Between the State and the Market: Assessing Impacts of Local Government Reforms in Western Europe

Abstract

This article compares local government reforms in three European countries: France, the United Kingdom (England), and Germany. In the analysis, the author distinguishes between two different types of reform. Firstly, the vertical dimension of the reform refers to the decentralisation of public tasks from the state/central government to local authorities. Secondly, in an illustration of the horizontal dimension, the readjustment of competencies between local authorities and market or non-profit actors is investigated by focusing on the development of privatisation, corporatisation, and contracting out. The paper pursues the following questions: What effects did the decentralisation and privatisation processes cause in the three countries, and did they contribute to performance improvements at the local level? The author reveals that the anticipated positive outcomes of the reforms have proven to be only partially accurate, and that in many cases unexpected and even rather negative consequences have resulted instead.

(De)centralization of social support in six Western European countries

“…The general idea behind decentralization is that at local level there is more knowledge about the circumstances and needs of the local population, which should lead to better services [1][2][3][4][5][6], that are organized more efficiently [5] and lead to a better accountability [7]. However, there may be unexpected and even negative effects [8][9][10], such as an uneven geographical distribution of financial, human, and supply resources; local governments may pursuit their own specific interests, making it difficult to establish and achieve national priorities and in practice the public appears to have less influence in decision making and assessing priorities as expected [6,11]. Centralization, on the other hand, has the advantage of equal rights for everyone, but may have costs in the sense of decreased accountability [12] and may result in a lesser fit between individual needs and provision.…”

Contracting out parks and roads maintenance in England

“…The Conservatives implemented a manifesto based on theories of rational choice. They considered the public sector to be too big and inefficient whereas the private sector could provide significant financial savings and better value for money (Gill-McLure, 2014;Kuhlman, 2010), and so made CCT mandatory for local governments (Patterson and Pinch, 1995;Boyne, 1998).…”

“…This marked a shift from the traditional bureaucratic form of public service administration based on in-house service delivery towards a range of other models (Gill-McLure, 2013;Kuhlman, 2010). These models include contracting-out, public procurement, public-private partnerships and agencification.…”

Institutional impact assessment in multi-level systems: conceptualizing decentralization effects from a comparative perspective

“…;Pollitt, 2005;Schmidt, 1990;Thoenig, 2005;Wollmann, 2008), as well as our own research on decentralization impacts from cross-country comparative and policy-specific perspectives (e.g. Bogumil and Kuhlmann, 2010;Ebinger et al, 2010;Grohs et al, 2012;Kuhlmann, 2008aKuhlmann, , 2008bKuhlmann, , 2009aKuhlmann, , 2009bKuhlmann, , 2009cKuhlmann, , 2010aKuhlmann, , 2010bKuhlmann, , 2010cKuhlmann, , 2011Ongaro et al, 2010;Reiter et al, 2010;Richter and Kuhlmann, 2010;Wayenberg, 2006), we find evidence containing partly theoretical and partly empirical merits to support both positive and negative effects of decentralization. Taking the dimension of effectiveness as an example, on the one hand, improvements can be expected due to more citizen proximity and increased know-how regarding local needs, service targets and citizen preferences (Mill, 1991(Mill, [1835; Oates, 1972).…”