Provision of Public and Social Services in European Countries: From Public Sector to Marketization and Reverse—or, What Next?

Abstract

The chapter draws on the research and discussion that have been conducted in COST Working Group 1 which has been devoted to the comparative study of public and social services provision in some 25 (Western as well as Central Eastern European) countries. Three developmental phases have been discerned. First, during the advanced welfare state that climaxed in the early 1970s service provisions was largely public/municipal sector-based. Subsequently under the impact of neo-liberal market liberalization and New Public Management guided modernization the public/municipal sector dominance gave way to pluralized and privatized service provision. Since the mid/late 1990s divergent institutional trajectories have taken shape—between further marketization, pluralization and privatization of service provision on the one hand, and a comeback” of public/municipal sector provision (“remunicipalization”) on the other.