely subordinate to and organized by the central government (Christensen et al., 2014). Traditionally, the police districts enjoyed great autonomy. After WWII, several public commissions proposed the establishment of a central police agency, but without much political support (Roness, 1998). The experience of the active national Nazi police chief in Norway during WWII was for many actors a historical lesson that subsequently accorded primacy to a politically controlled police rather than a devolved, autonomous police organization.

The 1990s brought a wave of devolution in Norway, primarily resulting in extended agencification (Christensen and Lægreid, 2001). In this context, the establishment of a police agency seemed logical, since it was one of the few remaining sectors controlled directly by a Ministry. A new public police commission to address this matter was established in 1998. This time the proposal gained political acceptance, and the Police Agency was established in 2001.

The 2001 reform implied a double structural rationalization: The number of police districts decreased from 54 to 27, and within each district, several local police units were merged. On the one hand, the reform was characterized by path-dependency, focusing on structural measures and an orientation towards a ‘traditional’ agency type. On the other hand, the establishment of the Police Agency meant a break with the past. It was a solution that most actors within the police had wanted for a long time, but it had been blocked by skeptical political executives (Christensen et al., 2014). Adding to this was a new focus on competence and economies of scale.

In 2009, the Police Agency was commissioned by the Ministry to prepare a ‘result-reform’ aimed at a more efficient and targeted use of allocated resources. The Agency focused on structural changes, staffing and work processes. The public inquiry after the terrorist attacks in 2011 (NOU, 2012: 14) opened up a window of opportunity for a new police reform. The inquiry’s analysis was wide-ranging and emphasized that:

The police were insufficiently trained and prepared in terms of risk assessment and learning. Their ability to implement decisions and to make follow-up plans was too weak.

Coordination and communication were too weak. Utilization of the available information and communication technology was insufficient

The leadership lacked the ability and willingness to clarify who was responsible and accountable and to establish goals and take measures to achieve the necessary results

According to the inquiry, the lessons to be learned from the attacks primarily concerned leadership, interaction, culture and attitudes rather than a lack of resources and organizational failures. This conclusion, cited repeatedly later on in the police reform process, has since been criticized (Renå, 2017). Although the report revealed that the formal organization had failed, it did not recommend any structural changes (Christensen et al., 2015: 362; Fimreite et al., 2012: 15). The Commission pointed to problems of coordination, fragmentation, communication, administrative culture, and leadership, but did not relate them to the formal organizational structure. One reason for this may be that the Commission and its secretariat were dominated by lawyers, police managers, and historians who lacked the relevant expertise on organization and public administration (Christensen, 2013). In conclusion, the agenda and attention of the Police Commission in 1998 leading up to the 2001 reform and the Inquiry Commission in 2012 were rather different.

Main actors and arguments

The Inquiry Commission convened in the wake of the 22 July attacks and the Police Commission of 2012 were both appointed by a majority coalition government and presented their reports to it. The coalition was led by the Labour Party and included the Centre Party and the Socialist Left Party, with a minister of justice and public security from the Labour Party. The coalition lost support in the general election in 2013 and was replaced by a minority coalition consisting of the Conservative Party and the Progress Party, supported by the Liberals and the Christian People’s Party, with a minister of justice from the Progress Party. Thus, the policy-making phase following the submission of the Police Commission report was processed under the current right-wing minority government. This meant that the reform was potentially more unstable, both because the new government might have different political ideas about it, and because the political landscape had become more diverse and turbulent.

One police force prepared for future challenges

The main aim of the commission established to reform the police was to do a broad study to establish a basis for a long-term plan for the sector. It was authorized to focus on resources, priorities, competence, leadership and organization and to consider whether central administrative resources could be reallocated to provide more ‘police capacity’ in the districts. It was also authorized to propose improvements. The Commission consisted mainly of top civil servants, including the directors of the Police Agency and the Police Security Service, but also included a public administration professor. It also used the services of the major international consultancy firm McKinsey & Company.

In contrast to many previous commissions, the new Police Commission worked quickly and submitted their report after seven months. The report (NOU, 2013: 9), called the Police Analysis, focused rather narrowly on the internal police organization, paying little attention to the challenges of combatting crime across administrative levels and policy areas. Overall, the report did not address the issue of cross-boundary governance and horizontal and vertical coordination, or more general ‘wicked issues’ (Lægreid and Rykkja, 2014, 2016). This can be considered a weakness given that many of the police’s core tasks are ‘wicked’ in the sense that they cannot be solved by the police in isolation but only in collaboration with other policy areas and administrative levels (Lægreid and Rykkja, 2016).

The Police Analysis emphasized the need to implement two types of reforms: First, a structural reform encompassing task-based changes and a new structure, with the aim of freeing up resources for core tasks but also to create the preconditions for a competent and robust police with a resilient professional milieu and specialists at the regional and local level; and second, a quality reform, implying developing a more knowledge-based and effective police force capable of continually improving its steering and leadership processes, competence and performance. Overall, the report focused more on structural issues than on competence.

The Commission stressed a few underlying reasons for the challenges and pressures the police faced. First, the conditions under which the police worked and the resources they were allocated had not been sufficient to steer, lead and develop the sector. Therefore, more autonomy was deemed necessary. Second, according to the Commission, the police had not utilized the available resources well enough. The Commission argued that a major challenge was to ensure an effective police force in local neighborhoods. At the same time, it was also deemed necessary to develop a robust environment for specialists, with more interaction between the local police and specialists. The main organizational solution to this problem, according to the Commission, was to establish larger police districts. An additional argument for this was the large variation in size, volume and crime rates between police districts.

The Commission proposed a cut from 27 to 6 police districts, resulting in a more centralized and regionalized leadership and administration within each district. Some commentators later suggested that the actual number — six police districts — was a bargaining chip, anticipating a political compromise (Johannessen, 2015a: 125). The report further proposed to cut the number of local police stations from 354 to 210; which stations would be cut should be decided by the police agency. This implied centralization, more power for the central government and a weakening of local self-government regarding the organization of the local police. More systematic strategic planning and standardization of services were also emphasized.

The report looked at the experiences of other Nordic countries, pointing out that more emphasis on core tasks, a less ambiguous division between political steering and professional activities, larger police districts, and fewer and larger local police units that freed resources for emergency and crisis management were important. Central control of ICT and shared services were also common trends. In this, the report showed obvious elements of imitation.

The main recommendations in the report were a greater focus on core police tasks, better preconditions for steering, improved leadership and development, an organizational structure creating capacity to fulfil core tasks and facilitating increased specialization, and continuous improvement and development. A better organized police force was seen as an important precondition for the required competence, for more effective processes and higher quality of task handling.

Looking at the background, our main impression is that the Police Analysis is more closely linked to the pre-2001 reform process than to the Inquiry Commission’s report in 2012, although the experience of 22 July did open a window of opportunity. The Police Analysis’ focus was on structure and regional and local organization. The arguments about structural rationalization were similar, but much stronger in 2012. There was a strong belief in merging districts and local police stations to make more resources available, in creating non-overlapping administration, in the establishment of regional specialist groups and more operative resources on the ground, and in decreasing local response time. These arguments resemble those used to justify a major reform of the Norwegian welfare administration in 2005, and also mergers and ongoing reform initiatives in other sectors, such as the hospital sector, the municipalities, universities/colleges, the court system, correctional services, and the tax administration (Byrkjeflot et al., 2014). This shows that the current Norwegian government has a strong belief in the principle of ‘big is beautiful’. This was also supported in the reports from a ‘Productivity Commission’ in 2015 and 2016, stressing the importance of enhanced efficiency and governance capacity (NOU 2016:3).

The arguments of the Police Analysis are linked to the Inquiry Commission of 2012, but these links are weaker and less obvious. Most importantly, the Inquiry Commission emphasized culture and leadership more than structure, rather contrary to the Police Analysis. Still, the structural critique in the Inquiry Commission’s report has some elements in common with the Police Analysis’ emphasis on pooling resources and the need for increased coordination implied by mergers and stronger specialization.

Summing up, the Police Analysis favored stronger central and regional control by suggesting a merger of police districts and local police stations and a further streamlining of the police. Stronger integration, unified management, efficiency, standardization, hierarchy and more control in accordance with a traditional bureaucratic organizational form were at the forefront of the report (Johannessen, 2015a), in line with a structural-instrumental reform approach. The concept ‘community police’ was not used in the Policy Analysis itself. There are also few signs of an alternative, more culturally based approach advocating a more flexible, collegial and team-based organization with quality culture and empowered employees responsive to citizens (Johannessen, 2015b).

Day-to-day security — A community police reform

The Police Analysis was submitted to the relevant actors for consultation in June 2013. The report received a lot of attention, and about 250 bodies submitted comments. Several of them commented that the report was a good starting point for the long-term development of the police. But there were also critical comments. Many responded positively to the idea of reducing the number of police districts, but thought that cutting the number to six was too radical. A petition from 150 municipalities criticized the centralization of the police and reported a significant degree of skepticism regarding the suggested reduction in the number of local police stations through mergers about which the police agency was to decide. Others also criticized the report for biased arguments and for being too optimistic regarding the possible positive effects of the proposed changes. Internally, the process of following up the Police Analysis was rather closed with a lot of support for the conclusions (Aas, 2015). The Norwegian Police Federation criticized the analysis for not being research-based, for not providing suggestions on how local anchoring and closeness to the public should be replaced when local police stations disappeared, for not taking the social mission of the police into account when suggesting removing civil tasks, and for being too preoccupied with measurable results at the expense of values that are more difficult to count, but which are crucial for the perception of security. This rather fundamental critique was later picked up by some of the political parties and used in negotiations with the government.

Before the government proposal was submitted to parliament, the Ministry negotiated its content with the two supporting parties in parliament, the Liberals and the Christian People’s Party. This was a somewhat unusual event, but reflects the dynamics of a minority government. In October 2014, the Christian People’s Party left the negotiations after their proposal to maintain a stronger local police presence failed. The party also opposed the reduction in the number of local police (Dagbladet, 4.12 2014). After that, the negotiations continued with the Liberals. A main controversy was the number of police districts. The two government parties (the Conservative Party and the Progress Party) and the Liberals reached an agreement in February 2015, on the ‘foundations for a provident and robust community police’. They agreed on 12 police districts instead of 6, arguing that the number of local police stations estimated by the Police Analysis was too low and that each municipality should have at least one permanent contact person at the local police station. Decisions on merging the local police stations were left to the Police Agency after consulting local interests. A few tasks were transferred to other authorities. The outcome of the negotiations was that the main suggestions from the Police Analysis were approved but greater attention was paid to community police values.

Based on the Police Analysis, consultations with stakeholders and negotiations with supporting parties in parliament, the government sent parliament its final proposal for a police reform in March 2015. The subtitle of the proposal clearly signaled its emphasis: ‘Day-to-day security – the community police reform’ (Prop.61LS 2014-2015). Referring to the government’s political platform, the two main reform goals were, first, to have an operative, visible, and accessible local police force with the capacity and competence to prevent, investigate, and punish criminal acts and thereby ensure the safety of citizens. Second, to develop a more effective national and regional police force with a robust professional milieu in order to face current and future challenges.

The proposal pointed out that a major internal change process within the police was under way. It emphasized that the Police Agency was following up on the quality reform by working towards specific improvements in police services – most importantly strengthening the capacity to steer, lead and develop those services. Relating to this, internal structural changes in the Police Agency were mentioned as well as more strategic steering. Like the Police Analysis, it did not go into much detail about how the new regional structure could produce more local capacity. The final proposal from the government was to organize the police in 12 districts instead of 6. The arguments behind this decision were not very clearly stated, however, indicating that this particular number was the ‘best’ politically possible compromise available. Besides stating that each district should differentiate more between central regional units with more administrative and specialized tasks and local police stations without these functions, the proposal did not go into details about the number of local units.

The government proposal for the most part followed the proposals from the Police Analysis, in particular its main thoughts about the formal organizational structure. The final proposal, however, alluded more to the conclusions of the Inquiry Commission, in particular concerning leadership and culture, performance management and the security aspect. Most importantly, the final proposal played the ‘community police’ card more strongly. Key actors were affected by the dynamics of ‘attention shifting’ (Christensen et al., 2016c; Jones and Baumgartner, 2005). The concept of the ‘community police’ became politically important for the government, the governing parties, and most likely for voters as well. Overall then, the proposal rebalanced capacity and legitimacy, favoring the latter more than in the initial proposals. The trade-off remains somewhat ambiguous, however. The Ministry argued that the police must be organized to enhance proximity to citizens and community knowledge, but also that it should be centrally managed and steered to enhance coherent and unified development (Prop. 61LS 2014-2015).

The parliamentary debate and negotiations 2015

The Parliamentary Justice Committee followed up the proposal from the government and supported the main parts of the original proposal (Innst.306S 2014-2015). The support originated mainly from the two governing parties – the Conservative Party and the Progress Party – backed by the Liberal Party. The support of the Labour Party and the Christian Democratic Party was finally secured through a few symbolic changes to the original proposal. The government was asked by this majority to propose the organization of a national crisis leadership. Further, the committee proposal specified what was meant by a locally anchored police and demanded various measures for active collaboration with the municipalities including municipal police councils. On leadership and culture, the committee specified fourteen different points aimed at improving the culture, leadership and attitudes in the police. Most of them were rather general and related to education and organization.

The most skeptical and deviant remarks in the committee proposal came from two opposition parties; the Labour Party and the Centre Party. The Labour Party criticized the government for not following up on the remarks from the Inquiry Commission concerning culture, leadership and attitudes sufficiently; for lacking good arguments for the district structure; and for not clarifying how to organize a distinct leadership in a national crisis; and it questioned whether the reform really would lead to an increased local police presence. The representative from the Centre Party stated that labelling the reform a ‘community reform’ seemed strange and said the proposal would weaken the political control of the police. He was also very critical towards mass mergers of local police stations arguing that this could undermine crime prevention capacity in local communities. The parliamentary debate that followed accordingly revealed two main narratives: One alluded to the above, i.e. the ‘community police’ and the other to a centralizing tendency.

The Committee’s work and the ensuing parliamentary debate brought attention back to the Inquiry Commission’s conclusions about culture/leadership and emergency management. The main political battle concerned the regional and local structural reform, however. The government’s symbolic use of the new term ‘community reform’ apparently was a way of ‘selling’ it to the skeptics. This resulted in political opposition from the Centre Party and also led to criticism in the media and from politicians in the municipalities. In the end the political parties in the parliament, with the exception of the Centre Party and the Socialist Left Party, agreed on a police reform that merged 27 police districts into 12 and significantly reduced the number of local police stations, arguably simultaneously reducing local democracy.

Discussion: Structure, culture or symbols?

The Police Analysis proposed a structural reform and a competence reform, but directed most of its efforts at structural issues. First, it argued for a less ambiguous distinction between political and professional steering, and accordingly for more strategic steering between the Ministry and the Police Agency. This seems to be a strategy for more police autonomy. It maintained that the agency should have more power to secure development within the sector, including the ability to decide on the structure of police districts. The municipalities regarded this as controversial, because it could make local anchoring weaker. Second, it argued quite strongly that the proposed double structural rationalization, merging districts and local police stations, would create more capacity and also benefit citizens. In doing this, it referred to other Nordic experiences. This could be seen as a ‘smoke-screen’ for not really being able to show the actual effects of the proposed mergers. Later on, these features were symbolically modified in two ways, by focusing less on police capacity and by putting more emphasis on local proximity and influence.

Seen from an instrumental-structural perspective, some weaknesses regarding the organizational thinking behind the Police Analysis can be pinpointed. First, the report did not clarify either the instrumental basis for its main conclusions or the anticipated effects of the proposed structural changes. This left important questions unanswered. It was rather easy to see that mergers could lead to more specialized capacity, but this did not address the issue of local police presence in rural districts with less specialized crime. Was there a risk that such changes would imply more centralization in the police districts, more emphasis on specialized competence and less focus on local, street-level police – and what would be the implications? Second, it did not discuss the main implications and challenges concerning the expected effects of giving the agency more power (Christensen, 2015), or how the changes would address the general need for political steering.

In general, the process was not a strong analytical and hierarchical process. It involved ambiguities, conflicting values and agendas and negotiations between the government and supporting political parties as well as parliamentary negotiations. The structural and instrumental arguments were not elaborated to any great extent, even though they were anchored in some quantitative data. In its final proposal, the Ministry did not clarify the major structural arguments, but relied instead on the Police Analysis. When the Ministry then proposed the establishment of 12 districts instead of 6, there were no arguments attached.

Looking at what happened from a cultural version of an institutional perspective, there seems to be a strong path-dependency between the findings and conclusions from the Police Commission leading up to the reform in 2001, the following work on the ‘Result-reform’ starting in 2009, and the Police Analysis in 2013. The reports had the same agenda and argued that structural rationalization was a suitable instrumental strategy for achieving better police services in the districts. They were all motivated by an interest in strengthening the autonomy of the police, ensuring stronger specialist milieus providing enhanced competence and capacity and better local police services.

The latter argument is relatively strong in the Police Analysis and in the process that followed. It seems obvious that the two reform processes were connected. Structural rationalization had become an ‘appropriate’ solution, which was supported by alluding to experiences in other Nordic countries. When the Ministry increased the proposed number of police districts from 6 to 12, this reflected the limits of what was politically acceptable, illustrating that this type of appropriateness was broader in character and not limited to the police sector. The Inquiry Commissions opened a window of opportunity that made it possible to follow up the path started in 2001.

An interesting empirical feature that could be seen both from a structural and acultural angle is the Inquiry Commission’s emphasis on culture and leadership. It could be interpreted as linked to the fact that the Commission was operating in a different context and had a different agenda, influenced by national grief and shock. The Commission never actually defined what it meant by these features. The emphasis on culture might also be linked to existing subcultures within the police. Johannessen (2013) argues that there might not be a unified culture in the police, but rather different subcultures linked to an operative, a bureaucratic, a union, and an academic practice. It remains unclear what the Commission was actually referring to when discussing police culture. The Police Analysis alluded to culture and leadership in its emphasis on a quality reform, but did not elaborate on this. Structural questions were perhaps easier to handle. In its proposal, the Ministry referred to an ongoing change process in the Police Agency related to culture and leadership, but was short on details. It therefore echoed the Inquiry Commission in its lack of qualification and empirical documentation of the cultural elements. Culture and leadership reemerged in the final stages of the process, through the compromise with the Labour Party.

A tentative conclusion is that, first, culture and leadership are difficult to define and cope with instrumentally compared to structural features. Second, there seems to be a cultural path from the Inquiry Commission to the police reform, weaker than the structural one from 2001 that became more obvious and symbol-laden late in the process. The culture and leadership elements evidently had a more symbolic potential, i.e. several political actors talked about it, but it remained unclear what it was about.

This brings us to how we can interpret the process in terms of the use of myths and symbols. First, structural rationalization through mergers became a powerful symbol early on in the process and remained prominent leading up to the final proposal in 2015. The new slogan ‘a more robust police’ referred to the proposal to create larger units with more competence, either more administratively or more specialist-oriented. The word ‘robust’ has been used quite often in other public reforms in Norway during the last decade to enhance or justify reforms, such as merging municipalities and universities/colleges. The popular doctrine of the day – ‘big is beautiful’– was taken for granted.

Second, both the Police Analysis and the following proposal from the Ministry referred to the experiences of other Nordic countries. Denmark, Finland and Sweden have all implemented police organization reforms over the past years, reducing the number of police districts and labelling this as a decentralization measure that will increase local policing (Holmberg, 2014). In Norway, this was done as a combination of instrumental imitation and trying to further a deterministic decontextualized symbol, i. e. the TINA (there is no alternative) principle, from which it follows that what is done in the other Nordic countries must also be good for Norway.

Third, the process assumed an even stronger myth character when the Ministry labelled the structural proposal from the Police Analysis a ‘community reform’. The structural-instrumental arguments behind this were never elaborated on, and the related ambiguity may have made this symbol easier to use. The label was met with both surprise and ridicule by the media and some opponents, but nevertheless prevailed as a selling point for the reform. Alternative narratives from both the Labour Party, which stressed its concern about local democratic influence over the police, and from the Centre Party, which saw this as an opportunity to further their anti-centralization symbols, challenged the government’s unsubstantiated labeling. The parliamentary debate became a symbolic competition and resulted in a politicized discussion about who cared the most about the influence of local authorities and citizens.

The centrality of the ‘community reform’ label indicates that not only are capacity and legitimacy important in reforms, but so also is symbolic language and action (Edelman, 1964), or even ‘double-talk’ and ‘hypocrisy’ (Brunsson, 1989). During the decision-making process leading up to the reform, it acquired the label ‘the community police reform’, implying proximity to citizens and their needs and concerns despite the inherent strong elements of centralization and the intention of strengthening the regional emergency capacity of the police force. Thus, agenda-setting was also obviously an important part of the process in the wake of the terrorist attacks of July 2011. The process that followed can therefore not be seen solely as an elaborate technical process, but rather as an overlapping setting involving conflicts over competing values and objectives between different stakeholders. This is a development also known from other settings in the aftermath of a crisis, for example in the US after 9/11 (Cuellar, 2013).

Summing up, while the Inquiry Commission’s prescription amounted to a potential cultural revolution changing attitudes and leadership within the police, the Police Analysis pointed to the need for structural reorganization by prescribing organizational mergers. Agenda-setting played a significant role involving shifting conflicts over values and objectives regarding the structure of the police. Our initial argument was that these structural and cultural elements could be seen as rather supplementary. The analysis shows that they were in fact rather loosely coupled in the process, with the cultural features working as mere legitimizing factors.

Capacity and legitimacy – Shifting attention and contrasting roles

The 2001 police reform was definitely structure- and capacity oriented, promoting the establishment of a Police Agency and the merging of 54 police districts into 27. The main argument then was that hiving off tasks from the Ministry, establishing an agency and merging police districts would improve the capacity to govern the sector. The Inquiry Commission in 2012 emphasized capacity and coordination and was hence more concerned with the emergency and crisis side of the question, but focused more on the cultural and leadership aspects in its conclusions (Christensen et al., 2016b). The Police Analysis of 2013 also looked at structure and capacity, but again left the emergency side more to other processes, as stated in the government proposal in 2015.

The capacity arguments were repeated by the Ministry in its proposal in 2015, but weakened somewhat in the following parliamentary discussion, even though the Labour Party reintroduced the emergency aspect, for example. Instrumental thinking and arguments, seeing the police generally through the lens of capacity, or more specifically as emergency-oriented, was important throughout the process.

Legitimacy questions were not at the forefront of the police reform in 2001. Nevertheless, capacity was connected to legitimacy through the policy of freeing capacity to establish better local police services. In the aftermath of the reform, some critics argued against centralization, asserting that the reform would result in lack of attention to citizens’ needs concerning local police services. This argument leaned on evaluations of the reform. In contrast, the 2012 Inquiry Commission had alluded strongly to the legitimacy side by playing the culture and leadership card. It did so in a rather ambiguous and symbol-related way, however. This reflected some of the criticism of an internal police inquiry after the terrorist acts in 2011. The report was seen as self-gratulatory rather than critical of the police’s own actions (Christensen and Lægreid, 2015). The message that the police sought to convey was that they had done as much as possible in the extreme circumstances of July 22. The police leadership was, however, seen as lacking in empathy in their response to the criticism of the Inquiry Commission, and the situation turned into a Public Relations disaster that ultimately undermined the police’s legitimacy.

The Police Analysis did not follow up much on legitimacy questions, even though it argued instrumentally for more attention to local needs. The Ministry saw the processes of culture and leadership primarily as ongoing internal police processes that did not belong directly to the reform process. Nevertheless, the Ministry did cite the alternative ‘community police’ model, a label that was not used in the Police Analysis. In reality, despite the competition over locally oriented legitimacy symbols, the reform was characterized mainly by instrumental structural arguments.

If we go back to the distinctions introduced earlier concerning centralization/ decentralization, capacity/legitimacy and emergency/community police, they seem to assemble into two clusters or narratives. The arguments for centralization/capacity and emergency police belonged together in the debate on one side, while decentralization, legitimacy and community police were coupled on the other side. The first cluster of arguments was strong throughout the process, while the second one received more attention over time. Some of the symbolic arguments tried, however, deliberately to blur these main distinctions.

Conclusion: Agenda setting between an emergency police and a community police

The police reform that was decided in 2015 in many ways reflected a central capacity/ legitimacy distinction. Seen in terms of a structural/instrumental approach, it had a strong rational instrumental flavor. The process was rather top-down, arguments for governance capacity were principal, and structural reorganization was advocated as the main solution. Hierarchy, professional competence, centralization and standardization were core elements of the bureaucratic model that was launched, supplemented by mergers at the district and local level. The main aim was to create a more centralized/regionalized and robust police force, with greater focus on efficiency, emergency preparedness and resilience. Some elements of negotiation were present in the Police Analysis, but these were notably more prominent in the latter part of the political process, mostly visible in the bargaining between the two minority government parties and the supporting parties in parliament.

There were, however, also elements in the process that fit more with a cultural/institutional perspective – i.e. observable as path dependencies ensuing from the historical-institutional legacy of the police and its reform history. Our analysis showed that not only governance capacity and legitimacy, but also the trajectory of the community police mattered in the process. Thus, path dependency is also an important explanation for what happened. This also means that police traditions and culture matter. It seems that the cultural arguments follow in the shadow of the hierarchy from the Police Analysis and onwards. Perceived problems and proposed solutions were informed by a logic of consequentiality, but a logic of appropriateness also had an important role to play.

Environmental factors likewise played a crucial role in understanding the reform process. The terrorist attacks were a major external shock and a crucial factor for understanding why the reform was brought onto the agenda. It did not influence what the police reform consisted of as much, but opened a window for continuing what the 2001 reform had started. There were also strong elements that fit a myth perspective. Most importantly, there was a loose coupling between talk and action in the reform process (March, 1986). On the one hand, the organizational elements of the reform represented a strong centralization/ regionalization element, pursuing a wish to strengthen the attention to emergency preparedness. On the other hand, the reform was sold in as a ‘community police’ – and decentralization reform. This demonstrates that there was a strong need for branding and reputation management from the central reform agents, mainly those situated in the minority government, in order to ‘sell’ the reform and produce necessary legitimacy and political support. It also illustrates the importance of agenda setting and attention-shifting. As it turned out, it was increasingly difficult to sell the argument that merging police districts, closing down local police stations and strengthening the central police agency would in fact enhance community policing, while it was easier to see that the centralization element would work to strengthen the emergency police.

Balancing the different agendas within this agenda setting and attention-shifting process, the reform resulted in a centrally and regionally controlled community police force, resulting in a rather loosely coupled and hybrid arrangement that leaned more towards centralization than decentralization. How large such a gap between talk and action can be without incurring the danger of hypocrisy and overselling the reform, creating new problems for governance legitimacy which also may create obstacles for further implementation of the reform, is a main challenge. Citizens and users might become frustrated if the reform does not fulfill their expectations. This was the case after the previous reform in 2001. As Dahl and Tufte (1973) have highlighted, it is not easy to meet the need for increased steering capacity and increased steering legitimacy within one and the same reform design.

What then, would be the lessons learned from our analysis? First, with increasing structural and cultural complexity in decision-making processes, it seems we need to combine and understand the dynamics between the structural and institutional perspectives in order to fully understand reform processes. Second, and following from this, when the main intentions and measures pursued by the political and administrative leaders are characterized by efficiency and governance capacity, and the ideal clashes with governance legitimacy, arguments and actions tend to become directed towards creating a new logic of appropriateness with symbolic features. This is often a logic that tries to mask the legitimacy clash. A third insight is that temporality not only influences instrumental processes, but also the dynamics between instrumental and cultural processes. In our case, the reform path from 2001 had stalled, but was revived in the aftermath of the terrorist act in 2011. Another dynamic was the paradox that the Inquiry Commission argued for the centrality of cultural mechanisms within the police, but in the end helped a structural-instrumental process to succeed. As it were, cultural mechanisms were largely pushed aside in the Police Analysis and defined as an internal matter. A fourth insight is the importance of context. The reform happened in a bureaucratic context characterized by other post New Public Management-oriented reforms, both in Norway and Scandinavia at large. These reforms were largely used symbolically to further the reform.

What happens onwards in the implementation process is a question for further research. The merging of police districts seems, this far, to have proceeded rather smoothly, but it remains to be seen what happens when the Police Agency starts the process of merging local police districts.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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