Katja Lindqvist

Governance is hybrid to the extent that it involves several types of stakeholders, jurisdictional domains, and organisational forms. This paper analyses governance of household solid waste management in Sweden from a hybridity perspective, with the City of Helsingborg as example. The empirical material on which the paper is based consists of interviews with politicians, civil servants and management of the municipal waste management company; and of documents of various kinds, from board meeting minutes to formal municipal plans to website pages. Waste governance in Sweden, it is shown, includes conflicting legislation, entanglement of urban infrastructure and planning, and long planning and investment horizons. The latter has resulted in significant innovations over the last twenty years. But the study also shows how organisational forms and the composition of tasks, as well as networks and jurisdiction, change over time, in turn causing tensions in governance processes and relationships.