Competitive Tendering in the Welfare State: Perceptions and Preferences among Local Politicians

Rune Jørgen Sørensen · Ann‐Helén Bay

31 citations0/0 files storedScandinavian Political Studies

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Public Policy and Administration Research Social Policy and Reform Studies Public Procurement and Policy

Abstract

Competitive tendering for public services has triggered a heated academic debate. In political economy, competition is claimed to improve efficiency. If this is true, why are most governments faithful to the monopoly model? Political economists suggest that public sector employees and unions influence the preferences of the elected politicians. In new institutional theory, competition is claimed to undermine democratic governance. If this is true, why do some elected governments make use of competitive tendering? In this tradition, organisational solutions are seen as expressions of autonomous values and perceptions about the outcomes of organisational solutions – not as manifestations of vote–maximising politicians subject to self–interested interest groups. When governments use competition, it is due to misconceived management fads that have temporarily penetrated long–established perceptions and value systems. These propositions have not been subjected to proper empirical testing. We have analysed extensive data about Norwegian local politicians, and found support for the notion that the perceptions of elected politicians affect their preferences for tendering for residential care services for elderly people and hospital services. But we found support for the political economy propositions as well. Party affiliation, interest group background and economic situation influence the perceptions and organisational preferences of elected politicians. Reform may be a question of political values and perceived consequences, but these values, perceptions and policy preferences are influenced by political self–interest and can be changed by exogenous economic shocks.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 31 citations exist upstream.

References

2017A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance 2004Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis 2023Learning From Experience 1977Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations.19512. VALUES AND VALUE-ORIENTATIONS IN THE THEORY OF ACTION: AN EXPLORATION IN DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION 1985Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science 1992The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process, by D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew D. McCubbins 1996Reimbursing Health Plans and Health Providers: Efficiency in Production versus Selection

Cited by

2007Factors behind Organizational Learning from Benchmarking: Experiences from Norwegian Municipal Benchmarking Networks 2012LOCAL AUTHORITY BUREAUCRACIES: RESPONSIBLE, REPRESENTATIVE, OR DIVERGENT? EVIDENCE FROM SMALL POLITICAL SYSTEMS IN NORWAY 2004Public Employees as Swing Voters: Empirical Evidence on Opposition to Public Reform 2005Why are Local Authorities Reluctant to Externalise (and Do They Have Good Reason)?2020How Does Public Disclosure of Performance Information Affect Politicians’ Attitudes towards Effort Allocation? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.