Summary:

Public administrations play a crucial role in formulating, initiating, implementing, and developing public policies. To comprehend the development and practice of public policy, it is important to analyze the effects of both intra-organizational and inter-organizational conditions. This includes understanding how decision-making behavior is influenced by organizational specialization and administrative relation-ships between institutions.
The dissertation examines the impact of European integration on sub-national decision-making behavior in a closely integrated non-member state. Multi-level Administration (MLA) implies that administrative units at different levels of government interact with each other, sharing responsibility for specific tasks. The main objective of the dissertation is to analyze the inclusion of (parts of) sub-national administrative units in Multi-level Administrative systems and its implications for implementing sub-national public policies. This analysis is empirically conducted in Norwegian County Administrations, which represent a «less likely case». By focusing on sub-national governance in a smaller unitary state closely integrated with the European Union through the EEA Agreement, the dissertation serves as a critical test of administrative integration as result of European integration.