Who are Appointed to Public Commissions and Why?

Abstract

This thesis questions who are appointed to Norwegian Public Commissions and why. Even though the public commission regime is intrinsic to the Norwegian political system, procedures regarding the selection process of members remain unclear. In addition to how, it is also asked why specific members are selected, and whether selections can be explained by instrumental, strategic and/or symbolic reasons. The theoretical framework of the thesis thus derives from the debate on knowledge utilisation, as well as from three research streams on public commissions, specifically corporatism, state control and expertisation. In addition to an assessment of the selection procedures, four commissions appointed by the Norwegian Ministry of Justice are examined (NOUs 1999: 10; 2009: 12; 2013: 9 and 2017: 11). These commissions were all mandated to review and suggest changes to different parts of the organisation of the Norwegian Police Service. For these four commissions, all the members are specifically reviewed as potential reasons or explanations for their participation are discussed. A total of 18 interviews were conducted, including with commission chairs, commission members and civil servants responsible for the commission appointments. These interviews provided new insight into selection procedures and on reasons for the member selections. The thesis finds that commission member selections, in some cases can be explained according to non-instrumental reasons (i.e. strategy and symbolism), however that this depends on the ministry’s intent for each commission. Additionally, legal requirements facilitate for some of these selections motivated by non-instrumental reasons. Therefore, the final member composition can be somewhat random in terms of names (persons), but not in terms of the traits and competencies that these members provide. The thesis also finds that the selection and participation of some members can simultaneously be explained by more than one reason, thus contributing to the theory on knowledge utilisation, by showing how several types of knowledge use can be encompassed in a single process and by a single actor.