Politiska nätverk och Nord Stream : En möjlighet att vara med och påverka

Sammanfattning: Abstract Paper in political science, C-level, by Lars A Roos, spring semester 2007. Tutor: Susan Marton. “Policy networks and Nord Stream.” The purpose of this paper is to examine how the government and interest groups have been working together to commonly prevent the building of a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. To do this, a comprehensive question how does the government and the involved interest groups work together in policy networks? has been broken down to three more specific questions: (1) Can the cooperation between the government and the interest groups be placed within the frame of a issue network or a policy community? (2) Has the cooperation between the government and the interest groups contributed to new tools for the government to prevent the gas pipeline? (3) If the answer is yes to the second question then, which are these new tools? My examination is a case study of the policy network that exists around the Swedish actors in the case of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline. The paper is also a contribution to the research about policy networks and the relationship between government and interest groups. The paper is mainly based on the answers to the referral that the National Environment Protection Board sent out, concerning the case of the gas pipeline. To explain the situation before the policy network I have used the memorandum that the government received concerning the effects caused by the gas pipeline. For the theory much of the information is based on the authors David Marsh and Martin J. Smith. Other authors have also been used for the theory and to explain the case. The answer to my research question is that the government and the interest groups worked in a issue network which gave the interest groups a consulting role. Questions that have developed during the work with the paper are, if the network has developed and how?