Local safety policy: The approach of two Swedish cities to urgent safety problems

Abstract

This article explores local safety policy (LSP) developed to resolve urgent safety problems in two Swedish municipalities. It shows that local safety actors conceive and construct safety problems in ways that make them manageable, and that LSP evolves as a web of interactions between safety actors in the public and private sectors. The actors use established safety solutions and routines while exploring new ways of managing the problems. The municipalities’ problem-solving structures differ mainly in that different actors and institutions are involved. The policy process and features of LSP correspond well to how policy is portrayed in other cross-sectoral policy domains. Local safety policy development cannot easily be separated from policy implementation, nor can safety policy be separated from safety work, for they evolve together. The implication of this study for governance is that policy workers at different levels and from different organisations create LSP. Although LSP is partly initiated and legitimised at the political–administrative level, it is not from this level that it evolves.