The global situation is uncertain, and crisis preparedness is high on the agenda. For Johan Höök, a lawyer and expert in municipal law, this raises questions about the legal room for manoeuvre available to municipalities when society comes under pressure.
“I want to understand whether the system is set up for a major crisis, such as a war. I’m particularly interested in municipal governance in such a situation. How are decisions made, who makes the decisions and how is legal certainty affected?”
From autumn 2026, Johan Höök holds the visiting professorship in the name of Moa Martinson at the Department of Culture and Society at LiU. He will be based at the Centre for Local Government Studies (CKS), giving him the opportunity to explore these and other questions in greater depth.
“I’m delighted to have this opportunity. Not everyone gets the chance to spend two years doing something they really enjoy and to immerse themselves in it!”
Legal challenges facing municipalities
Research at the Centre for Local Government Studies addresses the challenges facing the municipal sector today. From the perspective of municipal law, Johan Höök highlights several in particular: the increased role of municipalities in crime prevention, their ability to deal with demographic change, as well as the uncertain global situation and increasingly powerful populist currents.
The last of these is the focus of Johan Höök’s inaugural lecture as the new visiting professor, in which he asks what would happen if a Swedish municipality were to get its own Donald Trump.
“Municipalities are governed not only by laws but also by political norms, and political norms can easily change. The question then is whether the legal system can prevent abuses of power. Can it deal with someone who doesn’t follow the rules, but constantly breaks and tests them?”
One foot in academia and one in practice
Johan Höök’s interest in local government law and municipal governance grew when he was a doctoral student at Uppsala University. In 2000, he completed his doctorate with a thesis on the internal distribution of powers in municipalities and the interaction between politics and administration.
Since then, he has had one foot in academia and one in practice. He has moved between publishing in academic journals, working on local government law at the Swedish Government Offices and several government inquiries, including A Local Government Act for the Future (2015), where he was inquiry chair. He is currently a judge at the Administrative Court in Uppsala.
Now it is time to return to academia, where he hopes both to contribute his legal expertise and to gain new insights and perspectives.
“Ultimately, much of what the municipalities do is governed by legislation, so naturally this has a major impact on what can and cannot be done in municipal operations. I therefore hope I can be a sounding board for CKS when legal issues arise, while I also hope to gain new perspectives from the research. What I will focus on more will become clearer along the way.”
Johan Höök will hold the visiting professorship in the name of Moa Martinson from 2026 to 2028.
What connection do you see between Moa Martinson’s work and your own?
“Moa Martinson wrote about poverty in Sweden, and the municipalities provide much of the welfare that we have built up so that people do not have to live as they do in Moa Martinson’s novels. So there is a connection in that sense. My work is about the legal scope of the municipalities to fulfil their responsibilities.”
Translated by Simon Philips.
