Public, Private, or Inter-Municipal Organizations: Actors’ Preferences in the Swiss Water Sector
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Author / Producer
Date
2022-07
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
To improve sustainable service provision, the public sector has been repeatedly subject to administrative reforms. Yet, the question arises of which types of organizations might be preferred. To address this, we systematically analyze which water supply organizations decision-makers and stakeholders, across different levels of government in Switzerland, prefer. We find that the actors prefer public organizations that involve coordination between municipalities and reject private organizations. Distinguishing between different actor levels reveals a distinct pattern, mainly related to the level of responsibility: the national (confederation) and regional (cantonal) actors only prefer coordination across municipalities, where local politicians lose a degree of control. In contrast, the local actors prefer those organizations where they can maintain democratic control the most. However, such organizations are not expected to perform sustainably, mainly because of lengthy decision-making processes, lack of access to external funds, and short-term financial planning. We, thus, conclude that, at the local level, there is potentially a trade-off between democratic values and performance.
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Publication status
published
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Book title
Journal / series
Volume
14 (13)
Pages / Article No.
7560
Publisher
MDPI
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
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Date collected
Date created
Subject
administrative reforms; organizational autonomy; coordination; actor preferences; water sector; Switzerland
Organisational unit
08693 - Gruppe Natural Resource Policy / Natural Resource Policy