ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an outline of the institutional development of the regional administration in the Nordic area between 1999 and 2010. It places this development in relationship to a number of larger trends in society. The Scandinavian model has traditionally been based on two levels of self-government: local self-government and regional self-government, organized as county councils. The two self-governmental levels are neither subordinate nor superior to each other, but have different functional and territorial scopes. The Finnish model differs from the Scandinavian one in two respects. While the tasks organized on a regional basis are the same as in the other Nordic countries health care, regional planning, vocational training and specialized tasks within social services the organizations at the regional level do not enjoy any formal self-governmental status. The development of regional level since the late 1990s in Norway should be interpreted against the background of the deep cleavages between political parties in their view of local and regional self-government.
