This is a story about two economic paradigms representing two different views on public policy makers' possibility to manage the economy. Keynes' theory represented at radical break with mainstream economics when it put the policy maker in the driver seat in charge of securing full employment by controlling aggregate demand. When the theory was used in practice in the 1950s it seemed to work so well that researchers and policy makers were convinced that the unemployment problem was permanently solved. However, in the beginning of the 1970s something unexpected happened. A radical different economic situation alien to Keynes' theory emerged. A window of opportunity for new ideas was opened which opened for the rebirth of Friedrich Hayek's and the Austrian Economic School thoughts. For members of this school the economy is the sum of the behavior of myriads of actors in a constantly changing context. Due to large complexity public policy makers cannot manage the economy. The role of polic makers is reduced to control the public finance and the monetary supply. This neoliberal paradigm dominated the 1980s and 1990s. The global financial crisis in 2008 opened for a revival of the Keynesian paradigm when policy makers were concerned that the global financial crisis should result in a deep recession. They felt a strong need to try to avoid this by stimulating demand. An expansive fiscal policy was combined with light monetary policy. This policy mix should according to the theory result in lower unemployment and higher inflation. To general surprise, the inflation did not raise making room for an almost boundless fiscal stimulation. It was a Keynesian dream world only shadowed by growing public debt. What will happen when interest rates raises or next recession arrives?. © 2018 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

In the last decades public policy-making had borrowed approaches and methods from the business world. Managers in business firms are seen, as role models for public policy-makers in their acting. Strategies have become the key concept in public policy-making. Public policymaking has become strategic management. By applying the strategic management approach regions, nations or the EU are regarded as organizations comparable to firms like Google. But states and regions are not organizations with owners, top management and employees like a company. They are territories populated by inhabitants, entrepreneurs, firms and organizations each of them with their own agenda but acting inside the institutions decided by an elected political assembly. These institutions represent the rules of the game to be followed by the actors playing on the territory. Otherwise they are free to ignore public strategies and act in accordance with their individual aspirations. The lack of dedicated support for public policies, among many actors make that historical circumstances normally exerts a greater impact on social and economic development than public strategies. Strategic management has gained popularity because its signal effect. It is a way for policy-makers to send a signal on their willingness and determination to create a better future. The major weakness of the approach is that the willingness of the policy-makers exceeds the policy-makers’ capability. © 2017 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

En analys av framväxten av en regional tillväxtpolitik i Sverige

En analys av hur en svensk storstadstadspolitik växte fram under 1900-talet

Sustainability at the level of national policy and regional programmes is implemented in project funding. If tiering is to be effective methods of screening projects for environmental impact and for deciding if projects are in line with policy are needed. Project funding can not be shown to be influenced by programme ambitions for sustainable development with regards to the environmental component. Sector integration which is central to Swedish sustainability policy seems so far not to have had any great impact.