The introduction of public–private partnerships in the Netherlands as a case of institutional bricolage: The evolution of an Anglo-Saxon transplant in a Rhineland context

Abstract

In this contribution, the introduction of contractual public–private partnerships (PPPs) in the Netherlands, more specifically the use of Design, Build, Finance, Maintenance, and Operations (DBFMO) contracts in Dutch infrastructure management, is analysed using a specific strand within the policy transfer and institutional transplantation literature: that of ‘institutional bricolage’. This perspective states that policy transplants come to fit their new institutional context stepwise. This contribution reconstructs the adoption process by which the Anglo-Saxon-inspired PPP practice is incorporated into the traditional ‘Rhinelandic’ practice of infrastructure management in the Netherlands, identifying four waves of PPP initiatives. It concludes that these waves and the difficulties that emerge in them stem from an ongoing struggle between actor coalitions, one aiming to preserve the transplant in its original shape, and others making attempts at bricolage. Shifts in power relations explain the progress and outcomes of the process of institutional transplantation.