Introduction

In 1994, five municipalities in the Fredrikstad area of Norway were merged into one municipality – what may be termed ‘New’ Fredrikstad. The merger was approved by parliament despite the fact that majorities on the municipal councils in four out of five municipalities were against the amalgamation. A majority of voters was also against the merger in referenda held on the issue in all five municipalities.

What were the effects of the merger with respect to the residents’ relationships with the new municipality? Did citizens become more satisfied with municipal services and more engaged in local politics, as merger advocates argued, or was the outcome more negative, as expected by sceptics? And how was life in the new municipality affected by the fact that for the majority of the municipalities and residents this was an ‘involuntary’ merger? Or perhaps there was no noticeable effect at all?

These questions have obtained renewed relevance in the light of the municipal reform recently carried out in Norway. This reform resulted in 47 newly amalgamated municipalities that have functioned since the beginning of 2020. Ten of these municipalities are so-called municipalities created by coercion, that is, they were merged against the will of one or more of the municipalities concerned as expressed in decisions rendered by the municipal councils before the mergers.

In reports and analyses carried out prior to this recent reform many assumptions were presented, but little evidence was offered that provided tangible answers as to what the effects of municipal mergers would be for citizens, whether these mergers be voluntary or not. At least one investigation, however, does shed some light on these issues. This study was carried out in connection with the forced merger that occurred in the Fredrikstad area. The Fredrikstad merger applied to one of several ‘squeezed cities’ which had been identified and investigated by the second Buvik Commission (NOU 1989:16; see what follows). With nearly 65,000 inhabitants, the new and enlarged municipality was two and a half times the size of what may be termed ‘Old’ Fredrikstad, and in area (285 km2) significantly larger than that.