Viken

Viken was Norway's largest and most controversial merged county—combining Akershus, Buskerud, and Ostfold into an entity surrounding Oslo that collapsed under political opposition by 2024. The merger represented technocratic logic: economies of scale, administrative efficiency, unified planning for the greater Oslo region. The demerger represented democratic reality: local identity and regional distinctiveness matter more than spreadsheet optimization.

The combined county would have contained over 1.2 million residents—more than a quarter of Norway's population—creating a regional government rivaling Oslo itself in scale. Critics argued this threatened local representation, as communities with centuries of distinct identity found themselves subsumed into a generic capital-adjacent administrative zone.

The demerger process required recreating three county administrations from one combined structure. Staff needed reassignment, facilities allocation, and budget division according to formulas that satisfied no one completely. The costs of creating Viken, followed by the costs of dissolving it, represented significant public expenditure with no lasting benefit.

Norway's Viken experiment serves as a cautionary tale for regional reform globally. Efficiency arguments that ignore attachment to place produce political backlash that reverses reforms—at double the cost of never attempting them. By 2026, Akershus, Buskerud, and Ostfold will again operate independently, having briefly experienced a merger that satisfied bureaucratic logic while offending democratic sentiment.