Regionalisering i Sydöstra Sverige : En studie om: identitet, legitimitet och demokratisk förankring

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to investigate the problems of building a new region in the Southeast part of Sweden. The idea of a big south Swedish region is brand new; no former studies in this area have been done before. The main analytical focus of this study is legitimacy, identity and democratic credentials. The study has been carried out by interviews with several leaders in organizations working with the collaborations of the smaller regions in to the big region. The method of this study has been a single-case study and dialogue interviews. The interviews have been made from an analytical framework. The results show that all organizations are consistent that the democracy will be more clear with a directly elected regional parliament and three levels of administration; the state, the region and the city but it has also shown a concern about the distance between citizens and the politicians in a new big region. Almost all organizations admit that identification is an important issue. They think that identity is not a main reason to build a region upon due to the debate about identity among citizens and political parties in the north Kalmar County, Kronoberg County and the Southwest side of the Skåne County about other region possibilities. If the organizations fail to convince the citizens in the Counties about the advantages of the new region, the citizen’s legitimacy towards the new region will also fail. Then they start to work against each other instead of together in the new region. Two organizations admit that the Swedish European Union membership have had an impact on the discussions about a new regional level.