Möjligheternas kris

Sammanfattning: During the summer of 2018, Sweden’s crisis management experienced a massive challenge due to widespread forest fires. After the fires the Swedish public authority, Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap (MSB), got an expanded mandate and therefore ability to operate the Swedish crisis management system. This essay aims to find the answer to why MSB got this mandate and what was the reason behind this change. The big policy change in MSBs mission will be analyzed using two theories, John Kingdon’s multiple stream approach and the principal-agent theory. These two theories will together be used to answer the question, by letting me examine the cause of the change of policy of MSB. Kingdon’s theory will be analyzed with the approach of finding the streams of problem, politics and policy. His theory also includes a window of opportunity, which in this essay is defined as the fires. To complement Kingdon’s theory the principal-agent theory is used. The problem of asymmetric information that is included in this theory will illuminate the factor of relationship between the decision makers and MSB. The conclusion of this essay is that the change of the MSB policy was a result of streams having the same direction when a window of opportunity was present. MSB also had a major knowledge of crisis management, which affected the decision makers when they gave MSB more mandate of Swedish crisis management.