Comparative Study of Public and Social Services Provision: Definitions, Concepts and Methodologies

Abstract

In the introductory chapter, three distinguishing features of the book are highlighted: First, unlike most available comparative studies that deal separately with public and personal social services, the chapters of this volume comparatively comprise service sectors. Second, its country coverage is distinctly wider than most available studies especially by including Central Eastern European ‘transformation’ countries. Third, in pursuing a ‘developmental’ (historical) approach the book chapters, after discussing service provision in the post-1945 ‘advanced welfare’ state and its subsequent ‘neo-liberal’ (New Public Management, NPM) driven re-organisation (from public/municipal to private sector), focus on the most recent (‘post-NPM’) phase in part marked by a ‘comeback’ of the public/municipal sector (‘remunicipalisation’).