We live in a society that has become organized around audit, but where auditing processes and their consequences have not properly been integrated into our thinking about governance and democracy. This is problematic since auditing is likely to have significant ramifications on state performance and state legitimacy. The overall aim of this project is to develop an understanding of how auditing has been organized in the Swedish state and the consequences of this institutional development on democracy and governance. The project draws on, and integrates, two theoretical traditions: institutional organization theory and historical institutionalism.
Crucial to our research design are comparisons across policy fields and a longitudinal approach. We will conduct a series of careful empirical studies on the organizing of auditing as well as in-depth studies on auditing practices in six different policy fields. We will also compare field-specific developments with administrative reform in general. A comparison of administrative reform in Sweden, Australia and New Zealand, focusing on how the institutionalization of auditing is related to governing ambitions in these three countries, will also be conducted. The project is multidisciplinary, and involves scholars from political science, business administration and organization theory.
Status
Started
Project Manager
Bengt Jacobsson
Professor
School of Social Sciences
People linked to the project
Anders Ivarsson Westerberg
Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor
School of Social Sciences
Jenny Svensson
Associate Senior Lecturer, PhD
School of Social Sciences
Noomi Weinryb
Senior Lecturer, PhD
School of Social Sciences
Fil dr Jenny de Fine Licht, Göteborgs universitet
Professor Jon Pierre, Göteborgs universitet
Fil dr Martin Qvist, Stockholms universitet
Fil dr Marta Reuter, Stockholms universitet
Docent Göran Sundström, Stockholms universitet
More information
Project start: 2015
Project end: 2019
Financier: Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ)
Research linked to the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe: No
