Trade-offs and Synergies: Horizontalization and legitimacy in the Swiss wastewater sector

Lieberherr, Eva

doi:10.1080/14719037.2015.1014397

Cited by 18 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Thus, organisational changes towards greater client focus and concern for service quality may contribute to greater responsiveness but are not accountability procedures (Mulgan 2000). It has even been argued that 'horizontalisation' of public service provision makes accountability harder (Lieberherr 2016) and may be responsibilising instead of empowering (Fotaki 2011).…”

Section: Accountability and Responsivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling patient and public involvement in healthcare decisions: why the difference matters

Fredriksson

Tritter

2016

Sociology Health & Illness

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Patient and public involvement has become an integral aspect of many developed health systems and is judged to be an essential driver for reform. However, little attention has been paid to the distinctions between patients and the public, and the views of patients are often seen to encompass those of the general public. Using an ideal-type approach, we analyse crucial distinctions between patient involvement and public involvement using examples from Sweden and England. We highlight that patients have sectional interests as health service users in contrast to citizens who engage as a public policy agent reflecting societal interests. Patients draw on experiential knowledge and focus on output legitimacy and performance accountability, aim at typical representativeness, and a direct responsiveness to individual needs and preferences. In contrast, the public contributes with collective perspectives generated from diversity, centres on input legitimacy achieved through statistical representativeness, democratic accountability and indirect responsiveness to general citizen preferences. Thus, using patients as proxies for the public fails to achieve intended goals and benefits of involvement. We conclude that understanding and measuring the impact of patient and public involvement can only develop with the application of a clearer comprehension of the differences.

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Section: Accountability and Responsivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling patient and public involvement in healthcare decisions: why the difference matters

Fredriksson

Tritter

2016

Sociology Health & Illness

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“…Excluding Lieberherr (2016), previous literature has not considered this question. In the Finnish case, we identified three levels of regional collaboration: bilateral agreements, a wholesale water or wastewater company (or federation), and a regional water and wastewater company (or federation).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Regional Cooperation in Water Services

Kurki

Pietilä

Katko

2016

Public Works Management & Policy

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Water services, that is, water supply and wastewater disposal, are traditionally the responsibility of local governments. Many municipalities have joined forces to meet the challenges of increasing water quality requirements, aging infrastructures, and decreasing fiscal resources. Regional cooperation is claimed to generate benefits in various ways, but there are challenges to this assumption. This article assesses the benefits and challenges of regional cooperation through the following categories: economies of scale, socioeconomic and spatial disparities, autonomy and legitimacy, by comparing Finnish experiences with previous research findings. Our assessment concludes that the benefits and challenges of regional cooperation are not straightforward, not only dependent on the local context but also on the level and tradition of cooperation, especially on the degree of organizational autonomy.

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“…We first measured democratic legitimacy in terms of citizens' rights to elect those responsible for service provision into office and to vote on projects and expenditure [20,33]. This provides us with an indication of the formal democratic legitimacy as specified in the legislation.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, urban water provision has traditionally enjoyed a high degree of citizen influence. With coordination reforms, the concern emerges that decision-making is no longer democratically legitimated if citizens can neither directly make decisions nor elect the people who manage their utilities [19,20]. This relates to democratic legitimacy, where direct and representative democratic elements such as citizens' influence on public decision-making are considered key for acceptable policies [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actors in Water Governance: Barriers and Bridges for Coordination

Lieberherr¹,

Ingold

2019

Water

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Multiple actors across different institutional levels play a role in water governance. The coordination of these actors is important for effective water governance. However, the joining together of multiple actors can have several implications, such as a redistribution of power across actors, a change in democratic control and citizen influence as well as shifting accountability structures. These implications can involve different barriers and bridges that might impede or foster coordination. Through qualitative and quantitative methods, we assess the following barriers and bridges for coordination: (1) reputational power in terms of who is perceived as important for coordination in the water sector; (2) democratic legitimacy in terms of actors’ value of local control of water services; and (3) accountability in terms of the regional actors’ capacity to steer in the water sector. This article focuses on three cases in a Swiss region that has experienced water provision challenges due to its highly fragmented water supply structures. We find that reputational power serves as a bridge in our three cases: when the actors responsible for water supply regard potential coordination partners as important, then we observe coordination. In contrast, we do not find conclusive evidence to support the assumption that a fear of losing local control is a barrier for coordination. Instead, our results indicate that accountability, in the form of vertical steering by the regional actors, serves as a bridge for coordination, and that this could help mitigate some of the potentially negative effects of democratic legitimacy perceptions: through convening local actors or providing positive incentives to municipalities to work together, regional actors can foster coordination.

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Trade-offs and Synergies: Horizontalization and legitimacy in the Swiss wastewater sector

Cited by 18 publications

References 18 publications

Disentangling patient and public involvement in healthcare decisions: why the difference matters

Disentangling patient and public involvement in healthcare decisions: why the difference matters

Assessing Regional Cooperation in Water Services

Actors in Water Governance: Barriers and Bridges for Coordination

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