Re-interpreting re-municipalization: finding equilibrium

Abstract

The remunicipalization literature posits that municipalities increasingly reject privatization in favor of in-house service delivery. A frequent interpretation is that remunicipalization therefore demonstrates a rejection of businesslike service delivery in local public service delivery. We perform a systematic review of the literature on remunicipalization, to argue why this interpretation may be inaccurate. First, remunicipalization often involves corporatization, and these public corporations are very businesslike. Second, cost savings are often at the root of remunicipalization rather than political ideology. We call for a more nuanced debate on remunicipalization in the literature.

Re-municipalization of public services: trend or hype?

“…As regards "pragmatic re-municipalization", local governments are taking back control of public service production and delivery of a public service that had previously been contracted out to a private operator for pragmatic reasons. This would be the case when a local government does not renew a contract, terminates a contract, or expropriates a public service in an effort to manage the market, reduce transaction costs, or ensure service quality and cost savings (Warner and Aldag, 2019;Warner and Hefetz 2019;Voorn, van Genugten, and van Thiel 2019;Gradus, Schoute, and Budding 2019;Albalate and Bel 2019).…”

“…The literature overview by Voorn, van Genugten, and van Thiel (2019) applies "systematic review" methodology to analyze the literature, which finally includes 25 articles published prior to 2019 that use the term re-municipalization. The authors find that, in most of these cases, the service returns to public delivery in a corporatized form.…”

“…Is it politically transformative (Lobina 2017;McDonald 2018), a form of "pushback" against neoliberal reforms (Warner and Clifton 2014)? Or is it primarily a market management response which enables privatization to continue to work (Warner and Aldag, 2019;Voorn, van Genugten, and van Thiel 2019;Warner and Hefetz 2019)?…”

Addressing public-value failure: remunicipalization as acts of public entrepreneurship

“…In this perspective, re-municipalization as acts of public entrepreneurship represents a continuation of core NPM doctrines rather than a discontinuation as suggested by Voorn, Van Genugten and Van Thiel (2019) -however this continuation comes with a twist in terms of the movement toward reversed privatization of services and the added performance layers represented by a broader set of public values.…”

“…At large, however, the range of interpretations and explanations remains suggestive rather than conclusive. The phenomenon of remunicipalization is generally noted to be under-studied across sectors and countries (Warner and Hefetz 2012), few case-based studies are available which explore and theorize the varieties and processes of remunicipalizations in greater detail (McDonald 2018) and needs for improving the accuracy of interpretations of the phenomenon in light of broader reform developments have been highlighted (Voorn, Van Genugten and Van Thiel 2019). Thus, additional research is generally called for in order to improve on the theoretical and empirical understanding of why re-municipalizations occur in the twenty-first century This paper contributes to existing research on why re-municipalizations occur by offering the argumentor idea -that seeing re-municipalization in contexts of public-value failures as motivated by acts of public entrepreneurship provides valuable insights for the analysis of the dynamics between de-municipalization and re-municipalization of ownership and responsibilities for public services.…”